Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE): Implications for Real Estate SEO
Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) has been introduced as a 'beta' using generative AI. I have been closely monitoring this new search experience over the last few months, and I believe it can potentially transform the user search experience. Google's newest AI technology, released in May 2023, may have an overall impact on how we perform Search Engine Optimization (SEO). As a real estate marketing professional, it's crucial to comprehend these changes and how they could influence your digital strategy due to the ever-changing digital landscape. A Brief Overview of Google SGE SGE is designed to provide more context to its search results, making it easier for users to find relevant content and immediate answers to questions. For example, as outlined in Google's "A new way to search with generative AI," people will be able to do the following: Ask entirely new types of questions that you never thought Search could answer. Quickly get the lay of the land on a topic, with links to relevant results to explore further. Ask follow-up questions naturally in a new conversational mode. And get more done quickly, like generating creative ideas and drafts right in Search. The outcome showcases two features that illustrate this new technology. First, AI-generated snapshots emerge at the top of search results that offer a quick overview of the topic, answering specific questions and presenting essential information. For example, if a user searched for a home with a kitchen with specific amenities such as a gas stove, SGE could provide a snapshot comparing different properties, highlighting their kitchen amenities that have a gas stove (see image). The second feature is introducing a new vertical experience for specific items. This feature provides a comprehensive overview of products, including descriptions, reviews, ratings, prices, and images. Google does claim that it assures us it will display reliable and current information in these features while giving importance to quality and responsible AI usage. The Impact of Google SGE on Real Estate SEO The Possible Benefits SGE delivers an enhanced user experience. For example, SGE's AI-powered snapshots and vertical experiences could offer a more detailed and comprehensive overview of properties and other real estate information. I believe SGE has the potential to greatly enhance user engagement and satisfaction. By providing users with a wealth of information at a glance, it has the ability to expedite their decision-making process. Improve information accuracy through better AI technology. Google's promise of quality and accuracy could result in more reliable and up-to-date information about properties in their search results. This can enhance the credibility of real estate listings and foster trust among potential buyers or renters. The Potential Challenges Possible reduction of organic and paid website traffic to branded sites. Due to their prominence, AI-powered snapshots could push traditional website links further down in search results. This could lead to decreased website traffic, translating into fewer leads for brokerages and agents. My initial guess would be a 20 to 30% decrease in traffic. As website traffic often forms a crucial part of lead generation in real estate, this could pose significant challenges. Another significant challenge is how to monetize or promote core or ancillary services. The SGE vertical experiences bypass traditional property review websites and affiliate links, potentially affecting the revenue streams of those relying on these methods. Put simply, when property information, reviews, and prices are easily accessible in search results, users may be less inclined to visit real estate websites. This can have a direct impact on their revenue from ads, affiliate marketing, and other related services. Strategies for Adapting SEO Practices in Light of Google SGE Despite these challenges, these are some of my thoughts on ways real estate marketing professionals can adapt their SEO strategies to leverage the changes brought about by SGE. Focus on high-quality content With SGE possibly delivering AI-generated snapshots of real estate information, creating specific and authoritative content relevant to buyers and sellers becomes even more crucial. Creating high-quality content, such as in-depth information or unique insights about a property or neighborhood, can still attract users who wish to dive deeper into a topic. In addition, if accomplished with consistency, it allows Google to recognize your website as the "topical authority" on a subject. Optimize for featured snippets SGE uses snippets of information to provide quick answers. Therefore, structuring content that directly answers common user questions can increase the chances of your content being featured. This requires the utilization of headings, lists, and succinct paragraphs to make it easy for search engines to pull relevant information. I believe this is going to be a very important strategy based on the last two months of Google Search updates, which were labeled as 'Helpful Content' updates. Leverage structured data! This is an area where real estate SEO experts keep missing the mark by doing only the basic implementation of structured data. Implementing structured data markup (Schema.org) on your website can provide additional context and information about your content. We discussed this in a previous article, "3 SEO Real Estate Web Strategies." This approach assists search engines in understanding and presenting your content more effectively. Build a strong brand presence Another way to remain competitive in the eyes of consumers is to build a strong brand presence. Real estate marketing professionals can build a strong brand using a shotgun (omnichannel) approach to distribute the brand message and engage with buyers and sellers using the latest tools on social media platforms. For example, creating YouTube shorts, Instagram Stories, TicTok, and Facebook Reels from full-length videos. Yes, there are AI tools available to easily craft and distribute this content. It seems brokerages tend to stay away from this strategy, which is a shame. People are generating tons of revenue through this media. Monitor and adapt to changes in website performance Finally, organizations should scrutinize and adjust changes in website performance. Real estate marketing professionals can improve website performance and remain competitive by tracking website analytics and adjusting as needed. Incorporate AI in its property search It's a good idea to have frank discussions with your website partners about utilizing AI tools to improve the property search user experience. If they are not, call me, David Gumpper. There are many such tools available. In Conclusion Using Google's Search Generative Experience has advantages and disadvantages for real estate. On the one hand, it offers users a convenient way to view properties and obtain reliable information. However, on the other hand, it can lead to reduced website traffic and limited control over information. Important Note: Google SGE is currently featured as an experiment in the Search Labs. While it's not widely released, you can access it through the Chrome desktop and Google App on Android and iOS. Search alone generated 57% of Alphabet's 2022 revenue, which amounts to $162B. So you have to believe Google will smartly implement SGE to allow the search service to continue to grow revenue. So you need to keep up your SEO tool belt tight and ready to work. In summing up, real estate marketing professionals can adapt to these changes by: Creating high-quality content Optimizing for featured snippets Leveraging structured data Improving user experience Building a solid brand presence Monitoring and adapting to changes in website performance. By implementing these strategies, real estate professionals can remain competitive in the industry and succeed in the age of AI-powered search. If you want more insight into SEO practices and an understanding of the future of AI, contact David Gumpper of the WAV Group. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

Optimizing Crawl Budget for Real Estate Websites
In the fast-paced world of real estate, having a website that is easily discoverable by search engines is crucial for attracting more visitors and staying ahead of the competition. One key aspect that can significantly impact your website's visibility is its crawl budget. This guide aims to provide you with effective strategies to improve your website's crawl budget and ultimately enhance your real estate SEO. What Is a Crawl Budget? Crawl budget refers to the number of pages search engines are willing to crawl on a website within a given timeframe. It is determined by the search engine's algorithms and is influenced by various factors such as the website's authority, relevance, and overall structure. Essentially, the crawl budget dictates how efficiently search engines can discover and index the content on a website. Optimizing the crawl budget involves ensuring that search engine bots prioritize crawling and indexing the most important and relevant pages on a website. Understanding the concept of crawl budget is crucial for real estate websites, as it directly impacts their visibility in search engine results. By optimizing the crawl budget, real estate websites can ensure that their most valuable content is effectively crawled and indexed, leading to improved organic traffic and higher search rankings. Importance of Optimizing Crawl Budget For Real Estate Websites In the highly competitive real estate market, the visibility of property listings, neighborhood guides, and other relevant content is critical for attracting potential clients. Optimizing the crawl budget for real estate websites ensures that search engines prioritize crawling and indexing the most valuable and relevant pages, such as property listings, neighborhood profiles, and informative blog posts. By effectively managing the crawl budget, real estate websites can enhance their overall SEO performance. Moreover, with the ever-changing nature of real estate inventory and market trends, ensuring that new listings and updated content are promptly crawled and indexed is essential for maintaining a competitive edge. By optimizing the crawl budget, real estate websites can ensure that search engines promptly discover their latest property listings and market insights. Now a question must be answered! How to optimize the crawl budget for your website? Improving Site Structure for Better Crawl Budget Allocation The structure of a real estate website plays a crucial role in determining how search engine bots prioritize crawling and indexing its pages. By organizing the site's architecture logically and hierarchically, real estate websites can influence how the crawl budget is allocated across different sections and content types. Implementing a clear and intuitive site structure not only enhances user experience but also facilitates efficient crawling and indexing by search engines. Utilizing a flat and organized hierarchy, real estate websites can ensure that important pages, such as property listings, neighborhood guides, and market insights, are easily accessible and prioritized for crawling. Additionally, implementing internal linking strategies can further guide search engine bots to discover and index the most valuable and relevant content, ultimately improving crawl budget allocation and SEO performance. Utilizing Robots.txt and XML Sitemaps for Crawl Budget Optimization Robots.txt and XML sitemaps are powerful tools for controlling how search engine bots crawl and index a real estate website's content. By strategically utilizing Robots.txt directives, real estate websites can instruct search engine bots to prioritize crawling certain sections while excluding less important or duplicate content. This can help optimize crawl budget allocation by ensuring that search engine bots focus on discovering and indexing the most valuable and relevant pages. In addition, creating and regularly updating XML sitemaps allows real estate websites to provide search engines with a comprehensive roadmap of their content, guiding search engine bots to prioritize crawling and indexing essential pages. By leveraging robots.txt and XML sitemaps, real estate websites can effectively influence crawl budget allocation and ensure that their most critical content is promptly discovered and indexed. Managing URL Parameters and Duplicate Content Real estate websites often feature dynamic content and URL parameters, such as search filters and sorting options, which can lead to the generation of numerous variations of the same content. Managing URL parameters and addressing duplicate content issues is crucial for optimizing the crawl budget and preventing search engine bots from wasting resources on crawling and indexing redundant pages. Implementing best practices for handling URL parameters, such as using canonical tags and configuring URL parameter settings in Google Search Console, can help real estate websites consolidate the indexing of similar content variations, ultimately improving crawl budget allocation. Additionally, regularly auditing and resolving duplicate content issues through proper canonicalization and redirects can further enhance crawl budget optimization and SEO performance. By using site audit reports, you will have a great sight of how many of your pages are crucial for your indexing and ranking. Visit our article titled Site Audit Report For Real Estate Websites for more info about how to generate and use these reports. Monitoring and Analyzing Crawl Budget Utilization Continuous monitoring and analysis of crawl budget utilization are essential for real estate websites to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement. By utilizing tools such as Google Search Console and third-party crawlers, real estate websites can gain valuable insights into how search engine bots are crawling and indexing their content, allowing them to make informed decisions regarding crawl budget optimization. Analyzing crawl data, identifying crawl inefficiencies, and addressing crawl errors are pivotal for maintaining an optimal crawl budget allocation. By proactively monitoring and optimizing crawl budget utilization, real estate websites can ensure that their most critical content is effectively discovered and indexed by search engines, ultimately improving their online visibility and SEO performance. Monitoring Google Search Console and other SEO tools' statistics might not be for everyone. You can seek help from professionals and real estate SEO experts. Conclusion and Key Takeaways In conclusion, optimizing the crawl budget is a crucial aspect of improving the visibility and SEO performance of real estate websites. By understanding the concept of crawl budget and implementing effective strategies such as improving site structure, utilizing robots.txt and XML sitemaps, managing URL parameters, and monitoring crawl budget utilization, real estate websites can enhance their online presence and attract more potential clients. Real estate professionals need to prioritize crawl budget optimization as part of their broader SEO strategy, ensuring that their most valuable content and listings are promptly discovered and indexed by search engines. Ultimately, All real estate agents want to have their property pages displayed in search results. To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.

