Sellers are way more likely to look you up online than buyers. so if you want to get more listings, you got to know how to get found. Let's talk about how sellers find top agents online: I'm talking about SEO Search engine optimization I'm talking about Sem Search Engine marketing. How are you going to get discovered on the right platforms at the right time, in the right way by prospective sellers online? It comes down to what's your SEO strategy.

Now today, we're going to talk about six different let's call them placements places where you should build your presence online to get found by, you guessed it, sellers. Welcome to a very special episode of this week In Marketing Today marks episode number 100 That's 100 episodes in today of talking about how to scale and grow your business through better marketing, better practices, better strategies, better tactics. And today's episode is another one of those episodes talking about something that I believe is truly important in today's Marketplace How to get more sellers? How to get them to pick you to generate more listings. Now, if you're new to the channel, it would mean the world to us if you would tap that big red subscribe button and there's a little bell icon right next to it.

If you hit that little bell icon, it turns on notifications. So whenever we publish new episodes just like this one, you get alerted right away and therefore you can take action so that you can over the course of a hundred more episodes keep dialing your marketing Now without further. Ado We have a topic to cover today and that topic is six SEO placements to get found by prospective sellers. Because like we said, sellers are way more likely to look you up online than buyers are.

And so the question is, how well positioned are you to get discovered by Sellers and win in a competitive market environment like the one we're in right now? Let's dive in. Now this first one out of the gate is a big one. It's local business directories. in other words, directories where you can look up local business listings.

One that may be coming to mind for you is your Google business profile if you're unfamiliar with the Google business profile. If you head over to Google Maps or Google search and you do any kind of a search for a local business, you're going to see red pens on a map. Those red pens represent different business listings and your Google Business listing I.E your Google business profile formally called Google my business is your ticket, your gateway your entrance into the show of Local SEO where customers go looking for businesses like yours. Now your Google Business listing can show up in a different looking way based upon how the customer might be searching.

For example, if somebody Googles the name of your business, it's going to show what's called a knowledge panel That is the right hand side panel of Google is going to display just your business listing. It details its reviews and so forth. However, if they do a search like Best Realtor in Nashville or some search to that effect where they're looking not for you directly but for what you do. And the question is, do you rank in that search that will trigger a map pack? A map pack is a portion of map on the Google search results with the top three business listings and that's where all the money is.

That's where you have to optimize your profile to get found by more perspective. Sellers And so my recommendation is reviews. You got to get more reviews specifically review from seller clients because those reviews feed keywords into Google That gives it a contextual understanding of when and how to rank you. So my challenge to you more than anything else when it comes to dialing in your Google business profile strategy is what's your strategy for getting more reviews, How you going to get on a what we'll call a review rhythm of getting more reviews from your customers that feed the right keywords where Google's like you know I Think that is the best Realtor in Nashville Airgo.

Thus, I'm going to rank them in the map pack now. less important than Google in your Google Business listing is another business directory and that is B Places For Business Your B places profile does matter not nearly as much as your Google profile does. But it does matter. And here's my basis in saying that in terms of what platforms users browse the web on, we know that Chrome is the giant one.

the big one. We know that 66% of users worldwide, desktop and mobile all considered are using Chrome and we know that Chrome certainly doesn't use Bing places it uses Google so Google's the winner. Here we know that about 18% is of users are on Safari uh, which is a little bit more agnostic. Then down to the smaller numbers, about 4% of users use Microsoft Edge and about 3% use Firefox.

And so it's definitely less important than your Google business profile. But because some people use Edge and because maybe it's the built-in machine in a PC and maybe your target audience doesn't think to change the browser and they're using Microsoft Edge, you could be missing a sliver, an important sliver, or Market segment of prospective sellers. So I'm just saying. Whatever you do on your Google business profile, why not try to do as much copycatting on your Bing places as possible? I Understand, the reviews might be tricky, but being places doesn't have its own reviews.

