- Apr 8, 2024
Comparison Keywords: An Important Part of the Buyer's Journey
- Matt McGee
- Real Estate SEO & AI SEO
Imagine that you're going to start a real estate newsletter. You want to send something to your database every month to stay top of mind.
What email newsletter platform will you use?
You've heard of Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and a couple others. You asked on Facebook and got a ton of replies that didn't help at all.
What do you do next to help figure the best email platform to use? You probably do something like this:
That's a comparison search. You've probably done a lot of those over the years. When you were planning a vacation, you might've searched "maui vs kauai" or "bahamas vs bermuda."
Guess what?
Buyers do this kind of search all the time.
A person who wants to live in the Pacific Northwest might compare Seattle and Portland, or maybe Spokane and Boise. Someone moving to Texas might compare Dallas and Houston or Austin and San Antonio.
And then beyond just the city names, they might also put things like "which is better" or "cost of living" or "should i move to" in their search terms, like this (each of these links will take you to the Google search):
Those are relocation-focused keywords for buyers coming in from outside your market. But buyers already in your market who want to move might be doing neighborhood comparison searches. In Seattle, for example, someone might search to compare queen anne vs capitol hill.
Your takeaway: Imagine someone in another part of the country who's thinking about relocating to your area. What other nearby towns/cities might they also be considering? Comparison is a common behavior during the buying journey, whether it's deciding what email marketing platform to choose or where to move. "City vs City" keywords can be good for attracting buyers, so create some content on your site/blog to answer those searches. If you've taken my real estate SEO course, apply what you learned in the keyword research and blogging lessons and give it a try!