Yearly Archives: 2023

Think about the last time you were considering buying something. Your journey probably started in the same place as everyone else: a quick Google search.

Buying a house is no different. The National Association of REALTORS reported that 97% of buyers used the internet at least once during their search, with about half ending up buying a home they found online. Just having a website is part of the game for realtors these days.

If you’re in a competitive market, just having a website might not be enough. For realtors looking to maximize the results, you’ve got to invest more energy to attract buyers through search engine optimization (SEO).

Keep reading for a comprehensive overview of how SEO can level up your real estate website.

Table of Contents

What is real estate SEO?
Benefits of Real Estate SEO
Getting Started With Real Estate SEO
Best Practices for Real Estate SEO

What is real estate SEO?

Search engine optimization is a way of labeling, organizing, and presenting information on the pages of your website so that search engines can better understand what they’re about.

This way, Google becomes more likely to give your web page as a potential answer to the searcher’s question along four key principles known as E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authority, trust).

For real estate website SEO, the same principles apply but focus on the specific terms home buyers will be searching for. These are considered “keywords” that you would include in your web pages to appear higher, or “rank” better, in the search results.

Improving your SEO strategy involves focusing on more specific, local search queries to ensure more targeted results, updating the backend of your website so that the necessary information is there for search engines to see, and understanding what potential clients are looking for.

Benefits of a Real Estate SEO

SEO is not a quick fix or a one-time strategy but a consistent, ongoing effort.

It may require a bit more effort upfront and long-term commitment, but the rewards will be worth it in the end. The benefits from additional visibility can include the following.

Attracting More Buyers and Listings

Making your website easier to find makes buyers and sellers more likely to see it. That translates to more listings, more buyers, and a thriving real estate business.

Increased Brand Awareness

By focusing on the topics your buyers are searching for, you can boost credibility for your real estate business by showcasing your expertise.

That way, even if the searcher isn’t currently in the market, you will have a better chance to be the one they reach out to when they are.

Reducing Paid Channels

Another huge benefit of SEO is to reduce the amount of money you spend driving traffic through paid search ads or social media networks. In fact, according to one Forrester study, investment in SEO can have an ROI as high as 12X.

The more you put into SEO, the less you have to pay for paid channels, and the results will compound over time.

SEO Is “Always On”

Similarly, by investing in an SEO strategy, you can always drive traffic to your website regardless of whether you’re also investing in digital ads.

That way, your website can always attract your next buyer or seller.

Getting Started With Real Estate SEO

To reiterate, SEO is a long-term investment in your business. The most important step is getting started.

Here are the major things you should tackle immediately as you refine your SEO strategy.

1. Conduct keyword research.

Keyword research is the first, but often most important, step when improving your real estate SEO strategy. It starts with understanding how often buyers search for specific terms, how many other companies are competing for those terms, and other factors.

For instance, the keyword phrase “homes for sale” is likely extremely competitive, with everyone competing for it in the real estate search results.

As you add on more specific search terms or aim for long-tail keywords, such as “homes for sale in Chelmsford, MA,” you might be able to have your website rank higher if Google deems your website to be the best answer to the searcher’s query.

Pro tip: Consider using an SEO tool, like Semrush or Arel=”noopener” target=”_blank” hrefs, when conducting keyword research. These programs provide information on keyword difficulty and search volume. You can then better target keywords for your website.

2. Optimize your website.

While Google’s algorithm only continues to get smarter, it still needs help understanding exactly what a page is about.

As you update your website, pay close attention to how your pages are organized using header tags, meta descriptions, and other details.

Once you’ve incorporated more of the identified keywords from the first step, consider adding more content to your site. That might include starting a blog, adding video content, or having images and infographics related to home buying in your area.

All of these content types provide a clearer picture for the search engine to understand what your website is about.

Pro tip: Are you new to blog writing? HubSpot’s content assistant leverages the power of AI to make writing easy. You can have the program generate text, create an outline for you to follow, or rephrase your existing writing.

3. Focus on technical SEO.

SEO isn’t just about writing more content and incorporating as many keywords as possible. Technical SEO refers to all the behind-the-scenes elements that search engines crawl and index. This can include your site optimization, page speed, and mobile compatibility.

You’ll want to ensure your images are optimized and your pages are structured so search engines can understand their content.

Pro tip: If you’re new to technical SEO, this course from HubSpot Academy can help you build the right foundation.

4. Monitor progress.

According to clearscope.io, it can take anywhere from one to six months and upwards of 12 to rank within the top 10 Google results. Using your analytics platform, you’ll want to keep track of the changes you’ve made and monitor how your ranking changes over time.

As you refine your SEO strategy, you should align your website additions and updates with the goals you’re trying to reach, whether that’s increased brand awareness, more home buyers contacting you, or increasing the number of available listings in your arsenal.