Being places syndicates its reviews from other sources generally from your Facebook business page. So if you can also have a sub strategy of getting reviews on, for example, Facebook I'll talk more about that later. That could also feed your B profile. The point I Want to stress to you right now is sellers are the ones who are likely to go online and search for the best Realtor in a specific area and placements like your Google Business listing and your being places profile are critical to being discovered.

How optimized are you? How much attention are you giving to those platforms to rank and get discovered by in Market sellers who are looking for you? Marketing is ever evolving and with the emergence of AI the rate of change is faster than ever. adapt quickly to Aid driven marketing strategies or risk falling behind. This is precisely why we've created the AI Marketing Academy a 4-we virtual intensive t to integrate AI seamlessly into your marketing strategy. You'll start with unraveling the basics of AI then you'll get to grips with essential AI tools and finally you'll learn how to incorporate these tools into effective real world marketing tactics.

Space is limited. Don't miss your chance to be a part of the future. Now the second where to get found by sellers online is a biggie and a relatively easy one for you to grasp. and that is top.

Search portals like Zillow like Realtor.com like Redin like Trulia where there's an opportunity for you to have a profile, a profile that features reviews and transaction history and accolades, and varying points of criteria that would make someone want to choose you over somebody else. I Work with a lot of coaching clients who every year they get a handful of deals that are just layups that dropped in their lap effectively because somebody found them on Red Fin or found them on Zillow And it wasn't a premier agent lead per se. or it wasn't a paid lead. it was somebody who literally went there to read the reviews and they said I like this one I'm going to call this agent right here and then the agent did the most thing of all which is answer the phone and they booked an appointment and they had an opportunity and it's generally more consistent that it's a seller opportunity.

Now in some cases you can imagine the use case where. What about relocation? Well yeah, that's that's normal. Maybe somebody's relocating to an area and they don't have an agent or they don't have a network in a community to get a referral from. They may go looking on these placements too.

but the point I want you to consider is that it's seller. Behavior Sellers are the ones who are the most likely on a routine basis to go look you up. So the question is, are you positioning yourself, your business to be discovered by those? Sellers And are you converting them with the right reviews? the right optimizations, the right setup, the right profile images, the right updated copy. Are you having a good presence on these platforms Or are you ignoring them? When was the last time you updated your profiles on Realtor.com on Zillow on Redfin on Trulia On the top platforms where you know the customers going online to search for all things real estate when was the last time? Third on the list is a big one and it's a paid placement, not organic.

It's more of an Sem search engine marketing strategy, less of an SEO search engine optimization, but you'll see that it's kind of both in Disguise and that is your Google local Services ads. Now if you ever do a search like Best Realtors in Nashville Now if you're listening or watching in Canada you may be thinking hey, Jason I don't have Google local Services ads available to me and that may be true that you don't However, your competitors don't either. And so there in lies the Silver Lining We'll get through this segment and then we'll be back. On to to ubiquitous strategies that anybody can.

Implement Now with Google local Services ads, let's say a customer does that. search Best Realtors in Nashville Tennessee You're going to see two images of Realtors with phone numbers and all kinds of stuff at the very top of Google Whether it's desktop or mobile The very top, you're going to see two recommended businesses. and I'm willing to bet that in a lot of cases, you might say they're not even in my market. they're in a different city or something like and it happens like that.

Sometimes it's an imperfect science, but it's also a fertile opportunity for you to position yourself to get found by more customers. What a shame that Google's going to somebody from an outside Market versus you. And so if you're not running Google local Services ads or if you are running them but you sort of abandoned them because you thought they were good in the beginning and they've sort of lost their Zeal for life so to speak in terms of generating business, I'm here to tell you you ought to look again and here's why, and this is going to be technical. but here's why we talked before about the Google Map Pack If I do a search for Best Realtor, Nashville Tennessee I will at some point on my Google search results page, I will see a portion of map.