The Ultimate Guide to Sitemaps for Real Estate Websites
A sitemap is a file that lists all of the important pages on your website, along with additional information about each page. Sitemaps are important for search engine optimization (SEO) because they help search engines crawl and index your website more effectively. This can lead to improved search engine rankings and increased organic traffic and can be helpful in fixing indexing issues. An optimized sitemap is especially important for real estate websites, which can often be large and complex. A well-structured sitemap can help search engines understand the hierarchy of your website and the relationships between different pages. This can make it easier for search engines to find and rank the most important pages on your website. What is a sitemap and why is it important for real estate websites? A sitemap is a file that provides a roadmap of your website's structure to search engines. It lists all the pages on your website, including their URLs, and can include additional information such as the last modified date and the frequency of changes. By providing this information, a sitemap helps search engines understand the organization of your website and its content. For real estate websites, which often have a large number of pages and listings, a sitemap is crucial. These websites typically have various categories such as property types, locations, and price ranges. Without a well-structured sitemap, search engines may struggle to navigate through the complex web of pages, potentially missing important content. An optimized sitemap ensures that search engines can easily crawl and index all relevant pages, improving the visibility of your real estate website in search engine results. How an optimized sitemap improves search engine visibility Sitemaps play a crucial role in enhancing the efficiency of search engine crawling and indexing processes for your website. Search engines employ crawlers to navigate the internet and discover new web pages. By providing a clear roadmap of your website, sitemaps facilitate the crawlers in locating and indexing all of your pages effectively. Moreover, sitemaps aid search engines in comprehending the structure and hierarchy of your website. They enable you to indicate the relative importance of different pages on your website and establish the relationships between them. This valuable information assists search engines in gaining a better understanding of your website's content and ranking it more accurately in search results. Furthermore, sitemaps serve as a means for search engines to identify and rectify any indexing errors. When a search engine accesses your sitemap, it promptly detects any errors such as broken links or missing pages. This allows you to promptly address these issues, thereby contributing to the overall quality of your website. Additionally, sitemaps facilitate communication between you and search engines regarding any changes made to your website. If you add or remove pages from your website, updating your sitemap to reflect these changes is essential. This ensures that search engines maintain an up-to-date index of your website, enabling them to promptly crawl and index your new or updated pages. Best practices for creating an optimized sitemap for real estate websites Creating an optimized sitemap requires careful planning and attention to detail. Here are some best practices to consider when creating a sitemap for your real estate website: 1. Organize your sitemap by categories and subcategories To make it easier for search engines to understand the structure of your real estate website, organize your sitemap by categories and subcategories. For example, you could have categories for property types (e.g., houses, apartments, condos), locations (e.g., cities, neighborhoods), and price ranges. Within each category, create subcategories if necessary to further refine the hierarchy of your sitemap. 2. Include all relevant pages and listings Ensure that your sitemap includes all relevant pages and listings on your real estate website. This includes property detail pages, search result pages, blog posts, and any other content that you want search engines to index. Remember to update your sitemap whenever you add new pages or remove old ones to keep it accurate and up to date. 3. Optimize your URLs When creating URLs for your real estate website, use descriptive and keyword-rich terms. This not only helps search engines understand the content of your pages but also improves the user experience. Avoid using generic and meaningless URLs, such as "www.example.com/page1," and instead opt for URLs like "www.example.com/houses-for-sale-in-new-york-city." 4. Use XML sitemap format XML (Extensible Markup Language) is the preferred format for sitemaps. XML sitemaps are easy for search engines to read and understand, and they provide additional information such as the last modified date and the priority of each page. Use a sitemap generator tool or a content management system (CMS) plugin to automatically generate and update your XML sitemap. Once you have created and optimized your sitemap, it's important to submit it to search engines. Here's how you can do it: How to submit your sitemap to search engines Submitting your sitemap to search engines is a crucial step in optimizing your real estate website. By doing so, you can ensure that search engines are aware of all the pages on your website and can index them properly. Here are some steps to follow when submitting your sitemap: 1. Generate a sitemap: The first step is to generate a sitemap for your real estate website. There are several tools available that can help you create a sitemap automatically. One popular option is to use a plugin if you're using a content management system like WordPress. These plugins can generate a sitemap for you and update it automatically whenever you add or remove pages from your website. If you are using the Realtyna WPL Platform, you can use the WPL Sitemap Feature to add your listing to your sitemap. 2. Verify your website: Before you can submit your sitemap, you need to verify that you are the owner of the website. This is done by adding a verification code or file to your website. The process for verification may vary depending on the search engine you are using. For example, if you're using Google Search Console, you can verify your website by adding a meta tag or uploading an HTML file to your website's root directory. 3. Submit it to search engines. Here's how you can do it: Google Search Console - To submit your sitemap to Google, first, create a Google Search Console account if you haven't already. Verify ownership of your real estate website, and then navigate to the "Sitemaps" section. Enter the URL of your sitemap (e.g., "www.example.com/sitemap.xml") and click on the "Submit" button. Google will then start crawling and indexing your website based on the information provided in your sitemap. Bing Webmaster Tools - Bing Webmaster Tools is a similar platform to Google Search Console, but for Bing search engine. Sign in or create an account, and then add and verify your real estate website. Navigate to the "Sitemaps" section and enter the URL of your sitemap. Click on the "Submit" button to submit your sitemap to Bing for crawling and indexing. Monitoring and updating your sitemap for optimal performance Creating an optimized sitemap is not a one-time task. Real estate SEO experts regularly monitor and update sitemap to ensure optimal performance. Here are a few tips: 1. Regularly check for errors Use the tools and plugins mentioned earlier to regularly check for any errors or issues with your sitemap. This includes broken links, missing pages, and any other issues that may prevent search engines from properly crawling and indexing your real estate website. Fix any errors promptly to maintain a healthy sitemap. 2. Monitor search engine performance Keep an eye on your real estate website's performance in search engine results. Monitor your organic traffic, rankings, and click-through rates to identify any changes or trends that may indicate issues with your sitemap or overall SEO strategy. Make adjustments as necessary to improve your website's visibility and performance. 3. Update your sitemap when necessary As your real estate website evolves, you may add new pages, remove old ones, or make changes to existing content. It's important to update your sitemap whenever such changes occur to reflect the current state of your website. This ensures that search engines have the most up-to-date information about your real estate listings and pages. Most of the SEO plugins will automatically update the sitemap when anything happens to pages. 3. Do not add No-index pages to your sitemap Sitemaps should include URLs that are Do-index, if you are using a robot meta tag to disallow Google bots to crawl your pages, you should not add these pages to your sitemap, otherwise, you will an error in Google Search Console. Conclusion: The importance of an optimized sitemap for real estate websites In conclusion, an optimized sitemap is a valuable asset for real estate websites. It improves search engine visibility and more. By following best practices and using the right tools and plugins, you can create and optimize a sitemap that helps your real estate website rank higher in search engine results. As a real estate SEO expert, I recommend you don't underestimate the power of a well-structured sitemap in maximizing the potential of your real estate website. To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.