Best Practices for Real Estate SEO

SEO is a wide-ranging, constantly changing discipline. It can also get very technical the more you dive into it.

Fortunately, you can get most of the benefits out of your real estate SEO strategy by adopting these best practices.

Start a blog.

Most pages online, even those in the top 10 search results, are dated. Nearly 60% of the pages ranking in the top 10 Google results are two years old, if not older.

Having a regularly updated blog can help improve page rankings on SERPs. All other things being equal, search engines will favor newer content over older posts.

Plus, according to Hubspot’s customer data, companies that produce a blog have 434% more search engine-indexed pages and get 55% more visitors than those that don’t.

Keep meta descriptions up to date.

43% of people click on a given result solely based on the meta description. At the same time, 25% of top-ranking websites have left the meta description field blank.

While this isn’t an immediate problem, as search engines will auto-generate one for you, you’re missing a chance to make the copy more enticing for users to click on your site.

Focus on the right keywords.

When using tools like Google Search Console to understand what users are searching for, don’t focus too much on those with the highest volume. Often, these will be the most competitive and hardest to rank for.

Instead, lower volume but less competitive keywords might be a better option, as you’ll likely have an increased chance of getting that coveted #1 ranking.

Get backlinks to your website.

As part of its calculations, search engines look at how many other websites are linking to yours, which is called backlinking. A backlink strategy is an important part of your real estate website SEO, as it helps drive more organic traffic from other websites to yours.

These backlinks boost your website’s authority, improving rankings over time. Backlinks are also a valuable source of referral traffic, helping to increase website visitors and ultimately leading to potential buyers or listings.

Start your SEO strategy today.

Investing in a real estate SEO strategy is a great way for realtors to increase website visibility and gain more customers, both on the buyer and listing sides.

Through keyword research and optimizing your website’s backend, you can ensure that your pages appear at the top of search engine results.

Investing in SEO can lead to increased sales and reduced costs on paid channels which means that the effort you put in will be well worth the work over time.

Working with large data sets is always tricky. Excel is one of the most powerful tools you can use to manipulate, format, and analyze large sets of information.

Several well-known functions exist to help you look up specific matches within a dataset, like VLookup.

But functions like VLookup had certain limitations, so Microsoft recently introduced the XLookup function to Excel. It provides a more robust method for finding specific values in a data set.

Knowing how to use it effectively can drastically cut down the time you spend trying to analyze data in Excel.

What does XLookup do in Excel?

The Benefits of XLookup in Excel

XLookup Required Arguments

XLookup Optional Arguments

How to Use XLookup in Excel

Best Practices for XLookup in Excel

What does XLookup do in Excel?

The core functionality of the XLookup is the ability to search for specific values in a range or array of data. When you run the function, a corresponding value is returned from another range or array.

Ultimately, it’s a search tool for your Excel datasets.

Depending on your arguments, XLookup will show you the first or last value in instances with more than one matching result.

Other lookup functions like VLookup (vertical lookup) or HLookup (horizontal lookup) have limitations, such as only searching from right to left. Users need to either rearrange data or find complex workarounds to mitigate this.

XLookup is a far more flexible solution, allowing you to get partial matches, use more than one search criteria and use nested queries.

Check out this XLookup Excel tutorial to see it in action:

The Benefits of XLookup in Excel

The main benefit of XLookup in Excel is the time savings it provides. You can achieve the search result without manipulating data positioning, for example.

Like other Excel lookup formulas, it saves a huge amount of time that would otherwise have to be spent manually scrolling through rows and rows of data.

When it comes to comparisons with other lookup functions, XLookup’s flexibility is key. For example, you can use wildcard characters to search for partial matches.

This helps to reduce errors overall, as you can use it to find data that may be misspelled or entered incorrectly.

The arguments for XLookup are also simpler than VLookup, making it faster and easier to use. XLookup defaults to an exact match, for example, whereas you would have to specify this in your VLookup argument.

The overall functionality of XLookup is superior since it can return multiple results at once. One example of this use case would be searching for the top five values in a particular dataset.

XLookup Required Arguments

Your XLookup function requires three arguments:

Lookup_value: This is the value you’re searching for in an array.
Lookup_array: This is the range of cells where you want the return value to be displayed.
Return_array: This is the range of cells where you want the function to search for the value.

So a simple version of an XLookup would look like this:

=XLOOKUP(lookup_value, lookup_array, return_array)

XLookup Optional Arguments

The XLookup function also has several optional arguments that you can use for more complex scenarios or to narrow down your search:

Match_mode: This determines the type of match to use, such as exact match or wildcard match to get partial matches.
Search_mode: This determines whether your function should search from left to right or vice versa.
If_not_found: This argument tells the function what value should be returned if there is no match at all.