It's typically either a square shape or a horizontal strip of map and then it displays the top three business listings. Now those are organic. Those are Google Business profiles and they're awesome I Love them! I Talked about them in the first point of this video. However, over the past few months, Google has pretty significantly demoted their placement lower in the search results.

It used to be that what you would see on a search like Best Realtors in Nashville would be the local Services ads. and then you'd see the regular pay-per-click search ads. you'd see ads from like Fast Expert and websites like that, and then you generally see that map pack. but the map Pack's been moved usually pretty far down the page.

There are some searches where it's higher up. if you're listening and you're techie, you should pay attention to what those searches are and try to optimize for those searches. But in most cases, we're seeing that map packet pushed way down the page under some organic results. And the reason is pretty obvious.

it's because Google doesn't want a cannibal I clicks on its paid ads When the map pack was higher up on the page, it was easier for a customer to say oh, I'll go there, it's familiar and it was potentially costing Google clicks and calls on their local Services ads Argo I'm telling you, you should put more emphasis on your local Services ads now because Google appears to be rolling out a red carpet to try to drive more search volume and customer Outreach through those channels your Google local Services ads. The good news is is that setting them up is pretty darn easy except for the fact that Google's going to administer a background check that feels comparable to going to the DMV. They're going to ask you all kinds of personal questions they want to see proof of insurance, etc, etc, etc. And that's because they're going to declare you as Google screened, which requires they're going to have to do some sort of reconnaissance work to make sure that they can actually recommend you in that respective way because they're putting their good name on the line, vouching for you so to speak.

Anyways, these Google local Services ads, they're only showing the top two listings and I want to tell you what you can do to maybe get yourself to rank more often there for getting more inbound calls from perspective customers or messages from perspective customers. It's really easy, just lean in I'll tell you exactly what to do so that you get better performance Because remember, setting up these profiles is easy. It's just a matter of going through their procedure. Literally, do a search on Google for Google local Services ads and then click the next buttons and it will walk you through the process.

Easy peasy! The hard part is answering the phone when leads call. The hard part is replying to messages quickly when leads reach out and when you don't answer and when you don't reply, Google pays really close attention and they think I vouched for you I screened you and this is what you do to me and so they're going to massively demote you. The number one best thing you can do to improve your ranking position on Google is you can answer the phone and reply to your messages. Period.

End of story. Then the natural step next is to log your notes and if you book an appointment, log it in the system they give you so that they know you're actually taking care of the customers they're feeding you there. Their reputation is as much on the line as yours is, and they want to partner up with agents and local businesses who are responsive and take excellent customer service care of the folks they're sending your way. Now the next strategy I Recommend is a little bit different and indirect and that is to get on a steady review Rhythm on your Google business profile.

That's right, the reviews on your Google business profile are linked over to your local Services ads and if you can get on a Cadence like one review a week or maybe it's one review every other week. It depends upon how many deals you close and how many prospective reviews you could be getting theoretically. But the trick is get on a predictable Cadence and that shows tremendous. Confidence From Google standpoint that you're actually doing business on a regular basis, customers are leaving reviews.

This is a well oiled machine. It's working. We feel good vouching for it. Let's rank it more often.

Google Promises you based upon your ad, spend a certain number of leads per week that you're not getting and the likelihood is because they're not giving them to you based upon the fact that they they think others are more deserving of those. The best thing you can do to get your local Services ads to rank better is play ball with Google Log The notes, answer the calls, respond to the leads. Easy peasy, You just have to do the work. This is truly a lead.

Source Where the only hack the best hack is doing the work Now fourth on the list is another kind of obvious one, but an important one. Guess what? Prospective sellers are looking up Top agents on social media they're looking on Instagram they're looking on Facebook they're looking on Tik Tok they're looking on YouTube They're looking up on social media. now. This could go down a couple of different ways.