How to compete with the big portals in your market: Parcel-centric SEO
How can the average brokerage or real estate agent compete with big names like Zillow, Trulia, or Realtor.com when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) for home listings? Compass, which was founded in 2012, has just surpassed both Realtor.com and Trulia in certain markets by pursuing a strategy that's available to anyone who has a real estate-related website. It's all about paying close attention to long-tail keyword search opportunity and developing SEO around parcel data before the home gets listed on the market instead of waiting until you have the listing to create a property-specific page. Victor Lund at WAV Group explains in more detail. WAV Group believes that search engine optimization (SEO) around long-tail address search is a best practice. It is not necessarily the thing that is going to drive massive lead generation and sales, but it is the right thing to do. Your site must be parcel-centric For many years, real estate brokerages have ignored a key principle of SEO. Namely, brokers need to build websites on a public record parcel foundation by creating a web page for all properties. You layer MLS records on top of those pages by adding the MLS information when it becomes available. Portals SEO listings before they are listed Because brokerages have ignored this strategy, sites like Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Trulia and Movoto have carved out an advantage. SEO provides free consumer traffic to your website. Compass has joined this fleet of companies who are developing SEO on off-market properties. The biggest benefit is that when the listing comes on the market, you have already invested in SEO for that property. A big part of SEO success is being "above the fold." Meaning that your company's webpage for that property address can be clicked without scrolling. I did a handful of searches on properties in different areas around the country and found that "Compass.com" pages were as high as No. three on the list – above the fold! Their results seem to be better in markets where they operate, i.e., better in Silicon Valley than Niagara Falls. What's not on the page? Compass decided not to provide an AVM on the value of the property, but they do display the accessor data. WAV Group believes that this is a mistake. We would advise that they should show three AVMs and show the AVM range, rather than a specific number, and use this as an opportunity to generate a listing lead by creating a call-to-action to meet with an agent to understand the home value. Even Zillow shows a range on the Zestimate. What's on the page? Having an image is very important. Compass uses Google Street View. They highlight the bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, year built, lot size. They do a nice job of mentioning the county and linking to a county landing page where you can see the county boundary. They also add home facts and school information. Want help? WAV Group is working on multiple projects today to move brokers to a parcel-centric platform – meaning that their website and other consumer facing tools (including agent tools) adopt this foundation of records for every property. The reason why products like MLS-Touch from CoreLogic have reached over one million users in just a year is because agents and their clients want to see all of the property information. I would love to see MLSs get behind this and become a conduit for the data. These records should be on the same server as the MLS records. If they were combined, that would be even better. Compass has made great strides in pursuit of this strategy in a short period of time. There is plenty more that they can do on these pages. They can market their mortgage services, allow homeowners to register to monitor their home value and nearby homes for sale, cross market their mobile apps, and more. All of these features are on Redfin – our favorite site for off-market listings. We will keep an eye on future releases at Compass. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

How Brokers Can Increase Visibility and Traffic for Their Real Estate Website
In today's digital era, it's a known fact that having a strong online presence is essential for any business, including real estate brokers. With the majority of homebuyers and sellers starting their property search online, optimizing your real estate website for search engines can give you a competitive edge. In this post, we'll explore some fun and effective ways to boost your website's visibility and drive more traffic to your listings. Keywords: The Secret to Search Engine Success The cornerstones of search engine optimization (SEO) are keywords. Make a list of potential keywords that clients might use to find properties in your area to start. Think outside the box and take into account nearby facilities, well-known neighborhood names, and nearby landmarks. Include these words naturally in the page titles, meta descriptions, and image alt tags on your website. But keep in mind that search engines dislike it when you stuff your content with keywords. Engaging and Informative Content Make sure your website is more than just a list of properties for sale. Add some flavor to it with interesting and educational content that displays your expertise and fosters visitor trust. Write blog posts about the neighborhood's real estate market, offering advice to buyers and sellers as well as insights into prevailing trends in the area. Visitors are more likely to stay on your website longer when you offer useful content, which lowers your bounce rate and improves your search engine ranking. Be Social Media Savvy You cannot afford to ignore social media in the age of viral videos and cat memes. Make a business profile on well-known websites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Share eye-catching pictures of properties, virtual tours, and educational posts to draw followers and spark interest. Respond to comments and messages from your audience as soon as possible to engage them. Social media platforms are not only excellent for increasing brand recognition, but they can also increase website traffic through shared links. Get Local: Claim Your Google My Business Listing Google My Business is your best friend when it comes to small businesses in your area. For your business to appear in local search results and on Google Maps, claim and optimize your Google My Business listing. Give complete details such as your address, phone number, working hours, and an enticing summary of your services. To increase your visibility and credibility, encourage pleased customers to leave reviews. Keep in mind that online reviews are nearly as trusted as personal recommendations! Embrace the Power of Visuals Since a picture speaks a thousand words, visuals are crucial in real estate. Use professional, high-quality photography you've invested in to highlight your listings. Give prospective buyers a preview of what to expect by including virtual tours, 360-degree videos, or even drone footage. Make your images more search engine friendly by giving them descriptive filenames and alt tags. Who doesn't enjoy scrolling through breathtaking pictures of ideal homes, after all? Mobile Optimization: Don't Forget the Thumb Generation Mobile optimization is essential in a time when smartphones are essentially an extension of our hands. To seamlessly adapt to various screen sizes, your real estate website should be responsive. For mobile users, a clumsy, non-responsive website can be a major turnoff, making them leave and visit a rival's website in its place. Aim for an intuitive user experience that enables visitors to browse listings, get in touch with you, and arrange viewings on their mobile devices. To conclude, by following these fun and effective tips for optimizing your real estate website for search engines, you can increase your visibility and attract more potential buyers and sellers. Remember to keep your content engaging, utilize the power of social media, claim your Google My Business listing, showcase stunning visuals, and prioritize mobile optimization. Embrace the digital landscape, and let your website shine like a diamond in the vast realm of real estate. Happy optimizing! To view the original article, visit the Transactly blog.

How Blogging Can Help Real Estate Professionals Grow and Excel
Real estate is competitive, so brokerages and agents need to seize every possible opportunity to stand out. Given that nine in 10 home buyers begin their search on the internet, online presence is key. A cornerstone of successful digital marketing building expertise online is content. There's a lot riding on content, so it's important to have a strategy that works (and that you can stick to). What is content? Why should real estate brokers care? "Content" means any written, visual, or audio resources you create to appeal to your ideal customer online. This could be blog posts, videos, pictures, infographics, social media posts, and even podcasts. Once they're out in the world, these resources are an inbound marketing goldmine, providing answers to your prospects' questions and bringing them to your website, where you can turn them into leads. In this post, we're going to focus on the importance of blogs for real estate agents. What can real estate agents gain from creating engaging blogs? It's difficult to emphasize just how valuable blogs can be. Some of the many business benefits from maintaining a good blog include improving your search engine optimization (SEO), establishing expertise and trust in your market, and enhancing organic lead generation. Let's explore these benefits in greater detail. Content is king. Posting regularly helps send your website rankings soaring. Content is a crucial component of higher SEO rankings. Why? Content fills your site with the keywords your prospects are searching for, like "Homes for sale in [insert where you live]." Once you start ranking for your target keywords, when people search for them, your site will appear on the first page, driving organic traffic. Another important element of SEO is external linking, which is when another site provides a link to your website. For this to happen, you need a sufficient library of relevant, accurate, valuable content that other sources want to cite (think local and regional news outlets, lifestyle bloggers in your city, industry publications, online newsletters, and more). Thoughtful blog posts help homebuyers believe and trust you as their potential agent When you provide answers to your audience's questions, you're doing two things: Cultivating your authority as an experienced real estate professional Building trust This applies to two different audiences, too: Potential customers, who see you're a good partner for their transaction Search engines, which are trying to send searches to the most useful resources. As search engines start to trust your content, more prospects will see it, and your reputation as an expert in your market will grow. Real estate posts help generate vital leads and boost conversions Leads are the backbone of your brokerage, and converting leads to customers is how you keep your business thriving. Blogs give you ample opportunity to generate more leads, then convert them using strategic calls to action to guide your audience towards a property search, home valuation, digital download, or contact form. According to HubSpot, consistent, high-quality, engaging content impacts audience decision-making more than any other technique. Quality blog posts can ultimately have a big impact on whether consumers decide to list with, or buy from, you and your team. Create more original content on your blog with a new automated posting feature One challenge of writing a high-quality blog is finding the time: you not only need to write the post, you need to source high-quality, properly licensed images, promote the post on social media, engage with comments about the post, and then do it all over again. Consistency is key, but that doesn't always fit into agents' busy schedules. Thanks to a brand new Constellation1 Website and Digital Marketing Suite integration, we leverage the information you've input into the MLS, including photos, property details, and property descriptions, to automatically post engaging property listing and closing posts to your website's blog. We'll also post weekly real estate news, information, and advice to keep your audience informed and engaged, so you can experience the benefits we've talked about above. Your team can complement your blog with original posts any time, then promote them on all your social channels if you so choose. Many of our customers have reaped the benefits of automated social media marketing. Now they can add automated blog posts to the mix, and so can you! To view the original article, visit the Constellation1 blog.

