How do you search for information these days? If you’re like the majority of Americans, you’re turning to AI more and more. According to a study by the Associated Press & NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 60% of Americans use AI to find information — more than any other use case (like shopping or writing assistance).
Even if you’re not using a dedicated AI service like ChatGPT, you may have noticed that the top result for many Google searches is now an “AI Overview” generated by Google’s Gemini.
So what does that mean for SEO and how you get found online when trying to generate real estate leads? While there’s no guaranteed way to make sure you appear in AI search results, there are best practices that give you a better-than-average chance. Let’s dive into how you can use AI search results to build your real estate business.
Key Takeaways
- There is no guaranteed way to make sure you appear in AI search results, but there are best practices that give you a better-than-average chance. Following these best practices now puts you ahead of the curve as AI continues to advance.
- Have a clear, consistent business entity (complete, unique, and thorough information about your business) that appears on all your online profiles. If AI doesn’t know who you are or what you do, you won’t appear in AI results.
- “Off page” signals are important to AI. Reddit is a great tool for building your off-page presence.
Table of Contents
- What’s Changed with AI SEO?
- Website Tweaks to Show Up in AI Search Results
- “Off Page” Signals Matter a Lot to AI
- Get Ahead with AI SEO
What’s Changed with AI SEO?
The truth is, the rise of AI hasn’t dramatically impacted SEO best practices. Experts agree that key SEO cornerstones like producing high-quality, valuable content still have the biggest impact. Get more details in our June post, How AI is Reshaping SEO for Real Estate Investors: What You Need to Know in 2025.
What we are seeing is that people are moving away from keywords and deeper into the “natural language” style of searching, where they type entire questions. Or in the case of AI search, they may even give AI engines like ChatGPT entire paragraphs worth of instructions to get highly tailored information.
So, what does this mean for you and your online lead generation? First, you shouldn’t sit back and do nothing. AI search is still in its infancy, and if you wait to address it, you’ll find yourself behind in the years to come. What you should do is continue writing high-quality content and answering keyword-focused questions while also incorporating elements that we know AI engines look for.
What do AI engines look for, and how do you get cited in AI search results? Glad you asked!
Website Tweaks to Appear in AI Search Results
Carrot CEO Trevor Mauch recently hosted a comprehensive webinar on Website Tweaks Investors Make to Rank in AI Search to Get Motivated Sellers. He covers what’s changed and how AI works, but most importantly, he gives actionable takeaways you can implement right now to improve your company’s AI visibility.
Here are a few highlights that give you a better chance of appearing in AI results.
Solidify Your Entity
What’s an entity? It’s complete, unique, and thorough information about your business. Who you are, what you do, and the services you offer in clear, consistent language that AI can read and understand.
Start by crafting a clear, compelling bio that defines your business. This can include:
- Your company’s mission and core values
- Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
- Your target client/ideal lead and service area
- The services you offer or problems you specialize in solving
- What makes you different from competitors
- Company history
Then make sure this bio is the same everywhere your business appears — your website, Google My Business profile, social media profiles, YouTube, BBB account, etc. Also make sure your company name appears exactly the same across all these platforms. As far as AI is concerned, Home Buyers, home buyers, and Homebuyers are all different.
AI is powered by large language models (LLMs), whose entire job is to take in information. If you’re inconsistent or try to be too “cutesy” with your descriptions, the LLMs can’t process the data consistently and correctly. This means it won’t know when to serve up your information in an AI search. Put simply, if AI doesn’t know who you are or what you do, you won’t appear in AI results.
Include AI-Friendly Elements on Your Website
Remember, LLMs are simply a mechanism to take in data, so you need to make sure the data you give it is easy to understand and stands out. To accomplish this, make sure your website has these key elements that AI loves.
Add FAQs to your key pages
FAQs are one of the most concise ways to directly answer common questions — exactly what AI looks for.
Add well-structured FAQ sections to the bottom of key pages on your site, like your homepage, location-specific pages, and services pages. Don’t repeat the same FAQs on each page. Instead, address common questions that relate directly to that page. For instance, on your homepage you should explain the types of services you offer, who you help, and your experience, while on the services pages you can go into more detail about how that particular service works, who it’s a good solution for, and answer common questions or misconceptions about it.
Make sure your FAQ sections follow the question and answer format. Not sure what questions to answer? Think about what questions you commonly hear from leads or go to Google and start typing in topics to see what auto suggestions appear. Be sure to use the language your leads do. While you might use the term “probate,” your potential leads might use something like “inherited house.” You don’t want to lose a lead just becaue they don’t know the technical jargon.
Finally, ensure the pages FAQs appear on (and any important pages on your site) are indexable by search engines (found in the page’s SEO settings).
A strong “About” page
This is where you sell yourself — highlighting your experience and what makes you different. AI loves originality and uniqueness, so tell everyone why you’re different than other real estate investors. Imagine someone is searching for the best way to sell their home fast. Why should AI recommend you?
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with this. How do you convince someone to work with you when you’re speaking in person? What really resonates with them or inspires confidence? Simply work those talking points onto your About page. Including stats is also good practice. Your numbers are yours, which is exactly the type of unique, original, statistical information AI prefers to surface. Consider including numbers like:
- How many deals you’ve done
- Your average time to close
- Average purchase price you pay for homes
- How long you’ve lived/worked in this area
- Think of other interesting stats about your business
In the spirit of building a consistent entity, include a “Find me on …” section where you link to your social profiles and other channels. This helps build that web of connections for LLMs, reinforcing the information you share.