One they may look you up. maybe you met them at an open house and they were a neighbor and they want to see what you're all about. So the first question you have to address is, hey, when a customer looks me up, does my social presence sell or unsell my services and you may want to do some you know, improvements on your pages in terms of content in terms of profile, pictures, and bios and all that jazz. The other way to look at this is, well, how do I get found by prospective sellers who maybe don't know who I am yet yet? And the answer is through optimized content.

So when you post content on Instagram for instance, use a location tag Facebook use a location tag even YouTube use a location tag because you're feeding information to those platforms. That says, my content takes place here in this hyper local vicinity and it is therefore relevant in this area. So when it comes to these algorithms, making suggestions for Content they're factoring that in the geotagging matters. use of low sorry picking up there use of local hashtags also matters now.

Hashtags: A lot of people think, oh, I'm going to use the right hashtag and get lots and lots of views and lots and lots of likes and get discovered and become Instagram Famous or Social Media Famous. That's not what it's about. It's not going to get you all that, but what it could do is get you found by the right people in that final mile moment where they're looking for somebody at the right time. So what are the local hashtags? That perhaps somebody who is a local seller looking for somebody who can do the job for them at a high level seeing what's around them? What are some of those hashtags that might help optimize your content to get shown to them at that critical moment? Now you're putting a lot of faith in the algorithm.

You're giving information to the algorithm and saying I'm trusting you algorithm on Instagram and Facebook and these other platforms. I'm trusting you to give this content to the right people at the right time And the more you give it, the more opportunity it has to give you to the right people at the right time. I Know that's an abstract thought, but I hope you're tracking along with it rolling into the third practice, which is the content you produce itself the way these platforms work more now than they did ever before is through suggested content. About a third or so of what we see in our feeds on Facebook and Instagram just for instance, is suggested content.

What you see on the explor and homepage of YouTube is suggested content. It's the platform showing you what it thinks you might be interested in. So what would happen if your content would be really interesting to people whose interest have suddenly shifted into the idea of selling a house? What are the things they're looking at on social media? And how can you create content that would actually be delivered to them? How can you put the algorithms to work for you by leveraging your social media presence to get found by sellers who are in that moment of looking for the best realtor in their area? Number five on the list of getting found by prospective sellers is actually agent referral sites and you might be thinking, well, wait a minute, are you talking about sites like Fast expert or agent Pronto or dwell full and I Am and you might be thinking, well, hey, hang on. Some of those sites have a monthly membership fee and I get it.

I'm not recommending any of them necessarily I Want you to hear me out for a little a little bit? Um, and I'm not suggesting you have to pay that money either or you may be saying, but those are buyer leads. Well, Hom Light is more seller focused and some are more seller Focus than others. But here's here's what I want you to consider I want you to do a search that a seller would do a search Like Best Realtor in my area. we know that buyers could run a search like that, especially relocating buyers.

but we also know sellers are likely to run a search like that. So what I want you to do is run that search in your area and then look closely and see who's running ads on it. If you go to Google and you say Best Realtor Milwaukee or wherever your area is or Best Realtor near me, those types of searches you're going to trigger ads. Somebody out there is advertising on that and it's going to say sponsored right next to the Google search ad and it might be fast, expert or it might be Dave Ramsey endorsed local provider or it might be agent Pronto or it might be HomeLight or it might be upnest.

It could be any of those types of platforms. It doesn't matter which ones it is, What matters is the fact that they're willing to spend money to rank on those kinds of searches. So could it then be possible that a seller might run the search? Best Realtor in Nashville They see this o top 10 Realtors according to this website, that sounds credible. They click on it and the question is have you optimized your profiles on these referral platforms so that in the event someone actually is running ads and it intercepts that seller's search that they see you still I Hope you're getting what I'm saying right now.