How to Leverage YouTube for Maximum Real Estate Brand Exposure
Are you on YouTube, the internet's second biggest search engine? Maybe you should be! Home buying goes digital Back in 2012, the National Association of Realtors reported that nine out of 10 people used the internet at some point when buying a home. Today, it's safe to say that nearly everyone is looking for homes online. When someone in your market searches "homes for sale in...," you want them to land on your website, not someone else's. The first stop for most people searching for properties is a search engine. Search engines use complex algorithms to determine what online content is relevant, whom it should be shown to, and how. In addition to being complex, these algorithms are a closely guarded secret and are evolving all the time. Creating content to convince algorithms to rank your page higher is a process known as search engine optimization, or SEO. The secret to better SEO SEO experts agree that video is one of the easiest ways to improve your SEO and search engine ranking. Videos get users to dwell on your page longer, increasing important ranking metrics. YouTube alone has over a billion users, nearly 30% of all internet users around the world, and logs three billion searches per month, making it the second-most searched site after Google. By attracting even a tiny sliver of those viewers and searches, you will boost traffic to your website and listings. For real estate professionals, that means more (and better) leads, more sales, and more revenue. There's one problem: creating professional quality video content is time-consuming and expensive. Plus, your agents are already working hard to find listings, drum up leads, and close deals—not to mention market themselves in other ways online. Asking them to add yet another task to their already busy schedule will make it a hard sell. What if there were a way to automate video creation and posting so agents didn't have to think about it? A win–win for your brokerage With the Paradym Marketing Suite, video marketing doesn't have to add to your agents' workloads. With this tool, you really can set it and forget it, and eye-catching videos start posting all by themselves. Let us tell you how it works. Agents already do a lot to secure a listing. They meet with sellers, write impeccable property descriptions, take jaw-dropping photos, and increasingly use their smartphones to take videos, which they enter into their MLS. Once a listing goes live, they typically don't have time to splice together a video, add a voiceover and soundtrack, and upload it to YouTube. Most brokerages don't have a video editor who can do this work for them, either, except maybe for the most valuable luxury listings. This is where Paradym comes in. Our tool takes everything the agent added to the MLS and creates a professional quality video with transitions, voiceover, soundtrack, custom branding, and more, then posts it wherever you choose, including your company YouTube channel, agents' individual YouTube channels, social media, and even a customized property site. The video description features key information from the MLS plus a comprehensive list of backlinks to social media profiles, agent and company websites, and more. What does this mean for you and your brand? The combination of quality video content and backlinks means search engine algorithms will know you have an active online presence and lots of valuable content, boosting your search engine ranking. Better rankings mean happier agents and higher commission revenue, helping build your reputation in your market. Better yet, offering the very best tools helps you hire and retain the very best agents to help you grow even more. To get started with Paradym and begin building your brand with YouTube videos, get in touch with us today. To view the original article, visit the Constellation1 blog.

SEO and Real Estate: 3 Top Tips to Rank Higher in 2022
Search engine optimization (SEO) can be confusing and tough to understand, let alone master. I've seen a lot of customers struggle to get their SEO on track and stay on top of both key tasks and best practices in my role as Vice President of Software and Development at Constellation1. In this post, I'm sharing three top tips your brokerage can action today to start ranking higher. There's no magic formula to ranking higher. SEO success rests on two things: mastering the basics, then consistently managing dozens of ongoing and ever-evolving tasks. A little work every day will go a long way. One of our customers saw more than a 2,000% increase in organic web traffic after partnering with us to revamp its website. Read on to learn about a few of the things we helped them with. 1. Improve linking structure For sites to rank well, they need to be easy to navigate. Search engines are in the business of meeting their customers' demands for information: if your website doesn't do that, or makes information difficult to find, search engines won't trust your site or send users there. Check your website for dead-end pages, which search engines hate. You can use a tool like User Flow reports from Google Analytics. If you find any, add outbound links, social media widgets, or link back to other high-value pages on your website. You can also create or improve your sitemap, so crawlers can index your site more easily. 2. Improve existing content If your website structure is already solid and your content is properly tagged and keyword-rich (headings, meta descriptions, canonical tags, etc.), you're already ahead of the curve. If not, master these basics before moving on to the next step. Once your content foundation is set, you can improve your ranking by adding or updating content crawlers are looking for, including popular real estate keywords, demographic and neighborhood information, and "community marketing" content. Crawlers are always looking for fresh content, so update your pages regularly. 3. Reduce load time Fifty percent of users will leave your site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, according to Google. There are many easy ways to help your page load faster, like optimizing image size and replacing scripts or plugins that take a long time to load. Your IT team or website provider can help you determine which adjustments will provide the best results. Bring your website vision to life Your website needs to be fully optimized to ensure your brokerage's success, both in 2022 and beyond. The technology that powers SEO is just as important as beautiful design and visuals: it's the brains behind your website, helping consumers to find you. Constellation1 Websites range from agent to brokerage to franchise-level websites with all the brains you need for a successful SEO strategy. To view the original article, visit the Constellation1 blog.

Yes, SEO Is Still Important. Here's Why
SEO -- search engine optimization -- is a suite of best practices aimed at two goals: Raising your visibility in online searches relevant to your business Giving people who visit your website a better, easier experience Reaching the top of any significant Google search doesn't happen by chance. It's possible only when you practice search engine optimization throughout your website. Although it might seem like an intimidating prospect, SEO becomes much easier when you have the right resources in place. SEO Is Your Key to Affordable Organic Leads for Your Website Your real estate website is one of your most important assets. In fact, it's second only to you in its power to deliver business value. It's true! You're the star of your brand — and you'll always be at center stage. But there's one pesky thing about humans, even real estatepros: We have to sleep at night. Even when you're doing something else, your website is always hard at work on your behalf, introducing people to your brand. Making your website work for you should be one of your biggest goals in 2022, especially if you're early in your career. A website that attracts, qualifies, and converts leads helps take a lot of the pressure off your business. You no longer need to hustle constantly for new prospects. And that means you can spend time leveling up your skills and deepening existing relationships. All in all, real estate pros who don't find a way to create the right balance are on their way to burnout. The most reliable way to yield ROI from your website is to make sure it appears prominently in search, and the only programmatic way to do that is to practice SEO. In our SEO services for real estate, we've consistently seen small, mid-sized, and large agencies reach thousands of new leads after implementing best practices in search engine marketing. That adds up to less than $10 per organic lead, just 0.001% of what a single transaction could be worth. Even solo real estate agents can stand shoulder to shoulder with their larger competitors if they choose a long-term focus on SEO. Unlike online advertising, SEO delivers compounding benefits in organic traffic that are virtually free of charge. By comparison, ads stop working for you as soon as you stop paying. Use SEO for months and even the wealthiest rival can't come along and reproduce your success. And the sooner you get started, the sooner you'll see results. How to Get Started with SEO for Real Estate Even if you want to take a do-it-yourself approach, SEO isn't really as fearsome as it appears. By knowing some of the basics, you'll have much more power to influence your digital marketing's direction in the future. Here are the fundamentals that will turn you into an SEO-savvy real estate professional: Start by Understanding Who Your Ideal Client Is First and foremost, you have to know exactly what kind of client you want to attract to your doorstep. SEO requires content — helpful, informative material you publish on your website — and every piece of content is written for someone. That "someone" is your buyer persona. Who are they? What are their problems? What questions do they have? Write down everything you know about your ideal client. You'll use this information to help build out the strategy around your search engine marketing. Then, Figure Out What That Client Searches For The goal of any good SEO campaign is to help your website rank near the top of Google results for relevant keywords. Keywords are the specific words or phrases someone types into Google when they're looking for information — for example, "real estate agent Austin TX." The more specific a keyword is, the less traffic it tends to have. But that can also make it less competitive and more pertinent to you. It's much easier to rank for "first-time homebuyers Austin TX" than for "real estate agent." Publish and Promote Terrific, Keyword-Informed Content Keywords are valuable because they help Google understand the purpose of a piece of writing, image, or video. But they're also there for the convenience of real, human readers. Keywords often don't tell you exactly what your article should be about — you'll need to match each keyword with a topic that's useful to your ideal clients. As you publish more of this valuable content, Google takes notice. Sharing it on social media will also help you attract more backlinks to your site, which drives even higher visibility. Once you see results from SEO, you'll wonder how you ever did without it. Learn how DeltaNET 6 can give you a headstart on SEO with a FREE, 30-day trial. To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.

