Is There A Difference Between AI SEO & SEO for Real Estate Agents?
Yes, there's a difference between AI SEO and traditional SEO for real estate agents.
The noise is in the nuance.
And it's the nuance that catches out most real estate teams. They end up paying for SEO and AI SEO separately. Which is both unsustainable and unnecessary.
I have 12 years in traditional SEO and 5 years in AI SEO (I'm likely the only person who has in real estate) and so, I'm uniquely qualified to tell you the differences.
These differences will save you money and bring you more listings so, it's worthwhile you read this if you're an agent who feels like you maybe are being mislead by agencies online.
TLDR: the biggest difference between AI SEO and traditional SEO in real estate is how you deliver content and links to each LLM.
Most LLMs (ChatGPT, Copilot, AI Mode) steal from traditional search engines.
AI SEO cannot exist without normal webpages. However, AI search engines do not use pages that have no traffic, no structure, no intent and, no value.
How do we define no value in real estate?
Simple. Look at any of your last 50 blogs that your CMS provider has given you and ask yourself these questions:
Ranking in AI models works in the same fashion as you assessing content manually. Traditional SEO could be easily manipulated whereas AI SEO is more heavily in favor of how your content speaks to a person specifically.
Here's where things should get technical. Search engine optimization (SEO) is anything but simple. Websites are complicated, algorithms are messy and CMS providers have done their absolute best to offer the least SEO-friendly platforms available (that's for another time, though).
But, despite that, I'll outline the comparative differences between the two disciplines. You'll notice how much overlap there is. And then, hopefully, you'll see where the nuances are.
Traditional search results were ranked on traffic and links. The algorithm changed the quality threshold based on the industry but, for real estate content, if you could get people to visit your site, and other websites to give you backlinks, you did pretty well.
With AI SEO, it's now about the specificity of your answers.
Your content should no longer be: how do I sell my home in Florida?
And instead become: how can I sell my 4-bedroom home, with a pool, in Florida for higher than the market average in the next 3-6 months?
This is natural conversation. This is how normal homebuyers and sellers query ChatGPT.
How do you apply this to your content?
Like this.
Let's say you've written a blog called 'Moving To Florida: Everything You Need To Know'. It's a pretty common topic and something AI tools like to reference in real estate.
To make your content match up to the conversational intent of somebody's question, you'd need to break it down into chunks:
Etc, etc.
It's less about opinion, and more about depth. When someone asks AI that question, your content needs to be "chunked" (i.e., segmented) down in this fashion so it's easy to scan and easy to extract answers from.
A brand citation is where your brokerage, team name or personal name are mentioned on different websites. Citations are the key to AI SEO.
Your visibility in AI search engines will be controlled by:
A big problem with real estate professionals is they change teams or brokerages... a lot.
And so, ChatGPT, for example, could find 3 different brokerages attached to your name. If at any point the AI-driven search is confused, it simply will not return your business.
You will miss out on leads, rankings and organic traffic (inbound, at that).
Traditional SEO relied on citations, too. But not to the same extent. AI SEO is 95% reliant, whereas traditional SEO was 50-60% reliant.
Do you have a Zillow profile? How about a Fast Expert? Or Rate My Agent?
The chances are you either:
a) have the profiles but don't keep them updated
b) you don't have the profiles apart from Zillow
This is typical in real estate (unfortunately). Real estate SEO relies on trusted authority platforms. This means most LLM engines and Google go to the same sites over and over for information, because they trust them.
If ChatGPT expects to see you on 10 different real estate profiles, but you're on 1, what are the chances of you being the agent AI recommends?
I'll save you the trouble of thinking: the answer is zero.
AI results work in the same way as traditional SEO when it comes to what we call 'seed sites'. The play a huge role in real estate, whether it's for lead generation, reviews or brand building.
The nuance here is that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok etc., rely on the same 40 profiles. Whereas Google used to rely on hundreds.
Reviews are where the two disciplines balance out. Local SEO is heavily skewed on the reviews you get, how often you get them and where you get reviews.
Google's AI Mode uses Maps to find the agents people are looking for when they search for 'who's the best?'
Best is subjective but, most platforms treat 'best' based on:
And it extracts that from your reviews. You can't claim you're the best, you need your clients to do it for you. Which is why reviews make such a big difference in you appearing in AI-generated answers (or not).
Here's where you should get reviews in priority order:
And, as we said about citations, make sure every profile you make is consistent.
This is the biggest difference in real estate SEO in 2026. It's where you get your traffic.
Traditional SEO has gone from Google only to now being searched everywhere. The age old SEO strategy was based on driving traffic to your website from Google. And it worked well.
But, now, you need to consider:
Traffic needs to come from everywhere. AI scans every platform for mentions of who you are. Buyers and sellers are in subreddits asking for recommendations for agents to work with. Mortgage brokers are setting up Facebook groups to build local lead generation inquiries.
Getting traffic from every platform makes you authoritative. It's essentially what digital marketing should have been but now, LLMs have made it a necessity rather than an afterthought for real estate agents.
AI SEO will cost you much less than a traditional SEO campaign.
Based on my experience of well over 100 SEO campaigns in the last 12 years, I can tell you the average retainer cost was north of $4,200 per month. This was to cover content writing, links, consultancy, technical SEO: the whole 9 yards.
That was for an SMB. Enterprise SEO campaigns used to range in the region of $10,000 - $20,000 per month.
For real estate agents specifically, you could find a local SEO campaign for $1,500 a month. But it would likely underperform.
In the age of AI-powered SEO, you can get results for $800 - $1,000 a month.
It depends on:
We have helped agents with no website history get to well over $2m in pipeline in 6 months. And others, we've helped achieved that in 90 days or less.
AI SEO will give you much quicker results and inbound listing appointments.
A typical SEO campaign timeline could be anywhere from 6 - 12 months. There were/are ways you could speed it up, but it involved risk.
AI search can start working immediately. As in, within 24 hours in real estate. We've helped agents become the #1 results in ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode within a week of starting with us (and they're still there today).
AI SEO will send you much better leads.
Why?
Because people interact with AI engines as if they were an assistant. It's personal. It's a conversation, rather than a search action.
What we find is that realtors who rank better in ChatGPT, typically get:
Traditional SEO can absolutely do this, too. But it's the length of time vs. the ROI (return on investment) that makes all the difference.
They don't compare.
That's coming from someone who has helped generate north of $100m from traditional SEO.
AI SEO is a much better choice for real estate agents in comparison with traditional SEO.
But, a lot of the deliverables and strategies (as I've outlined above) are largely the same. It's the frequency, the quality, the intent and the distribution that makes all the difference now.
It should no longer be a choice between a traditional SEO agency or an AI SEO agency: because ALL agencies should be catering for AI now.
If they're not, they're already years behind. And, they're likely not going to help you, if they can't help themselves.
GEO is the same as AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and AISEO. It's a different name for the same practice. The most commonly used term is AI SEO.
Yes traditional SEO will still work for agents who have more budget and are willing to play the long game. This carries risk. Google is moving everything to AI Mode and so, traditional search, will change thanks to artificial intelligence.
No, you shouldn't pay for real estate SEO and AI SEO separately. You should choose an AI-first SEO agency to do your work because the deliverables are 90%. the same. It's not worth the additional expense to pay for both.