Building Authority to Replace Paid Leads With Organic Ones

Skybound Properties is a real estate firm that has heavily depended on paid advertising to generate leads. Unlike paid advertising, organic search only brought in a small and inconsistent trickle of site traffic. Because of this, Skybound Properties’ site had little authority in a competitive real estate market.

We undertook market research for a longer view and found a lack of content depth and authority in the site and not a lack of demand.

✓ Site content consisted of only the service pages, no blogs or resource pages

✓ Domain authority was lower than that of competitive real estate brokerages

✓ A publishing schedule and topical strategy did not exist

✓ There were very few backlinks, other than a handful of listings in various directories

✓ Paid ad spend was increasing, yet lead volume was decreasing

The strategy brought together the creation of a content program based on actual queries made by buyers and sellers and a systematic way of obtaining local market authority.

✓ Built a content calendar around buyer and seller questions at each stage of the property search

✓ Published in-depth guides covering neighborhoods, financing, and the buying process

✓ Restructured service pages to answer the specific questions local buyers were searching for

✓ Added internal links connecting blog content to relevant service pages

✓ Pursued guest posting and contributor opportunities on real estate and local business publications

✓ Built relationships with local businesses and organizations for natural backlink opportunities

✓ Earned mentions through community involvement and press outreach

✓ Avoided paid or low-quality link schemes in favor of earned placements

✓ Organic leads increased month over month for six consecutive months

✓ Domain authority showed measurable improvement within the first three months of the campaign

✓ Cost per acquisition improved as organic search began replacing a growing share of paid lead generation

“We were spending more on ads every quarter just to stay flat. Now a real part of our leads come from people who found us through search, not a campaign we’re paying for.”

— Marketing Lead, Skybound Properties

Skybound achieved results through patience for building content and authority. Unlike other businesses, Skybound understood that long-term processes like consistent outreach and maintaining contact with audiences built trust. Consistent outreach and reliable contact build audiences’ trust and are more effective than any advertising.