Google Isn’t a Search Engine Anymore.
It’s a Summary Engine.
You didn’t wreck your blog. You didn’t spam the wrong keywords. You didn’t get outbid by some Zillow clone. Google just stopped needing you. Its AI Overviews now answer user questions directly in search. It’s quoting your blog post, but no one’s visiting your site. You’re fueling the summary engine, not profiting from it. Even a #1 ranking is now a ghost win.
Proactive Agents have figured
out that visibility ≠ traffic.
If you’ve checked your analytics lately and felt a weird disconnect between your high rankings and low clicks, you’re not imagining things. While your rankings might stroke the ego, they’re not converting into click-calls. Welcome to the “new middle”, Being recognized by algorithms, ignored by actual humans.
The ‘AI Cannibalization Effect’ Is Real.
AI doesn’t just point to your post, it absorbs your insights, digests your take, and delivers a fast-food version at the top of search. Unless your content is structured to earn the click, not just the quote, you’re feeding a machine that forgets your name. This isn’t about better content. It’s about different content. Cleaner. Clearer. Quotable.
A SNAPSHOT of West Coast
real estate marketing stats
- Digital marketing now drives over 50% of Realtor web traffic, and is often the only pipeline for newer agents without legacy referrals (resimpli.com)
- 96% of homebuyers start online. But they don’t click unless something feels personal (resimpli.com)
- Video listings generate 403% more interest. If you’re not on video, you’re not in the conversation (electroiq.com)
- On the West Coast, active inventory jumped 38% YoY, while sales dipped, creating both noise & opportunity (nar.realtor)
Realtors that got it: “Real stories
about real people equal real wins”.
One of clients (we’ll call her ‘Sarah’), a mom-of-three Realtor in San Diego, doubled her lead count within 6 weeks of a content refresh: “I didn’t have time to blog weekly, but the Tomato team cleaned up and personalized my old posts, and suddenly my inbox lit up.”
Another client in Seattle said,
“We were high on google, but no one was calling… turns out our 4-year old site (cost a small fortune) wasn’t good enough to compete anymore. Jim and his team rebuilt the SEO, stripped the fluff, made us look like the smartest kids on the block AND it was 50% less in cost.”
“Don’t rebuild your website, refurbish your content for AI+Google rank-ability… it’s cheaper, more accurate and faster-acting…”
3 easy ways West Coast Realtors are
reclaiming their online marketing edge.
- Restructure content for quotability – Create sub headlines (H2s) that answer search questions and write paragraphs that punch (AI likes bite-sized clarity and Buyers love easy answers).
- Clean your content house – Old blogs, ghost pages, filler sections all quietly killing your SEO (Google) and GEO (ChapGPT) edge. A content clean-up isn’t optional anymore, It’s table stakes.
- Add life, not length to your content – Short, local stories matter. Mention the school concert in Berkeley or the farmers market in Solvang. Make your content feel alive. AI sees relevance. People feel it.
Don’t get over-sold by your ad agency, You only need a couple articles each week… as long as they deliver.
You already have content. You already have authority. The real question is, does your site make either obvious? Most agents have years of blogs collecting dust, rankings, and zero leads. The right partner turns those into client magnets, not AI footnotes.
Renovate, don’t rebuild your website.
If your traffic’s drying up but rankings stay, your site isn’t broken, it’s just behind. AI changed the rules. Most agents haven’t noticed. But the smart ones? They’re already rewriting. That blog post you wrote in 2021? It might be the answer someone needs, if it’s cleaned, formatted, and structured to be seen.
REMEMBER! You don’t need a marketing overhaul. You need clarity. That’s what we bring. Talk to the Tomato.