SEO Can Help Your Site Traffic, Even With Lower Inventory
You've read the headlines: "Inventory Shortage Sends Home Prices Soaring at Record Rate," "Housing Inventory Shortage Leads to Most Bidding Wars Ever," "Explaining Today's U.S. Real Estate Inventory Insanity," and "It's crazy. There is no inventory," -- and are all too aware of how low inventory in your market is impacting your business. But did you know that low inventory is also causing your brokerage website traffic to plummet? Every website featuring property listings is experiencing lower overall web traffic because of record-low inventory. Even brokerages with top-notch SEO programs — like the SEO Delta Media Group provides — are experiencing big drops in overall web traffic as their IDX listings fall. For brokerages in some markets where listings have dropped as much as 60% over the last few years, web traffic has also dropped upwards of 60%. This is not a coincidence: this is pure cause and effect. So, let's dig into this deeper and see what you, as a broker-owner, and your agents need to know about declining web traffic volume, how SEO is needed now more than ever, and what you need to do next. Real Estate Web Traffic Is Down Everywhere Research from both Zillow and realtor.com shows that their property listing inventory is down about 50% nationally. According to Zillow, 1.788 million homes were listed for sale as of August 31, 2019. Fast forward to April 30, 2021, the most recent number available, and the total U.S. homes listed for sale according to Zillow was 949,788 — a decline of nearly 50%. Realtor.com's weekly inventory tracking reports say that total active listings as of early May were down 52% year-over-year. When leading brokerages look at their total web traffic numbers, they are likely to see a decline in overall traffic that closely matches the decline in local listing inventory. Delta Media has seen this happen for clients across the board, nearly without exception. But here's the silver lining. Despite the decline in web traffic, search ranking for Delta brokerage clients has not changed. In some cases, rankings have improved. This is because Delta's Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and content services continue to drive traffic to broker websites, making sure brokerages continue to get their share of real estate-related web traffic. Understanding the Cause By digging deeper into the cause of traffic decline, analytics show that traffic landing on property listing detail pages — which are crucial to successful SEO — has dropped in tandem with the drop in the number of local listings. Let's look at the math. A single-listing detail page for a property can generate a handful to hundreds of visits. If the average listing generates five visits and you have 1,000 active listings in your market, you are getting 5,000 visits from listings. If your average listing generates 20 visits, you are netting 20,000 visits from the listings in your market. If you average 100 visits to an active listing, that's 100,000 visitors to your brokerage website. If your active listing inventory in your local market declines by 50%, it's likely you are going to see a comparable drop in traffic. But don't throw in the towel and give up on SEO because your web traffic is down. That's happening across the board. Staying with your SEO efforts is key to long-term success because SEO does a lot more than generate website traffic. Impact of SEO One of the misconceptions in the real estate world is that websites can't rank for IDX listings. That's simply not true. With the right SEO, traffic is generated from all the listings on a brokerage's website. The best response by a brokerage to website traffic decline should be to stay the course with SEO. That's because, despite the declines in overall traffic, SEO still drives 50-80 percent of all organic traffic to a Delta broker's website. Additionally, more than 50% of their leads are coming from SEO. Keep in mind that organic leads — created by ongoing and effective SEO efforts — generate both the lowest cost leads and the most ready-to-list and ready-to-buy leads. The cost per organic lead is just $5.41 for Delta Media's clients overall. For large brokerage clients, it averages $4.56 for a ready-to-act lead and $4.98 for our mid-sized brokerage clients. Don't Panic! SEO ebbs and flows. The key is to remain steadfast with your SEO efforts. Why? SEO is like a company's reputation: it takes years to build and, with one misstep, minutes to lose. The blunder that many brokerages make with their SEO happens when they switch brokerage website providers. If the proper steps are not taken by your new tech firm, you could lose all the SEO equity that your website took years, sometimes decades, to build. We have witnessed past clients — who see greener grass — switch tech firms to handle their websites. Their web traffic falls off a cliff almost universally. During the migration process, they lose the brokerage's SEO mojo. More critically, organic lead generation from SEO efforts also takes a massive nosedive. Most surprisingly, the tech firms they switched to are well-known website vendors. But none of these firms offer the SEO acumen that Delta does. SEO is one of Delta Media's superpowers. It's why many of these brokerages return as clients. We know how to manage website migration without negatively impacting your SEO. Changing website providers does not have to cause you to panic. With the right approach, you can keep all your SEO equity. But you need to work with a highly skilled website provider that understands all the steps that must be taken to correctly replicate your website's content. The Power of SEO The beauty of Delta Media provided websites is how well they rank for both the brokerage's listings and IDX listings. Therefore, it makes sense that the web traffic declines brokerages are seeing are most significant in the hottest markets where the brokerage has a dominant market share. As IDX listings have dried up, so has overall traffic. Looking further into what is happening at the brokerage level, we make sure nothing else is happening that would hamper traffic. SEO remains key to helping brokerages maintain their overall ranking, despite overall lower web traffic numbers. SEO also can help a brokerage compete against the portals. The more dominant a brokerage is within a local market, the more favorable Google will view them when they deploy the right SEO efforts. Google loves fresh content, and that's one of the essential services that Delta provides brokerages. We do all the heavy lifting by creating the kind of new content that Google wants. What Else is Influencing Web Traffic? The pandemic has had a massive impact on internet traffic. As America locked down, web traffic shot up. The New York Times reported that Facebook traffic almost immediately spiked 27% higher, with YouTube and Netflix jumping over 15%. Studies by The Internet & Television Association show that with a surge in people working from home (WFH), peak internet usage swung from the evenings to the daytime. As a result, online retail sales were up 39% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2021. From January 2020 to March 2021, Zoom experienced over a 2,000% increase in traffic! However, over time and as America begins to reopen coast-to-coast, the overall surge many companies experienced in web traffic has started to decline. Even mighty Google, which is still ranked No. 1 in website traffic, sees lower website traffic today than in January 2020. Staying Committed The key to any successful SEO program is to remain committed, as the most effective SEO takes time. While there certainly are best practices that can help you shorten the timeline for SEO success, it cannot happen immediately. So if anyone is touting an SEO solution that promises to catapult your brokerage to the top of Google rankings instantly – walk away quickly. Having a better understanding of why your brokerage website traffic is lower and that SEO does more than drive traffic to your website is vital to maintaining the course. The best and lowest cost organic internet leads should give you plenty to cheer about when it comes to using SEO. If you are not satisfied with the SEO effectiveness of your brokerage website, Delta Media Group is ready to show you how we can help. RE Technology readers can try DeltaNET 6 free for 30 days. To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.

SEO Tips for Images: Real Estate Edition
The visual side of the real estate website is as important as the written text. Real estate professionals should know this better than anyone. The listing images are practically the bread and butter of real estate pros. So, how can you improve these images' SEO? Compressing Equals Better Speed Well, first of all, don't forget to compress the images. The bigger the size of the image file is, the slower the page loading time will be. Compressing helps reduce the file size. Image Backgrounds Another important tip that not many realize is the background of the images. Images with a clear background have a bigger size, compared to the blurred background images. Remember, the smaller the file size is, the better the page loading time will be. Original Images for Your Real Estate Website Imagine you're writing a blog and you need a good image representing the main idea. What are you going to do in this case? Most probably, you will check royalty free stock images. But remember, too many websites use the same generic stock images. Imagine finding out that your real estate website has the same stock images as, for example, an online gambling company. Original content is what Google the algorithm values, and visual media is no exception. Nothing will top original content being placed on your real estate website. File Name This is a pretty simple but often overlooked SEO tip — creating a unique file name. Google crawlers recognize what the image is about specifically by checking the file name. That's why customizing file names by adding a keyword-rich phrase is what will make your visual content stand out. Alt Text of the Real Estate Images Both the description and alt text serve a very important role in the image ranking process. Alt text is an alternative way for search engines to recognize the image in instances when browsers can't properly render them. Basically, when the browser can't load the image, the alt tag will show up instead, showcasing the subject matter of the image. Creating SEO friendly alt texts will certainly help Google to recognize the images better. Description for Real Estate Images What about description? You probably heard about ADA, also known as the Americans with Disabilities Act, which ensures the accessibility of websites. One of the key points is the accessibility of the visual content. Often, people with disabilities use screen readers to access content. Screen readers check the description of the visual content to recognize what the content is about. With the more and more demands on the accessibility of websites, it's important to pay attention to descriptions as well. File Path We already discussed the importance of the file name in the image ranking process. It turns out that in addition to the file name, Google checks the file path of the content. What is a file path? File path is the location or address of the content. There is two kind of paths: Absolute File Path - indicates the full URL of a contentFor example: <img src="https://www.realtyna.com/images/picture.jpg" alt="Real estate agents"> Relative File Path - indicates file path relevant to this specific pageFor example: <img src="/images/picture.jpg" alt="Real estate agents"> Google recommends making the file path more distinguishable. For example, as a real estate agent, you probably are working with many property types, which means you can structure your folders based on property type. For example: <img src="https://www.website.com/townhouses/picture.jpg" alt="Villa for sale"> This is just a small example of how you can arrange folders on your website. Keep in mind that these structures are customizable based on your needs. To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.

Looking for an effective and affordable way to increase your site traffic by as much as 20%?
Helping your website to be competitive with the ever-increasing amount of huge, well-funded players entering the space is getting more and more difficult. Most brokerages or MLSs do not have millions dedicated to promoting traffic to their site. I just saw a demo of something that is affordable but has been proven to drive up site traffic by as much as 20%. And it does not require any site redesign or major overhaul! The solution is offered by a smart, young AI company called Restb.ai. They are a "computer vision" company that has deep expertise in using artificial intelligence to increase traffic and engagement for your website. Restb.ai has built a computer vision solution that "reads" all the elements in property images. Based on the contents of each photo, their AI provides a full sentence or caption featuring one of 40+ room types and a description of the key features (e.g., kitchen island, vaulted ceiling, etc.) in each photo. These descriptions are then automatically assigned to the "alt-text" of each image on your site, which has an instant impact on your traffic. Today, the images on the listings on your site are being used by hundreds if not thousands of IDX sites in your market and on national portals. Without differentiating your images with a description, Google thinks the images on your site are the same as the hundreds of others and does not give you any credit for providing valuable and unique content. By adding unique descriptions to each image's alt-text, Google and other search engines will favor your site over others and move you up in each search engine's rankings. While nobody will ever SEE the descriptions when they view your site, the alt-text allows Google to treat each of your photos as "new content" which makes your site more popular. From what we have seen, no major real estate website in the U.S. has gone all the way to adding full image descriptions like the type that the Restb.ai solution can provide. Many of the websites we looked at do not have any description at all for each image's alt-text. Then, even when descriptions are present, sites are often just adding the MLS ID or street address. By adding a full description with relevant keywords, each image has more context and much stronger indexing on Google. Makes Your Site More ADA-Compliant More importantly, adding a full description of each image also makes your site more ADA-compliant and more helpful for those with visual impairments. Users of screen readers will hear the descriptions read aloud as they browse your site, and they will get a more thorough and informative description of the properties they are viewing. Here is an example of the type of photo descriptions that the computer reads and automatically adds to each image: Adding rich and descriptive captions in your alt-text may be a quiet, but powerful way to get a leg up on your competition and the large third-party sites by generating more traffic with the added benefit of helping you be ADA-compliant. Talk to your website vendor about this and see if they can help you gain a competitive advantage with Restb.ai's computer vision. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

How to Get Search Engines to Come Crawling Back
In this article for Delta Media Group's real estate industry publication, Real Estate Marketing and Technology Magazine, Aaron Geh discusses how SEO helps your real estate website attract more traffic and better quality leads. Whether searching for a sales associate or going on a house hunt, most people start their search online. Search engine results are a huge potential source of traffic for your real estate website, which leads to fierce competition for the top positions in search rankings. That's where search engine optimization (SEO) enters the picture. SEO is one of the most powerful tools for growing your real estate firm online, but SEO's complexity means that not everyone understands it. Let's look at these SEO tips to help your business attract more traffic and better quality leads.

