I get asked this question a lot so I thought I’d provide an update for 2023 on Sold Data and whether it is worth it for SEO / traffic generation on your real estate website.
The short answer is YES! (But there are some caveats you should know about).
Here’s the graph from the past 16 months after adding sold data.
Pretty awesome right? Exposure of Carly’s name 1.5 million times (brand recognition) as well as 84,000 unique visitors? Traffic costs us over $1.5 for paid ads, so that’s over $100k worth of traffic.
Seems pretty bad ass right? (Yes Sold Data is awesome)
But here are the caveats:
#1: If you do not have “STRONG” authority on your site, don’t add it. You won’t rank at all, and you won’t get any traffic. So focus on building your authority first. Carly’s authority is “ok” but certainly not as strong as an aged domain/brokerage level authority.
#2: Don’t do it first. The traffic vs effort is not the same as high-value long tail keywords. I’d much rather rank for “Vancouver Island Waterfront” than random sold property address x.
#3: Some people will get mad at you (there is a maintenance component). We do get once per month or so someone saying “hey take my sold property data off the internet”. We’re allowed to have it (of course) but best to make them happy. The optimist might also say it’s a great way to get more people in your database or start up a conversation.
#4: Sold data is technically tricky and can dilute your overall rankings if you don’t have the right authority and a decent customization/sculpting budget. It’s advanced stuff and you should be well educated and have a strong budget if you’re going to take it on “properly” - just “having sold data” is not enough.
So overall… for the RIGHT website (that has enough authority, a good technical budget for proper sculpting/optimization sold data can be a great way to get extra exposure for your company/brand.
So it’s a good thing IMHO.