With optional arguments included, the XLookup function looks like this:

=XLOOKUP(lookup_value, lookup_array, return_array, [if_not_found], [match_mode], [search_mode])

How to Use XLookup in Excel

1. Open the Excel and the datasheet on which you want to use the XLookup function.

2. Select the cell where you want to place the XLookup Excel formula.

3. Type “=” into that cell and then type “XLookup.” Click on the “XLookup” option that comes up in the dropdown.

4. An opening parenthesis will automatically generate. After the opening bracket, enter the required arguments in the correct order: lookup_value, lookup_array, and return_array.

This means selecting the range of cells for each argument and placing a comma before moving on to the next argument.

5. If you’re using any optional arguments, enter them after the required arguments.

6. When your XLookup arguments are complete, add a closing parenthesis before hitting enter.

7. The results of your XLookup should be displayed in the cell where you entered the function.

In this Excel XLookup example, we used XLookup to find out the grade for a particular student. So, the lookup_value was the student’s name (“Ruben Pugh”).

The lookup_array was the list of student names under column A. Finally, the lookup_return was the list of student grades under column C. With that formula, the function returned the value of the student’s grade: C-.

But how do you use XLookup with the optional arguments?

Using the same data set as above, let’s say we want to find the attendance rate for a student with the surname “Smith.”

Here, we’re telling Excel to return the message “Not Found” if it cannot retrieve the value, indicating that the student “Smith” is not on this list:

Now, let’s say we want to determine whether any students had an attendance rate of 70%. But we also want to know the next closest attendance rate if 70% does not exist in the dataset.

We’ll use the value “1” under the match_mode argument to find the next largest item if 70 does not exist:

Since no student has a 70% attendance rate, the XLookup has returned “75,” the next largest value.

Best Practices for XLookup in Excel

Use Descriptive References

It’s preferable to use descriptive references for the cells you’re using rather than generic ranges like A1:A12.

When it comes time to adjust your formula (which you tend to do frequently with a function like XLookup), descriptive references make it easier to understand what you were originally using the formula to do.

This is also useful if you pass the spreadsheet off to a new user who needs to understand the formula references quickly.

Use Exact Match Where Possible

Using the exact match default within the formula (as opposed to wildcard characters) helps ensure you don’t get unintended values in the return.

Wildcard characters are more useful for identifying partial matches, but the exact match is the best way to ensure the formula works as intended.

Keep Argument Ranges the Same Size

When putting your arguments together, make sure that you use the same number of cells for the return_array and the look_up array. If not, you’ll get an error, and Excel will only return #VALUE in the cell.

Test Your Formula

It’s not difficult to fix problems with a simple XLookup. But if you’re using nested functions or XLookup in conjunction with other formulas, ensure you’re testing everything along the way.

If you don’t and receive an error, it can be challenging to work backward and identify where the function is going wrong.

Getting Started

As a new and improved way to use lookup functionality in Excel, the XLookup outperforms the classic VLookup in multiple ways.

While the basics of the function are easy to grasp, it can take some practice to use XLookup in more complex ways. But with some practice data and test scenarios to work on, you’ll master the XLookup in no time.

Post Content

The great thing about YouTube is that there’s a channel for everyone, whether you’re looking to learn quick science facts or how to use your new gaming controller. 

In this post, we’ve compiled 158 of the best channels on YouTube in their most popular and niche categories. 

Best YouTube News Channels

Vice (16.8 Million Subscribers)
IndiaTV (34.8 Million Subscribers)
CNN (15 Million Subscribers)
Vox (11.3 Million Subscribers)
ABS-CBN News (43.5 Million Subscribers)
Inside Edition (11.7 Million Subscribers)
ABC News (14.3 Million Subscribers)
The Young Turks (5.4 Million Subscribers)
BBC News (14.1 Million Subscribers)
AJ+ (1.2 Million Subscribers)

Some businesses have used AI for years; others were prompted by the recent AI gold rush to jump on the train.

AI’s applications are far and wide as every business can leverage it differently to meet their goals. In this post, we’ll review AI application examples across 12 industries.

AI Applications Examples

AI has transformed the business landscape as time-saving tools complete tasks and help make data-backed decisions.

Click here to explore the full playlist

Virtually all industries can benefit from AI, from medical providers to students pursuing an education. Below we’ll go over how AI applies to the three main business functions (marketing, sales, and service) and specific examples across different industries.

1. AI Applications in Marketing

Marketers can leverage AI to save significant time on routine tasks and spend more time on the more creative aspects of their job.

A time-saving example is AI analytics tools that use machine learning to process large amounts of data and surface insights that can help marketers track campaign performance.