Need help writing a stellar About page? Check out our About Page Prompt for Real Estate Investors that makes the whole process painless!
Clear sections with properly structured headers
Put simply, LLMs are machines that scan your website for information. If it can’t process how that information is structured or “understand” what it says, you’ll never show up in AI. So traditional SEO tactics like using clear sections on your pages with proper header tags explaining what each section is about are more important than ever. (AI isn’t changing SEO best practices, it’s just reinforcing them.)
A clear site structure (including a good sitemap, Robots.txt, and LLMs.txt file) makes it easier for AI to parse your information.
Build Authority by Showing Proof
If you want to be viewed as the best option in your area, you need to show that you’re the best. One of the best ways to do this is by showing what you’ve done and the real world results.
Highlight your experience by showing homes you’ve purchased in the past (posting a photo of the home in the condition you bought it in can also give potential clients confidence that you’ll buy their house too). Lean deep into localization by listing street names or neighborhoods you’ve done business in. The more information you can share, the better. A statement like “I’ve bought over 25 houses for cash in the West Colfax area of Denver!” has more weight than simply “I buy houses for cash in the West Colfax area of Denver.”
Add third party proof by telling customer stories about how you’ve helped. Better yet, get a video of them telling their own story. Even if you don’t have a full story to tell, try getting a photo with the person and paint a picture with a good caption like, “Super excited to work with Jenny! We just bought her Boylston St. house in Jamaica Plain as-is!”
Turn your Google My Business and social media profiles into powerful marketing tools by using reviews from those platforms on your website. Take a screenshot of the review (which gives it more authenticity) and post it as an image on your website. To make sure search engines crawl the image properly and understand the context, type whatever the review says plus your company name into the image alt text. Something like “Carrot Homebuyers review from Jenny C.: It was great working with Jamie, we got a fair price and closed in our tight timeline!” LLMs can’t “see” the image; it needs the alt text to know what it is and what it says.
“Off Page” Signals Matter a Lot to AI
All of the onsite tweaks are important to make sure AI knows what your business is and does, but that’s only part of the battle. More so than with traditional SEO, AI doesn’t care what you say about your business, it cares what other people say about your business.
This is where many companies drop the ball. They optimize their website and business profiles, but they’re not engaging in and driving “off page” authority that’s increasingly important to AI. In a follow up webinar, Trevor covers The 3 OFF-PAGE tactics that drive 80% of AI SEO results.
Interested in the challenge mentioned in the webinar recording? Join the next AI SEO Challenge!
What is an “Off Page” source and why does it matter?
An “off page” source is simply any other website or platform that talks about your company but isn’t attached to your domain. This can be everything from YouTube and Reddit to media/press release sites to local business websites. AI search engines rely heavily on these third party sources, so you want to make sure you’re present and part of the conversation.
Here are some of the top off-page sources AI engines turn to for trust signals.
There are several ways to get your brand name out there — the webinar and AI SEO Challenge go into it in more depth. But one key thing to remember is to ensure your business name appears the same way every time to support your unified business entity. So whether you’re filming a video for YouTube, responding to a thread on Reddit, putting out a press release, or getting thanked as a sponsor on a local non-profit’s website, make sure your business name is the exact same every time.
Your secret weapon to search dominance: Reddit
Yes, Reddit, the discussion platform for everything from the latest news to super-niche fandoms.
Reddit is one of the most visited websites in the world, and in recent years, Google has given the platform even more visibility. Even outside of Google search’s AI Overviews, you may have noticed links to Reddit threads appearing higher in search results than blue links to individual websites. This is tied to Google’s “Helpful Content” algorithm adjustment. Google (and now AI search engines) see the real world discussions, insights, and opinions shared on Reddit as helpful to searchers looking for information.
And because there’s a subreddit for just about everything, there are great places for you to engage related to your business or your local community. Search for subs or even individual threads you can add value to. ADDING VALUE is key. Don’t walk into a thread trying to sell your service (that’s a good way to get yourself kicked out). Instead, answer the question with your expertise and insights. Be helpful. Showing off your expertise on Reddit (especially in a way that people find helpful and reward your comment with thumbs up) is a valuable indicator for LLMs that you’re a trusted source.
(Carrot’s AI SEO Challenge dives deep into how to use Reddit to improve search visibility, including sharing a GPT prompt to make the process fast and repeatable!)
Get Ahead with AI SEO
AI isn’t going away. More AI search engines will enter the market, and younger generations are even more inclined to use AI search (74% of people under 30 use AI for search, according to the AP/NORC study). Creating a solid foundation of AI SEO best practices now sets you up for future success.
This blog covers a few recommendations, but we go deeper in the actual webinars:
- Website Tweaks Investors Make to Rank in AI Search to Get Motivated Sellers
- The 3 OFF-PAGE Tactics that Drive 80% of AI SEO Results
The goal is to get AI to recognize, trust, and recommend you. While AI SEO isn’t terribly different than “traditional” SEO, there are some areas that carry more weight. If you ignore them now, you’ll be further behind as we get deeper into the age of AI. Implement these best practices now and you’ll be in a better position than your competitors who haven’t changed a thing.