Google Search Console and Your Real Estate Site: Part 2
Google Search Console is where the answers to many of your SEO questions can be found! The Search Console suite of tools helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot how your site performs in Google Search results. Before you dive into Part 2, if you haven't yet, check out the first half of our series so you're set up for success and Google can start indexing your site.

Real Estate SEO Guide for Better Traffic and Leads
Your real estate website is one of your most important marketing assets and should be a huge part of your lead generation strategy. But your website can only do its job if prospects know where to find it! Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for helping people find what you have to offer and drawing traffic to your website using search engines.

Just SEO Will Starve Your Real Estate Website
You're working hard at SEO, Search Engine Optimization, for your real estate website, so why can't you get on that first page of Google results for any of your major keyword phrases? You can't quit on the SEO, but you can add some SEO related activities to boost your positioning and traffic to your site. There is also one strategy you can use to boost your search engine positioning, so let's talk about it first.

Referrals as an SEO Strategy: Backlinks
As you start to think about getting more traffic to your website, it's important to differentiate the specific channels your traffic is coming through. Up until now, this article series has focused on SEO tactics for driving organic traffic directly from search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. Two other major traffic channels include paid advertising, often known as pay-per-click, and referral traffic.

SEO for Real Estate: Does It Still Matter?
Real estate is a competitive business, but no matter how many word of mouth referrals you pride yourself on getting each month, the most consistent top producers are those who understand the importance of having an effective online presence--in addition to impeccable people skills. So, what does it mean to have an effective online presence?

Resources for Your Real Estate SEO Toolbox
Real estate remains, at heart, a local business. Even though it's crucial to be seen as a neighborhood expert, the majority of your customers still find you on the web, not in the town newspaper. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)—is the art of creating a website packed with useful content that shows up high in search results. To lay a strong foundation in SEO, you'll need to choose and learn the right tools. Here are a few of our favorites:

Why Was My IDX Real Estate Website Delisted From Google?
Search engine ranking is massively important for a real estate IDX website. It's how agents attract homebuyers to their sites, and it is one of the foundations of lead generation. But in rare instances, your IDX real estate website can be suddenly delisted from Google. If your site is removed from Google for an extended period, it can harm your reputation and your bottom line. So it is important to identify the problem and address it quickly. In this blog, we'll review some of the most common reasons why an IDX real estate website can be delisted from Google.

6 Tips to Improve Real Estate SEO
Landing that coveted number one spot in Google SERPs, or even making it to page one, is no easy feat. But you can climb the search engine rankings with time, patience and the following real estate SEO tips:

Talking Your Way to Better Real Estate SEO
Weren't you proud when you learned something about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization? You learned about keywords, key phrases, and terms like "long tail." All of those articles and classes about the META content on your site and how to create effective titles and descriptions for SEO has helped you along the way. Well, we're popping your bubble now! First, getting on the first page of Google desktop searches has become very difficult just using the key phrases strategies. The big players like Zillow and Realtor.com are occupying a lot of first-page real estate, pun intended. That's the not-so-good news. But there is some great news too. How would you like to pop to the top for real estate SEO on the ever-growing number of mobile searches?

Link Building 101: Learn How to Earn Quality Backlinks for Your Website
Increasing the visibility of your real estate website starts with making sure that people can find it through search engines, social media, and links from other high-quality websites. Link building is an integral part of that process because the quality and number of links you have back to your site is a vital part of the formula that Google uses to rank websites. Whether you're launching a brand new real estate website or looking to increase the reach of your existing site, link building is one of the tactics that you can use to help accomplish your online marketing goals. Today, we're going to take a closer look at building links for your real estate website.

Two Big Changes to Google Impacting Real Estate Brokerages
This post comes to us from the Tribus blog: For many of the biggest trends on the internet, for all intents and purposes, Google calls the shots. They change the way SEO works, we adapt to it. They put out a new product, we integrate with it. Lately, there have been a couple changes to Google that are causing real estate brokerages across the world to make some adjustments. And if you were unaware of these changes, you should start making yourself comfortable with the "new normal" of Google.

What Are the Benefits of Google My Business?
Whether you're an online marketing expert or simply someone looking to grow your business, Google has always offered a ton of popular marketing tools for real estate professionals. Google Maps helps customers locate and learn about your business, Google+ provides a social network tightly integrated with other Google tools, and of course Google search results are one of the most important factors in helping prospects find you. But how do you manage all of those tools at once? It's easier than you might think with the help of Google My Business.

What Changes in Video SEO Means for Real Estate
SEO changes from year to year — in fact, it often changes from day to day. Search engines are always competing to offer up the best content, and that means their algorithms change. When algorithms change, you can have a harder time promoting your content — video included. Real estate agencies depend on both search engine optimization and video marketing to bring in customers and leads. Because of this, they need to be aware of new video SEO changes.

3 Tips to Generate More Website Traffic
Being on the first page of search results when someone searches for homes in your area is one of the best ways to get more leads. And as you're probably aware, you get to the first page by implementing and continually working on your search engine optimization (SEO). In a recent webinar, SEO expert and VP of Marketing for Boostability Kelly Shelton shared his best suggestions to help real estate professionals generate better results online. Find our favorite tips below, then watch the recorded webinar for even more ideas.

SEO vs. PPC: Which is best for you?
Ask any digital marketing expert, and you'll quickly learn that both search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) are effective real estate marketing tools. After all, a beautiful, information-rich, mobile-friendly real estate website is only an asset if your audience knows where to find it! Both PPC and SEO are geared toward making sure your website shows up in a prime position in search engine results—the real difference comes in how that goal is accomplished. Let's take a closer look at the perks of SEO and PPC to help you identify the most effective marketing tools for your real estate business.

404 Errors: Do They Affect Your SEO?
What Is a 404 Error? You've probably seen them when cruising the Internet; pages that don't lead anywhere and display an error message of '404 Not Found.' This can be discouraging, especially when it's happening on your website! However, 404 errors are a completely natural part of the Internet. Simply put, a 404 error occurs when a website server looks for a URL and does not find it. This can be caused by an accidental misspelling in the URL or when using an old link that no longer exists, so it would make sense that people occasionally see them.

How Blog Posts Provide Top Placement for Wardley Real Estate
Creating a blog for your real estate website is one of the best things you can do to attract leads to your business because it allows you to: Demonstrate your real estate expertise to the right audience, Keep your business top-of-mind with prospects by consistently sharing content to your social media pages that is appealing to your audience, and Drive traffic to your website. Since most people today are using the Internet to house hunt, it only seems natural to use online marketing strategies to keep interested parties coming back to your real estate business for more—and that's exactly what blogging can do for you.

25 Ways to Up Your SEO Game and Drive Traffic to Your Real Estate Brokerage's Website
A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy is needed to increase your web presence and allow you to be found by prospective clients. An unplanned approach to putting content on your website will not rank you first on Google. Chris Grozdon of Dash-SEO recently wrote a great article on SEO tips for real estate. From his article, we have picked 25 tips that will help your brokerage's website get found in search engines and in front of prospective home owners and sellers!

7 SEO Tips to Drive Traffic and Leads to Your Real Estate Website
It's one of the most stressful purchases anyone can ever make. Home ownership can be a confusing, overwhelming and exacerbating experience for so many. Having a real estate professional next to them can help ease some of these pressures throughout the entire process. At some point in the hunt for a home, almost every single buyer will turn to the internet for some guidance. In fact, the very first step nearly half of home buyers take when starting their search for a new home is searching online – that's before they even contact a real estate agent for help. They want to see what's available and possibly even get an idea of what their current home may be worth. Don't miss the opportunity to be their guide on the pathway towards their next home. Use these seven SEO boosting tips to help drive more traffic and leads to your real estate website, so you can build your business and help ease the stresses of this gigantic purchase. Seven SEO tips to implement today:

[Infographic] Do You Know Where You're Showing Up in Search Results?
Is your website showing up in search results when a new buyer or seller goes online? If you're not getting the results you want, do you know what it takes to move your website's placement in search results? Check out this infographic to discover the who, what, where, why, and how questions you should be asking to improve your search results.