Generative AI can help marketers research, brainstorm ideas, and create content like emails, product descriptions, and videos. Tools like HubSpot’s content assistant can help marketers automate the blog writing process, saving time while still generating high-quality and helpful content for audiences.

Many businesses already use AI-powered tools for segmented targeting and personalized ads on social media based on someone’s history and site behavior. Marketers can also use AI for content moderation to combat illegal and harmful content on their websites and forums.

2. AI Applications in Sales

Salespeople can use AI to simplify and optimize a sales process so it’s easier to sell.

For example, AI tools can analyze customer profiles and compile relevant data to help sales reps reach out with unique, personalized value propositions.

Sales teams can also use AI to forecast revenue and address potential roadblocks to success before they grow too large or use programs that simulate sales situations for training and development.

3. AI Applications in Customer Service

As with sales, AI is used in customer service to improve the customer experience and ensure customers can always find the information they need to have a delightful experience with their favorite brands.

Businesses can use chatbots that use natural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG) to understand human input and bring relevant answers. A CS team might also use a sentiment analysis tool to understand the tone of over-the-phone conversations to see how customers feel and identify areas for improvement.

Customer service call centers might use AI and machine learning tools, like automated call routing software that always transfers customers to the agent best suited to help.

4. AI Applications in Healthcare

The healthcare industry has used AI for a while. In fact, using AI in minimally invasive procedures is a pillar of the practice, and some providers are starting to use robot assistance during more significant procedures.

Examples of newer applications of AI in healthcare involve using machines that use a patient’s medical history to detect potential health complications or alert medical providers to changing conditions. AI has also been used to analyze clinical drug trial data much faster.

Professionals also use AI tools to prioritize in-appointment conversations, like speech recognition technology that can detect voices, transcribe conversations, and take notes as a doctor is present in conversation with a patient. Nuance Communications, Inc offers conversational AI to healthcare professionals.

5. AI Applications in Banking and Finance

80% of banks know the benefits of using AI, and many have leveraged it for some time.

Some customer-facing applications are virtual assistants or chatbots that use natural language processing to understand input and help customers find what they need within websites, mobile apps, and even over the phone.

AI also powers fraud detection, as machines learn a user’s typical transaction activity and history and flag out-of-the-ordinary transactions as potential security concerns to trigger security workflows to keep people safe.

6. AI Applications in Education

Education is most beneficial when it’s human-led, but AI is used to supplement instructors and students processes. For example, teachers can use audio transcription tools to generate transcripts from lectures or to record lesson plans, prioritizing accessibility and giving students a way to continue to learn the material after class is over.

AI tools can also increase productivity, like a teacher using a virtual assistant to set up reminders for assignments to help students stay on track with their responsibilities.

When used responsibly, students can leverage generative AI tools to learn more about subjects, understand their work, and get ideas for assignments.

7. AI Applications in the Environmental Sector

Scientists and environmentalists use AI to better understand environmental issues and address challenges like climate change. Some software monitors global deforestation on a large scale, like GEMS Air Pollution Monitoring platform, which analyzes data from 25,000 air quality monitoring stations in 140 countries to give insights on the impact of different air quality ratings on populations.

On a smaller scale, individuals can use smart appliances at home that monitor usage and help conserve energy.

8. AI Applications in Consumer Services

AI is used in consumer services to analyze behavior, predict preferences, and make recommendations based on predictions.

Netflix’s recommendation algorithm is a great example, as it learns from a user’s viewing history, ratings, and likes to find content that matches their interest. It even goes so far as to change the title image for movies and shows based on what will attract each user’s attention.

9. AI in Transportation and Navigation

Self-driving vehicles are a common application of AI in transportation. These cars are powered by algorithms that can detect and analyze a car’s surroundings to determine the safest route forward, like stopping when a light turns red or the best movements to make to parallel park.

10. AI Applications in Hiring and Recruitment

Application management is a great example of AI in hiring and recruitment. Specialized software sifts through resumes and cover letters to find keywords and experiences that match job descriptions and surface those to hiring managers.

These tools are unbiased in their application sorting, ensuring all candidates are assessed equally and without preferential treatment, and it saves hiring managers time for open positions that receive a large number of applications.

11. AI in Real Estate

Real estate agents often use AI to analyze the housing market. They get a sense of market conditions to determine how to price properties, make recommendations to clients on when they should sell their homes, and use historical forecasts and trends to understand how people will change buying habits during specific periods.

12. AI in Manufacturing

Robots are involved in many manufacturing processes, like AI-powered bots that receive instructions and use them to complete tasks on assembly lines. AI is also commonly used to identify faulty products for quality control.

Over to You

As shown, the applications for AI across different industries and business functions are vast. How will you apply it to your business?