It's not that complicated. The reality is the customer is the one doing the search on Google Best Realtor in Nashville And some smart companies out there say we're going to run ads on that Those are keywords. We're going to bid on those keywords so that our links populate in the search results and then the sellers that may have found you through another placement like your Google Business listing or organically on Zillow Well, they got sidetracked on this paid click but they still found you anyways because you took the time to keep your profile up to date and you made yourself look appealing and attractive and like the best choice agent to list that next home in your Marketplace agent. Referral sites are one place to look to get found by more sellers I Hope by now you're convinced like man, sellers are Googling Stuff Sellers are looking stuff up online sellers are reading reviews.

Sellers are far more likely to do research to determine that they're working with the best, most competent, most capable agent to listen and sell their home for the best possible terms. and another space they might look is on other popular review sites. Sites like Yelp I Know sites like your Facebook page I Know sites like Zillow For instance, these are platforms where the consumer has a level of confidence in the reviews they read from other customers who are vouching or saying don't work with this agent or do work with this agent Don't be oblivious to the fact that prospective customers are reading the reviews of past clients and they're going to be informed by those experiences on platforms like Yelp like your Facebook business page and like Zillow Now I understand that Yelp Well I can't get my reviews published or it's really hard or sometimes they filter things out I Don't understand why they're not publishing the reviews or your Facebook page. People keep leaving reviews selling crypto or something like that on my page I Get it that it's imperfect.

but my position to you is it doesn't stop the seller from looking there. It's one more spot a seller might be looking. So what can you do? What can you control in terms of your strategy around these platforms? To get more reviews on Yelp on your Facebook business page on sites like Zillow and you're like, well, do I get the same reviews as my Google business profile? Um, you could. There are some people out there who say well, it could be duplicate content, but because you're not the author of the content, it's unlikely to be penalized.

The harder challenge there is getting clients willing to do it. My recommendation to you is that you pick your most important priorities. What are the platforms that you've heard your clients talk about? What are the platforms that rank organically? For example, if I do a search for best realtors in Nashville on Google and I see Yelp is ranking above the map pack I'm like I should be thinking about Yelp What's more, Yelp syndicates a lot of data to other platforms Apple Maps pulls their data from Yelp for local businesses Instagram If you look at the map on Instagram it pulls its data from Yelp your business can be in the map on Instagram For instance, Yelp is a major syndicator of local data. Yelp feeds a lot of our voice assistants like Siri like Alexa they pull their data their local business data from Yelp Yelp is not just Yelp.com because Yelp syndicates local data to a variety of different placements.

So does your Facebook page your Facebook page syndicates its reviews to your being places for business profile also. So don't operate under this under this delusion that it's just your Facebook page or it's just yel because it's actually a whole lot more even. Google for goodness sake is actually looking at these other platforms. they're called Google sources now.

Google has its own reviews. but if you look really closely at an SEO strategy, a local SEO strategy and how can you best optimize your Google business profile? Actually one of the things you can do is better optimize all your other profiles because Google's always Googling you and Google's looking to ensure that what you claim about your business on your Google business profile is what's also stated on every other profile. So don't be mistaken, even Google's looking at your Yelp your Zillow Your other platforms like that. to gain a sense of Hm is what they're telling me about their business.

Really true or false? Does it? Check out: Google is always Googling You in fact, prospective sellers. They're looking you up online. They're reading testimonials from past clients these that we've just talked about. These six placements are the top places where top producers get found by prospective sellers.

You may say, I can't do all of them at once. That's okay. Tell me in the comments: what's the platform you're most committed to over the next quarter, the next 90 days, and then what's the next quarter and the next quarter? So that over time, maybe over the next three or four or five or six quarters, you have massively improved your findability, your discoverability to be seen, and to be considered by prospective sellers in your local. Marketplace If you're ignoring SEO if you think SEO is just a Blog you are mistaken, it's far more than that, and it's a dominant force of how customers sell customers.

Go find agents, tell me what are you most committed to doing in the next quarter in the comments, and make sure this is episode 100. If you've been holding back this week in marketing, make sure to share this video with your peer group so that they too can start upping their marketing gain until next week. This is this week in marketing a.