The Buyer Psychology SEO Playbook: Keywords That Sell Real Estate

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between real estate teams that are still closing deals in this chaotic market and the ones desperately chasing leads they can’t catch?

Top-producers understand how their clients’ minds work.

They know what questions they ask.

They know what keeps them up at night.

They know what makes them feel confident in their decisions.

But they don’t just understand buyer psychology; they actually leverage it into their SEO strategy so they are consistently taking clients from first-click to closing with their website. 

We are in the era of real estate where 100% percent of home purchases begin with an online search. That means it’s literally now your job to make sure Google and LLMs (like ChatGPT) are referring you targeted traffic. 

The key word there being “targeted”, because we don’t just want vanity traffic numbers, we want actual trackable transactions and passive sales that will empower you to scale. 

So how do we get your real estate website to rank at the top of Google and LLM searches in the exact moments buyers and sellers are hiring an agent or purchasing a property? 

In this week’s edition of The Elevated Agent, you’re going to walk away with:

• A deeper understanding of how your ideal clients think

• A list of keywords to attract buyers and sellers hiring agents in your market right now

• A plan to get real estate leads from Google & LLMs without starting a real estate blog

In my last decade of working with real estate teams to rank at the top of Google, SEO has been one of the most misunderstood, expensive and overwhelming aspects of digital marketing. I believe the SEO companies make it sound more complicated than it really is to steal your money while doing little to nothing for you and discouraging intelligent questions about what they aren’t doing for you as they charge hundreds to thousands of dollars per month.

But the truth is, SEO is NOT SCARY and it doesn’t need to be expensive if you are intentional and implement this guide to ranking for real estate searches that lead to sales. 

Focus On Hyper-Local Niches With Urgent & Important Needs

Niche marketing is the most affordable approach to real estate lead generation but only if you have align yourself with a profitable local niche you’re passionate about serving better than anyone else in your market. 

So what makes a real estate niche strategic and highly-profitable?

The trick is to select a niche with urgent and important needs that can only be met by selling or purchasing real estate as soon as possible. This is how you avoid having to nurture leads for years before they hire you. 

Examples of Real Estate Niches With Urgent & Important Problems You Can Solve:

• Aging adults that have had a medical event forcing them into a medical facility that will require the sale of their home to pay for care and residency.

• Divorcing couples needing to sell the family home(s) and purchase or lease new properties in accordance with court rulings. 

• Short-sales, pre-foreclosure and foreclosure leads are on the rise and expected to reach 2008/2009 numbers. Especially in states like Florida and California where natural disasters are sparking mass migrations. 

What you will notice about all of the most profitable real estate niches is they are emotionally high-stakes transactions. Makes sense when you realize nearly all real estate sales are emotionally based decisions.

The better you become at speaking to the emotions of buyers and sellers in these profitable niches, the higher your lead conversion rank will soar. 

Work Your Way Up from The Bottom of Your Funnel

The biggest mistake I see most real estate teams make with their keyword strategy is they focus on keywords that attract people too early in the decision-making process. The longer you have to nurture your leads, the more they cost you in resources. 

Your objective should be to target keywords based on pain points at the bottom of the funnel first, not the top like most people think.

Top of Funnel (TOFU): Early-stage, information-gathering searches. These are usually broader, less urgent, and more curiosity-driven.

Bottom of Funnel (BOFU): Late-stage, decision-making searches. These are highly specific, urgent, and often tied to an immediate need.

Again, this is how you attract leads ready to hire you today vs. 9 months from now. 

Close the Gaps Created by your Competitors 

The next step in collecting gobs of highly-targeted real estate leads from Chat-GPT is to refine your services, messaging and keywords to speak to the exiting gaps in the market. For example, let’s say your niche is divorcing couples and there is already another team targeting the same niche in your town. Your job is to find the gap between what consumers really want & need and what you and your competitor are currently offering. 

One of the most widely misunderstood aspects of marketing and messaging among real estate agents and brokers is assuming that you all offer the same services and/or that your audience assumes that. 

You all have the license to do the same things but your service menu and pricing options for working with you should be completely tailored to your niche + local market. 

Your goal is to get consumers of a specific niche (who share common urgent and important pain points) to see buying or selling with you as the best way to get what they really want out of life right now. 

News flash: nobody wants a 30 year mortgage and the sensation of being stuck like they once did. 

They DO want a transformation. They want to go from their current state of discomfort to a state of pride, relief and satisfaction based on the challenges they are currently facing. 

How Does Refining Your Real Estate Services Menu Help You Get Leads From Chat-GPT?

• Since search results in ChatGPT are based on the same SEO as Google you need to rank for keywords with high-intent and low competition. This process helps eliminate your competition to help you rank first in searches. 

• Once leads land on your site, your completely unique services will make you appear more valuable, professional and desirable because they will speak to their specific needs not every buyer and seller.

• By customizing your real estate services around your niches unique needs and customer journey, you will create more consistent and predictable results leading to more positive reviews which gives you more authority and credibility in the eyes of search engines and compounds into more leads over time. 

How To Rewrite Your Real Estate Service Menu To Get Leads From ChatGPT

Once you have performed a GAP Analysis to identify which of your ideal clients’ very specific needs aren’t being addressed online and the transformation they desire you can create a shiny new service menu that makes you the obvious option for your leads to choose. 

4 Steps To Rewrite Your Real Estate Service Menu:

1. Define Your Main Offer & Create A Strategic Freebie That Provides A Quick Win For Your Ideal Client

2. Describe the Client Experience Using Emotions

3. Create Supplement Services That Further Support Your Niche’s Primary Goals

4. Nurture Lead Magnet Leads with your Newsletter Containing Content Speaking To The Same Pain Points & Your Personal Stories Of Working With People To Generate The Targeted Result

This is one of the most valuable exercises you will ever do as a real estate agent, broker or coach. 

Use Keyword-Based FAQs to Overcome Sales Objections

Speaking of high-value activities that provide a quick win and major ROI, you’re going to LOVE how easy and effective this next one is!

Start by giving ChatGPT your ideal client profile and your new service menu along with your GAP Analysis and the following prompt:

Please read and analyze this information about my ideal client and my services and brainstorm a list of 20 internal and external objections my ideal client is likely to have to hire me for my primary (Signature) offer. Use emotions and be specific about the pain points they have at each stage of their decision making process. What are my blind spots when it comes to providing a more holistic customer-centric solution to their most urgent and important needs?

Now take the time to read through the answers it provides aloud and make sure they resonate as being realistic.

Once you’re happy with that list, use this prompt next:

Based on everything you now know about my ideal client and niche in [city} please brainstorm a list of keywords I should focus on to add SEO-friendly FAQs to my website that will overcome every single one of my ideal clients internal and external objections to hiring me. 

Now comes my favorite part!

It’s time for you to write the answers to these questions using examples and stories from your lived experiences with clients. This is a key component to the SEO puzzle because more than ever the search engines prioritize real lived human experiences, examples, and authority.

Then add 1-3 of those FAQs to your website every week. Bonus points if you answer in a video which will create an even deeper connection between you and prospective clients. This practice tells the search engines you are more trustworthy because you’re adding fresh content that follows their rules on a consistent weekly basis. 

You Will Now Be Relevant

Search engines live and die on the “relevant content” hill.

Websites with the most niche-specific and deeply relevant content are the ones that win.

The more niche-specific your real estate website becomes and the more you tailor your content and services around the most important and urgent pain points of your niche the sooner your phone will start ringing with ChatGPT leads.