4 Actionable SEO Tips for Real Estate Pros
If you can believe it, we're halfway through the year. If you're the go-getter type, you may have asked yourself, "Where am I on my goals?" If you haven't gotten very far on generating more leads, growing sales or increasing website traffic, don't worry — we've got your back! It's not too late to crush your goals and make this year the best yet, by stepping up your SEO (search engine optimization) game. Just what is SEO, and can it really help me? Simply put, SEO is a process of getting FREE traffic from search engine results. It's a tool that helps those in need find what they're looking for. So, when users ask a question on search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, SEO gives you the opportunity to provide the solution in the form of content. If you're still wondering what SEO gets you, it attracts potential clients to your website which could = new business! Specifically for real estate professionals, online search has become an increasingly important part of lead generation, with 44 percent of recent buyers ranking online search as their first step in the buying process. So, when it comes to your website, you want to make sure that you're nailing it with SEO best practices. We'll spare you tips on decoding the Google algorithm, and instead provide you with four actionable real estate SEO hacks that you can easily implement today:

How to Optimize Tags as Keywords to Boost Search Rankings
Seeing lackluster results from video usage in real estate marketing? It may be tag optimization issues. Does that sound Greek to you? No worries. We'll cover it here. What are Tags? The term 'tag' can be confusing, because it refers to two types: 1. Public tagging. This is how viewers label, organize, and manage their YouTube content. 'Crafts,' 'Recipes,' 'Workouts,' or 'Homes to See,' for example. (Viewers create their own.)

Why Every Real Estate Website Needs SEO
Imagine building the biggest, most impressive house you can think of, and then choosing to plop it down in the middle of nowhere. This is a house that any buyer would fall head over heels for, except that it's located far from any roads, with lost hikers and woodland creatures the only foot traffic for miles. Building a beautiful, functional real estate website and skipping search engine optimization (SEO) is like building that impressive home in the middle of nowhere. No matter how much valuable content and inspired design your website contains, it can't benefit your business unless people know how to find it. Real Estate Marketing Must-Haves: SEO for Real Estate Websites Even if you're new to SEO for real estate, you probably have a pretty good idea of how valuable search engines are for finding what you need, when you need it. When you need directions, want to find something fun to do, or wish to research a neighborhood, where do you go first? If you answered Google, then you're on the right track. Real estate clients search for homes, agencies, and REALTORS® the same way, so SEO is really a way to help your target audience find you. Earning a consistent position on the first page of search results is one of the best ways to grow your real estate business online.

How to Successfully Add SEO to Your Real Estate Website
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important components of an effective online marketing plan because it makes it easier for prospects and clients to find your business online. Most search engine users don't bother with links beyond the first page of search results and the competition for position on that first page of results is intense. Our team has some tips, tactics and advice to help turn your real estate website into an SEO powerhouse. The Most Important SEO Tactics for Your Real Estate Website The most convenient time to update your SEO is when you are building a new website or working your way through a website redesign. Even if you don't plan on making major changes to your site, there are still plenty of smaller steps that you can institute right now to give your SEO a welcome boost. Create Content – Your website visitors want to see your expertise and search engines do, too. Creating custom content is a huge part of effective online marketing and provides a perfect place to integrate other SEO mainstays like targeted keyword phrases, social engagement, video content and appealing images. Mobile Browsing – If your website isn't optimized for mobile audiences, then you're missing out on a huge chunk of your audience. A mobile-friendly website is good for SEO and a must-have for marketing purposes. Keyword Research – Understanding the terms that people use to search for real estate in your area allows you to integrate popular keyword phrases naturally into your website and real estate content. Keyword research should always be an ongoing process because the most popular phrases evolve over time.

Why Does Real Estate Blogging Work?
With real estate blogging, when someone asks, "Does it work?" they mean, "Does it generate business?" It does. Here's why You build trust and earn new clients through reliable counsel. Your potential clients have questions. You have the answers. Your blog is the vehicle that delivers the answers to your potential clients. It delivers them through Google. It delivers them through email. It delivers them through social media. You build trust and earn new clients through reliable counsel. The formula is simple For Google: The more you create >> the more you are "spidered" >> the more you are "indexed" >> the more you're found >> the more you're read >> the more you're trusted >> the more new business you generate. For Social Media: The more you create >> the more you are shared >> the more you're found >> the more you're read >> the more you're trusted >> the more new business you generate.

Google My Business: What Every Real Estate Pro Needs to Know
You may know you're open for business, but have you told your clients and prospects? Google My Business offers a simple way to boost the online visibility of your business. Read on to learn about the benefits of Google My Business and how to get started using it. What is Google My Business? A 2014 study by Conductor showed that 64 percent of website visitors came from organic search. This means potenial clients searching for your business in Google should be able to find it quickly and easily. That's where Google My Business comes in handy. Never again will your clients and prospects have to hunt for your business URL among random search results. They can simply search for your business through Google search or Google Maps. There, they will find a consolidated listing of information relevant to your business. This includes the essentials like your business name, address, phone number, hours and directions. But it also includes extras like your rating among customer reviewers.

SEO 101: Using Social Networking to Boost Website Traffic
On its own, writing stellar content for your real estate site isn't going to make any money for you. You'll need to figure out a way to attract potential clients to your website, who can be converted into dollars. This should be the ultimate goal of every business. SEO stands for search engine optimization and it's exactly what it sounds like. It's how optimized your blog or your website is for the search engines that are crawling it when someone types in a search query. It's a huge factor in making sure you get traffic to your site and, more specifically, that it's the right kind of traffic—people who are looking for you to solve their problems. If your real estate website isn't generating a profit, then you need to ask yourself some hard questions – what benefit does it really have for your business? No need to panic if you are still waiting for a breakthrough. I'll cover some of the most important SEO factors and some hands-on techniques that you can put to use right away to increase the traffic to your website. Promotion Is King One way to promote your website is by paying for online ads in hope of snatching a client once they land on your page. This model can be a huge money pit. But as soon as you stop paying for online ads, usually the traffic to your site drops like a rock. Frustratingly, it cost me more to lure people to my website than the revenue that they brought in. This was the time when I decided that I was done with paying for traffic and that I wanted people to be organically interested in my website. My favorite and most rewarding solution to paid marketing is content marketing or blogging. While it is easier said than done to "just create great content," it's possible to build on that concept. The truth is that there is way more to SEO than just writing content. One piece of the puzzle is that you'll need to get others' attention by proactively positioning your articles to be seen by them. It's really no different from dating. You can be the best looking person with all sorts of positive attributes. But if you never leave your home, it's going to be hard to meet other people for a date!

BHHS Homesale Realty Hits Bullseye with Technology
Executive Summary Homesale Realty is a Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices franchise serving the markets of Northern Maryland and Central Pennsylvania. The company was ranked 24th in 2015 with 12,694 sides and $2.38 billion in volume. In 2016, they grew to 13,500 sides and $2.6 billion in volume. The company has over 27 offices and 1,200 sales associates. The WAV Group encountered Homesale through a blind assessment of the top 100 real estate firms that revealed an impressive technology offering. Homesale Realty has conquered comprehensive real estate technology integration, driving their increasing success. The company's growth is striking, given that they underwent a franchise brand shift from Prudential to Berkshire Hathaway. Such realignment typically causes significant website setbacks, but for Homesale the conversion has been well executed, and the company continues to experience online and sales growth. This demonstrates that companies can successfully transition franchises without taking a major business hit. The core of Homesale Realty's technology footprint is served by Delta Media Group. Delta Media Group provides their broker website, co-branded agent websites, direct feeds to syndication websites, intranet, and single sign-on to applications like DotLoop for transaction management. In addition, Delta Media Group delivers strategies for mobile, social media, and search marketing. The company operates this technology footprint on top of five disparate multiple listing services and their vendors are merging data to power all of the tools for the agents through one seamless platform. In this case study, we review the technology footprint of Homesale to illustrate how this broker is executing many of the most important online marketing trends today. Our methodology focused on interviews with the company's Director of IT, Sandra Trocccoli, and Chief Financial Officer, Rod Messick, as well as Delta Media Group Chief Executive Officer, Mike Minard. We found that there is a tight working relationship between the management of Homesale and Delta Media Group as exemplified by weekly management calls.

How Google Search Results Work for Real Estate
When a potential client wants to learn more about your real estate business, research the communities where you sell homes, or browse the latest listings, their favorite search engine will often be their first stop. And Google is far and away the most popular search engine, with little meaningful competition on the horizon. So, what does that mean for your real estate business? Put simply, showing up in prime position in Google's search results is critical to generating qualified leads online, and search engine optimization is a must-have tool for growing your business. While you likely have experience using Google yourself, you may not be familiar with the details of why search results appear how they do. The team at Delta Media Group has you covered, with a guide to the terms and tactics you need to understand for successful SEO. Searching for Answers: A Guide to Google Real Estate Search Results The basics of Google's search results layout will likely be familiar to most readers. After you type your query and click "Google Search," you're led to a page of ordered search results. The most prominent results, featured in the left column, are known as "organic" results, a term we'll cover ahead. There are ten organic results on each page, along with paid search results, which can appear on the top and bottom. Organic Search Results An organic search result essentially depends on what Google's algorithms identify as the best match for your search query, without taking paid advertising into account. There are ten organic results on each page, and search users are much more likely to click links that make it onto the first page of search results. Even within the first page, users are more likely to click links at the top of the page than the bottom.

