Optimize Your Digital Presence So ChatGPT Recommends You to Buyers and Sellers

This episode explores how AI is transforming real estate marketing and client acquisition. Kandice Coleman shares actionable strategies for real estate agents to optimize their digital presence for AI recommendations, including profile management, review strategies, and content creation.

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* Gary serves on the South Carolina Real Estate Commission as a Commissioner. The opinions expressed herein are his opinions and are not necessarily the opinions of the SC Real Estate Commission. This podcast is not to be considered legal advice. Please consult an attorney in your area.

Transcript

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Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who's the best real estate attorney in Columbia, South Carolina? So recently, this is what I asked Chat GPT. And as it took its time going through the motions of coming up with the answer, I thought to myself, if it gets this wrong, I'm never using Chat GPT again. It's completely dead to me. Claude is 10 times better. And then the answer came in drumroll, the number one top real estate attorney in Columbia, South Carolina. Gary Pickren, Blair Cato, Pickren Casterline. So not exactly the answer I was looking for. Not me, but accurate. We'll take it. ChatGPT lives to see another day in my eyes. ChatGPT went on to give a disclaimer that there isn't a single universally agreed upon best real estate attorney in Columbia. And then it listed other attorneys. But if you're not first or last, so we don't even need to mention that. Under each attorney, it gave me a blurb about their business and also highlighted each one of their strengths. Very insightful. And this told me AI is recommending specific professionals, attorneys, agents, service providers, when people ask. So it's not just giving generic advice on how to find someone, it's giving actual names. And professionals who are showing up in these recommendations, they all have something in common. Their digital presence is optimized for AI. If your real estate agent and buyers and sellers in your market are asking AI for recommendations, spoiler alert, they are. You want to be the name that AI says. So today I'm going to show you exactly how to make that happen. Let's get into it. Welcome to the eighth episode of Dishing Data AI Edition. I am your host, Candace Coleman, an attorney here at Blair Cato Pickering Caster Line. Dishing Data AI Edition is your weekly 15-minute companion podcast to Dishing Dirt, hosted by Gary Pickering, where we break down exactly how AI can help you in the real estate business without the overwhelm and the tech jargon. Each week, I'm going to discuss an AI tool or technique that's perfect for your business. You'll get a front row seat at exactly what works, what doesn't, and how you can put it to work immediately. If you're a realtor who wants to work smarter, serve better, and stay ahead of the curve, this is the podcast for you. This is Dishing Data AI Edition. Today's episode is a little bit different. We are talking about how to position yourself so that AI finds you. When buyers and sellers ask for a recommendation, as more people get comfortable using AI, they are asking for recommendations. So they're asking ChatGPT, Claude, or a Google Gemini questions like who's the best real estate agent in Columbia for first-time buyers? Or which agent should I use to sell my home in Lexington, South Carolina? And these AI platforms are giving answers and recommendations. So we're going to cover exactly how you can optimize your digital presence for AI so that you are being recommended. This isn't just about gaming the system, it's more about making sure that the work that you're already doing, the reviews, the content, the expertise is visible to the AI. By the end of this episode, you'll walk away with a step-by-step system to improve your AI visibility and understand how clients will find agents in the future. So let me just start by explaining exactly what's changing and why it matters. For the past couple of decades, if someone wanted a real estate agent, they Googled best real estate agent near me. Of course, there's always been word of mouth. We've had social media for a while. So Facebook, Instagram, TikTok was the new girl in town that people could find a real estate agent from. But really, search optimization was the name of the game. But that's all changing because now instead of Googling, people are asking AI. They open up Chat GPT, Google Gemini, and they type, I'm selling a home in Columbia, South Carolina. Who should I use as my listing agent? And then AI will give them an answer, not just links, but it'll actually recommend a person. It'll say something like, you might consider working with agent, ABC at Brokerage, XYZ, they specialize in your neighborhood and they have really strong client reviews. And whether you show up in AI's answer depends on AI engine optimization. So since buyers aren't really searching anymore, like a Google search, they're simply asking AI questions. Your digital presence can answer the questions that buyers and sellers are asking. And then you'll be the first that they find through the AI. And this is happening right now. In October 2025, Zillow became the only real estate platform integrated directly into Chat GPT. So that means when someone would ask ChatGPT about a home for sale, Chat GPT would pull up the listing from Zillow and show them in the conversation. So you did not have to click out of Chat GBT to see homes. The list of homes would appear right there in the platform. And also, guess what else appears? The listing agent's name. And I share this just to let you know that the integration is a preview of what is to come. So AI is not replacing agents, but it is changing how agents are getting discovered. The agents that understand this now are gonna have a huge advantage here. Of course, we need to know how the AI choose which agents to recommend. It's important to understand this because once you know how it makes this decision, then you can optimize for it. AI platforms like ChatGPT or Claude, Google Gemini, they don't browse the internet like a human. They don't click links and watch videos, but they read and they're they're language learning