Adam Schwartz eXp Realty
A Local SEO case study for the highly competitive real estate industry
Year
2024
We began working with Adam at the beginning of June in 2024. His main objective was to increase his visibility online in order to attract more clients, but without the need for ongoing monthly advertising costs.
We spent some time doing our research in the local Realtor space online, checking out the competition and developing a plan of attack. We observed that his Google Business Profile wasn't performing very well at all for his target clients relevant keywords.
With that in mind we set out to develop a website for him with the primary purpose of establishing local authority and relevance. We also began our process of optimizing his Google Business Profile.
We're happy to report that even with a very simple 6 months campaign ending in November, we've been able to increase his views and exposure for relevant local keywords on Google local searches significantly, and his website ranking & metrics continue to increase.
You may notice we left out the Local ranking data for this project. Although it's a good set of data that is consistent with these results, the reason you should care about Local SEO for your business isn't the ranking, it's the result of the ranking. The whole point is to get as much search visibility as possible in order to attract more clients, so that's what the following article and case study is about... the results.
We're excited to watch the future of this one, even though it's a very competitive market.
Role
UX/UI Design with Local Authority as the Primary Objective
Google Business Profile Optimization and Management
Looking at the website ends of things, as far as performance, you can see similar results. While website performance isn't quite as critical for a local businesses' online performance as the Google Business Profile, it's definitely still important. Here we are highlighting the search terms users are typing into Google that cause Adam's website to populate in search results. You can see that many people are still "searching" for Adam's business, (and that's good) however the vast majority of searches fall more into the "discovery" category, and those are high volume keywords, (many searches) as well as being very competitive keywords in a competitive industry.
Looking at the website performance in the past 6 months will show a couple different points we'd like to highlight. First of all, look at the trajectory of search impressions. It took nearly until September for it to gain some real traction on Google, and look at the trajectory at the end. It's gone parabolic. From this data, we can tell that these are competitive keywords since it took quite a while for this site to gain traction. We can also tell how important real SEO is. We haven't made any on-site changes to Adam's site or Google Business Profile since November 2024, but yet the search impressions went parabolic in mid-January in 2025. How? It's because well-done SEO stands the test of time, and the results are lasting. While it takes time to see results, they last long after the campaign is over.
As we previously mentioned, local business website performance isn't nearly as important as the Google Business Profile performance, but it's worth mentioning that they are intertwined in such a way that when correctly structured, optimized, and maintained, the website authority and performance has a very positive effect on the ranking positions of the Google Business Profile. We're going to keep an eye on Adam's project, we anticipate his Google Profile will follow along with his website performance.
Moving on into 2025, Adam has yet another "best month ever" as far as Google Business Profile views are concerned. Even though our campaign ended in November 2024, his Google Business Profile views continue to rise. Yet another example of the power of local SEO when it's done right. The results of real, white-hat local SEO continue to reflect on a business long after a campaign ends. PPC (paid ads) do not have nearly the same effect. Think of it like buying milk vs buying cows. If you're buying milk, you only get the milk when you're buying it. Buying cows ensures you're getting milk for a long time. We're buying cows here with our local SEO strategies.
Another month, another increase in views to the website and Google Business Profile...
As you can clearly see, the jump in website impressions wasn't a fluke. The impressions continue to roll in at 4x the amount they did for the first several months. Remember, this is a brand new site we just built in May/June of 2024, and we haven't done any work to it since November. Again, demonstrating just how powerful our Local SEO techniques are.
Moving on to the Google Business Profile stats for February and we notice yet another "best ever" month as far as profile views. Even with February being the shortest month of the year, we were still able to beat the previous month by 50+ views. Again, it's been three full months since we actively worked on Adam's website or Google Business Profile.
We think this is pretty awesome, and it yet again serves to highlight just how important these efforts are to your local business.
Quick update now that the March numbers are finalized. Another month, and another highest recorded profile views. The real estate market is now warming up along with the weather. Look at the number of searches, showing double compared to some of the prior winter months.
Adam is still ranking well for those "discovery" keywords that bring in new clients, which is exactly what you want.
