When Being a Local Expert is Bad for SEO

You've heard it a million times: Be the local expert!

It's great advice, but it can also be bad for real estate SEO. Let me share a story to explain what I mean...

At a recent real estate conference, I had a great conversation with a New York City agent who wanted to be found on Google for a neighborhood nickname. I don't want to give away the agent's name or the geographic term we talked about, but take my word when I say that almost no one outside that neighborhood would know the nickname.

We did a couple quick searches and there wasn't much competition for the term, which is good. But I had to explain that one reason there wasn't much competition is that the geographic nickname is unknown to 99.9% of the world. Everyone outside the immediate area would Google the typical terms for NYC's boroughs.

I told her that in SEO, you have to optimize for the terms and names buyers and sellers actually use when they Google or use their favorite AI. Focusing on a term that no one uses might make you sound like the local expert, but it's not the path to SEO success.

Your takeaway: Be careful using geographic colloquialisms and nicknames. Do some keyword research first to make sure there's search volume before you start creating content and optimizing your site. The whole point of SEO is to get found for terms that people actually use.

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