models. So they're interpreting language and they pull it from various sources. Here is what AI is looking for when it's deciding whether or not to recommend an agent. Factor number one, it wants to see your presence in trusted directories, Google Business Profile, Zillow Agent Profiles, Realtor.com, Yelp, RateMyAgent, and then also local MLS websites. So if you're not on these platforms or if your profiles are incomplete, then the AI is not going to have enough data to recommend you. And with that being said, you also want to make sure that you have consistent information across all your platforms. So the AI can connect the dots across multiple sources and build a complete picture of who you are as an agent and your business. If your name is John Smith, but then on another platform, you're J Dot Smith, the AI might not recognize and put two and two together that you're the same person. So make sure that your brokerage name is also consistent across these platforms. Even small discrepancies, make sure your phone numbers, email addresses aren't breaking the connection. Make sure that they're consistent across the board. When your information is consistent everywhere, the AI can confidently say, this is the same person. I can put two and two together and recommend them. But when it's inconsistent, it may hesitate and skip over you entirely. Another major factor, reviews. And not just reviews, but recent reviews. AI doesn't just read the reviews, but it'll read the dates. And if your last review is from five years ago, it may signal to it that you're no longer active. Here, since it is gonna be more important than quantity. So 10 reviews from the past six months is gonna be better than 50 reviews from 2018. The next factor that you want to pay attention to detailed agent bios with keywords. The AI is gonna read your bio and look for specifics. So where do you work? What do you specialize in? What credentials do you have? Do you have any awards? You don't want to have a generic bio that just says that you're a passionate real estate agent who likes helping clients. Make sure that you're giving the AI the data that it needs to match you in the right queries. And then another factor that comes into play is if you were mentioned on a trusted third-party site, the AI will value mentions in a local news article or top agent list, um, any sort of real estate industry publication or a journal. If you've been featured in any news story or named on the one of the best of list, the AI is gonna see that as validation. Of course, you can't control if you're mentioned or not in some of these cases, but definitely don't shy away from pitching yourself as a local expert. You could submit your profile for an industry award or provide market data to a local journalist overall, making sure that you're putting yourself in a position to get those mentions from third-party providers because now we know how important it is to AI optimization. And then last but not least, the AI will factor in your website, or if you have a blog, it'll factor in that content. So if you have a website with in-depth city-specific content, then you are dramatically increasing your chances of being recommended by AI platforms. And you have to think about this from the perspective of someone using an AI platform to ask questions. So they're gonna ask something like who is the best real estate agent for first-time homebuyers in Columbia, South Carolina? And if you've already written a blog post titled First Time Home Buyers for Columbia, South Carolina that covers neighborhoods, down payment assistant programs, or what to expect in 2026, AI can pull that content and recommend you. So the key here is creating content that matches how people actually ask questions. It's not necessarily the tips for first-time homebuyers. You really wanna make sure that it's specific. First-time homebuyer guides for Lexington, South Carolina. Add in the details and make sure that it's question specific because that's what the AI loves. All right, so now that you understand how the AI decides, let me give you a step-by-step system to optimize your digital presence. So I'm gonna start off with an optional, highly recommended step one, and that is test your current visibility. Before you fix anything, you wanna know where you stand. I do think that right now a lot of people are using Chat GPT to ask these questions. So go to ChatGPT and ask who is the best real estate agent in your area or the best real estate agent specializing in whatever your specialization is in XYZ area and see what the AI says. Does it mention you? If so, congratulations. Does it mention someone else that you know? Or is it just giving you generic advice on how to find an agent in your area or in your area, but with that specialization? And this way you can kind of gather some information about what the AI knows or is finding about agents in your market and whether or not you're one of them. Step two, you want to claim and complete all of your profiles on key directories, talking about Google Business Profile, Phillos, Realtor.com, Yelp, Rate MyAgent, and your brokerage websites. Go to each one and make sure that you've completed all of the fields on them and that nothing is left blank because you're making sure that all the information is consistent and accurate. You also want to add in those details to your bio that we talked about. So the specific keywords that you're gonna want the AI to be able to find. Add in your service area, so cities, neighborhoods that you want to mention, zip codes. And then also if you have any specialties, buyer's agent, listening agent, luxury agent, you specialize in first-time home buyers, investors, make sure that you add in that information across these platforms. Consistency is everything. So pick one version of your name and go with it. Same with phone number and email and use those everywhere. Step three, and this one is ongoing, you're gonna want to get fresh reviews and you want to come up with a plan so that you can each month be getting a certain number of reviews from clients. This is gonna be a major factor in making sure that you get recommended by AI platforms. Have Claude write you up a template that you send out to clients asking for reviews. Now, a few things we have to keep in mind here. You can ask clients for reviews and you