Can Your Clients Find You Online? (7/21)
Thursday, July 21, 2016 at 9:00 AM PDT Back in 1986 (30 years ago), if a past client wanted to find your contact information, chances are they used a phone book to look up your information. Today, when a customer wants to find you, they go online, but a recent poll of our readers found over 75% of real estate professionals don't have a strategy for getting found by their customers online! For those lacking an online search strategy, they are essentially forgotten by their customers because they aren't showing up in searches. Getting found by your customers requires an Online Search Strategy. Join us on Thursday's free training on tips and simple, effective strategies to get on Google and the most popular search engines. Here's what you will learn: How to get on the first page of Google Search and impress people who find you online How to get your site or landing pages to show up on the first page of search results for highly specific, neighborhood searches. Easy ways to improve your presence (and look professional and competent) ... even if you don't have a website! How to get your listings to show up on the first page of search results when someone searches for them In typical Paperless Agent fashion, you'll get real examples, actionable tips, and proven practices for getting better results Valuable insights from a live Q&A session with two industry experts where you can get your most pressing real estate marketing questions answered! Register now!

Tips for Getting Leads for Your Real Estate Website
Do you want your real estate website to generate more qualified leads for your business? Of course you do! Even if your website is running like a well-oiled machine, there's always room for improvement. Generating more leads through your website depends in part on the stuff you see – social media links, content marketing, search engine optimization – but also on some of the less visible aspects of online marketing. Of course, quality is just as important as quantity, so you also want to make sure that you're generating leads who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. Looking for More Leads? It All Starts with an Optimized Website! Ahead, we'll cover some simple tips to help make sure that your website is generating leads to its fullest potential. The team at Delta Media Group has extensive experience in real estate marketing, and we're happy to share our knowledge with you to help grow your business. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – If you want potential leads to find your website, you need to show up where they're most likely to be looking. Search engines are major drivers of online traffic, so ranking well for local real estate searches is a huge part of marketing and lead generation. SEO also allows you to lock on to the region that you serve, so that you won't be competing for attention with real estate businesses outside of your area. Social Media Integration – Social media is an excellent place to find qualified leads because you can learn so much about a person from their social profile. Make it easy for tech-savvy prospects to find your website by maintaining a social media presence, and linking your website content back to your social media pages. That way a prospect can either contact you directly through social, or find your website easily.

What Questions You Should Ask to Help Drive Your Real Estate Marketing Plan
Online marketing is a vital tool for success in today's connected real estate market, but it's easy to feel a bit overwhelmed if you're just starting out with your online marketing plan. There are acronyms galore, new terms to learn, and tools to discover, so it's important to pick a marketing team that keeps you informed. Developing effective online real estate marketing strategies and choosing the right team to implement them starts with asking the right questions. We've put together a collection of questions that will help you pick the right marketing strategies for your agency. We'll cover some of the key basics, but be sure to add your own questions to the list, too! Who is my target audience? Choosing the right marketing tools starts with understanding your audience, so your real estate experience gives you a head start with this question. If you cater to high-end, luxury home buyers, you'll want your online marketing to strike a different tone than you'd use to catch the eye of bargain hunters. A general idea of your audience is perfectly fine to get started, because online marketing is adaptable. You can always get more specific as you learn which tools work best for your business. What is search engine optimization (SEO), and do I need it? SEO is one of the most important online marketing tools, but it can also be one of the most intimidating for those new to online marketing. The basic idea is that your marketing team will optimize your website, blog, and marketing materials to ensure a high ranking in search results. Landing on the first page of Google search results is key to reaching a wide audience, so SEO is one online marketing tool that every real estate agency needs.

Why Local SEO Is Important for the Real Estate Industry
Real estate is ultimately a local business. You sell homes in a specific geographic area, even if your clients come from all over the map. And those clients will use search engines to find the best properties and real estate agencies in your area. So for real estate agents, few marketing tools make a bigger difference than local search engine optimization (SEO). Ahead, we'll take a closer look at what local real estate SEO is, how it works, and why it's an especially good fit for real estate marketing. Let Business Find You: Local SEO for Real Estate Agents Local SEO – like any type of SEO – is designed to improve your visibility in search results, and a first-page search ranking is key to finding new clients online. Landing at the top of the first page is even better. The challenge is that other real estate businesses in your area want that prime search position as well, so reaching the top requires effort, and a plan. Local real estate SEO leverages the knowledge of how real estate shoppers use search engines to anticipate the client's needs, optimize your website for the most popular search terms, and bring new business to your digital door. Real estate is a natural fit for local real estate SEO because geography is part of nearly every search query related to real estate listings. Local SEO helps you connect with shoppers at different points of the purchasing cycle, from early, general research on your city to locking in on specific homes in specific neighborhoods. When a prospect searches "homes in [your town]," you want them to land on your content, real estate listings, and social media pages. By connecting with shoppers in the midst of their research, you get an opportunity to show why your real estate agency is the right choice for their needs. Since these are people who have already demonstrated some interest in homes in your area, leads from local SEO are better qualified than most.

4 Ways to Monitor the Competition Online
Admit it--you've Googled yourself. At some point, most of us have. As a business person, this is actually a great idea. It allows you to monitor your online reputation, gauge the success of your SEO efforts, and even do a little damage control, if necessary. But here's a question--have you Googled your competition? If you haven't, they may rank higher in search engines than you and you won't even know it. (And if that's the case, you can bet consumers are calling them instead of you because they're easier to find.) Search engine rankings are only one way to monitor other agents in your market. All day long, people are tweeting, posting, and sharing things with each other on social media and other places on the web. By "listening" in on your competition, you can get a better idea of who they're doing business with, how they're marketing themselves, and what others are saying about them. If you want to keep your sleuthing on the down low, there are plenty of easy ways to do that. Here are four: 1. Use Facebook Interest Lists Facebook is an important marketing channel, so you'll want to keep an eye on what others are doing in this space. If you don't want others to know whose real estate business pages you're watching, there's an alternative to "liking" a page. Simply create an Interest List and add any pages you want to keep an eye on to that list. Since you're not actually liking the page, it won't show up on your profile. Create an Interest List of any competitors whose pages you want to monitor. Facebook will automatically update you on activity on your list. To view all recent posts from list members, simply click the list's name. You can find it on the left sidebar on Facebook's main page under the subhead "Interests." This is the first of two "undercover" Facebook strategies (see #4 for the other).

Is Your Brokerage Wasting Your Real Estate Leads and Face Time?
We talk a lot about how to drive more real estate leads and more visibility. One question you might be facing right now is whether you really are taking advantage of the leads and visibility that you currently have. Let's say you are currently getting leads from Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com or another real estate portal or network. You also get leads from your sphere of influence or referral base. You may even do some pay-per-click or have some naturally-generated leads on your website. The question is, what real conversion rate are you seeing right now and where are your inefficiencies? If you are busy tracking leads in your email and on scraps of paper, the typical conversion rate runs about one-half of 1%. The trick to taking advantage of the leads you have, as well as driving more conversion out of new leads, is all about well-placed automation and strict tracking. There are four things you should have in place in order to achieve the highest conversion rates on current and new leads. 1. Complete Real Estate Lead-Generation Strategy This seems like a total no-brainer in a lot of ways. There are, however, many brokerages who look at their strategies and realize they have been relying on only one or a couple lead sources, but only one channel. The reality of real estate lead generation is you need to make sure you have the right channels and that you are getting high enough quality to drive your bottom line.

How Do You Rank? 5 Tips for Real Estate SEO Success
When it comes to real estate lead generation strategies, many agents seem to have a love/hate relationship with search engine optimization (SEO). At times it can feel like you're chasing an elusive dream. "What does Google want?" Outside of the algorithm-developing nerve center, no one may ever completely know. What we do know is, we all want to reap the reward of having qualified leads delivered to us via organic search, and when our tried-and-true efforts stop producing, our instinct is to jump ship and seek out the next promising opportunity. But here's where most real estate professionals get it wrong. Experienced SEO wranglers have learned that it takes patience to tame the beast. And patience does pay off, especially when it comes to Google. According to NAR, 90% of home searches begin online, and over the past 4 years, real estate-related Google searches have grown 253%. So, what does that mean for you? In a nutshell, leads. SEO leads are 8 times more likely to close than outbound leads and cost around 61% less. Think about it like this: investing in SEO is like buying a home instead vs. renting. You're building equity on a previous investment instead of paying a fixed rent for a place to live, with nothing to show for it when you leave. The key is knowing which methods to apply — and which to abandon — to improve your results. With that being said, here are some SEO best practices to consider when implementing your next online marketing campaign. Conduct frequent keyword research The competition for keywords is fierce so tightly target your keywords on a specific area. 69% of home shoppers begin their research with a local keyword phrase, like "Phoenix realtor." Use Google's Keyword Planner to gain an overall picture of what target keywords should drive the most traffic to your site, and how tough it will be to rank well for those keywords.

Adding Quality Content to Your Website
In a recent series of articles, Homes.com's VP of Search Marketing, Grant Simmons explained Why the Future of SEO is "UnOptimized." If you want more conversions on your real estate website, you don't just need more traffic, you need "more better" traffic. The key is to attract visitors that have come to your website because of specific triggers and/or tickles that have prompted them to enter the real estate transaction funnel. Simmons explains that "it's all about the user: their needs, wants, desires, and the ability to satisfy those needs through effective and targeted content that considers both the intent and context of the query they type in a search box." So what kind of content should you be adding to your website? First, it is important to consider the likely triggers or tickles that would start your ideal consumers down the sales funnel. According to Simmons, triggers are the needs that force or prompt a consumer to act, while tickles are tactics and content that you create in order to entice a consumer to want to do something. With these two paths to action in mind, the next step is to ask yourself what is your niche or area of expertise? Identifying this will lead you to discover which needs you can solve and which desires you can tickle.