should. However, you may not offer incentives in exchange for reviews, a gift card, referral fee, any sort of money, nothing in exchange for the review. And then also, you can't come up with some fake reviews. Asking family and friends who have not actually been your clients for reviews would be a violation of ethical codes. But ask your actual clients for reviews. And if a client was unhappy, go ahead and skip that one. You can't make everybody happy. So you know which deals didn't go exactly as you wanted them to or as the client wanted them to. Skip over that one because you do want the reviews to be mainly positive. If you do get a negative review, you want to respond to it. The AI, it's a language learning model, so it's going to read your response. And where a client is unreasonable or the negative review does not align with the other reviews, it seems like an outlier, the AI can factor that into its recommendations. If you respond professionally and give a fuller context about what happened, sometimes clients, particularly when they're angry, they don't necessarily explain exactly what the issue was. If it was something that was completely out of your control, you could add that in there. Once again, use AI to professionally respond to any negative reviews that you do receive because that is going to factor in whether or not the AI is recommending you to clients in the future. Step four, create AI friendly content on your website, that hyperloc specific AI content where you're answering questions that you know buyers and sellers have and will be typing in, asking these questions. You want to make sure that your website is answering those questions. If you have a blog, create content that is answering buyer and seller questions that they are typing into AI so that when they ask, your information comes up. Here, you want to use your city name often, but then naturally. So it's not just the same as with Google searches where you're putting hashtags and just saying Columbia, South Carolina. You want to make sure that you're using it within context of whatever it is that you're answering. You're not just gonna keyword stuff. It's a little bit different. Make sure that what you're writing is clear and helpful content. Mentions who you are, where you work, and who you serve, because the AI is gonna read this and then use it to match you when someone else is asking the same question. Then step five, which is a long-term strategy, go ahead and build authority everywhere. And of course, this is gonna take time, but the AI sees this as validation. If you're earning an award or if you're featured in a magazine or the chamber of commerce recognizes your local business, these are all things that the AI factors into whether or not it's gonna recommend you. And you don't have to do all these things at once, but over time, as you do them, it will compound. You'll notice clients when you ask, Hey, how did you hear about me? They'll say, Actually, I asked ChatGPT, and they said this person would be the perfect recommendation for you. And I don't want you to look at this as though there can only be one number one agent or five top agents, and that ChatGPT is only gonna be recommending these top five to everyone because that's not necessarily the case. As people are using these platforms more, they're learning more and more about them individually. If someone is asking, I want an agent who will take over the reins, I don't really want to do much work, they might find a client review that says agent XYZ completely took over. I didn't have to do much, which is exactly what I wanted. And they're gonna recommend you to that person. For someone who's asking AI for recommendation and the AI platform that they're using knows that they're low-key, they're not necessarily going to recommend that they use an agent that has this huge personality. They're gonna see it as not the best fit for them. So I would look at doing all of this as a way for you to find the best clients for you and them to find the best agent for them. And it's not necessarily who does the most volume or has the biggest presence in the industry. Keep that in mind and don't be discouraged because I think we're gonna find that a lot of agents are able to win by being recommended by AI. Quick compliant issue here. So you can't claim to be AI recommended or ChatGPT's top pick or the number one agent according to AI, because that's misleading. Because AI doesn't endorse agents, it pulls from public data that's already there. And if you optimize correctly and the AI starts to mention you, then great, that's what we want. But you cannot advertise as though it's a credential of yours. Now let's just zoom out so I can kind of share exactly where I see all of this heading. As the AI gets more advanced and more data becomes available, the AI is gonna get better at making specific recommendations. And so I expect it'll be making recommendations based on an agent's transaction history, specialization, client reviews. And I can even see buyers expecting AI matching almost like a dating platform. So think of all your dating apps, but for real estate. So you want to make sure that you are optimizing for the AI because this is just the way the industry is move moving. And you want to make sure that you're positioning yourself to take advantage of this massive shift. Your homework for this week, test that AI visibility, play with it a little bit, see what it comes up with. Don't be too disappointed if it doesn't say your name. There's always room for growth. And step two, audit all those business profiles, make sure that they are consistent, accurate, add in those details. Step three, request a review. If there is a client that you love working with and you never got that review from them, send them a request. Use Claude to help generate that template request for your reviews and send them the request with the link in it so they can quickly go to the link and make the review. I'm sure that they would be happy to do it. So start optimizing today and make sure that you join us back next week. We're gonna go over some AI tools that will help you be more productive in your day to day business. Now it's my turn to ask for my review. Make sure that you like, comment, and subscribe. This is Dishing Data AI Edition. Thank you for listening, and you've got this.