The Secrets to Lead Generation: Insights from Award-Winning SEO Expert

Dylan Silver (00:00.76)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show, I have Sasha Stapleton. Sasha is an award-winning SEO strategist and entrepreneur who specializes in helping real estate agents stand out and succeed online. Sasha, welcome to the show.

Sasha (00:19.127)
Thanks so much, Dylan.

Dylan Silver (00:20.726)
Absolutely, you mentioned before hopping on here you’re in Sarasota. I said I’m jealous because I’m thinking maybe I’m gonna have a residence over there. I’d love to. How long have you been in that area?

Sasha (00:32.385)
So I’ve been down here five years, it’ll be six in November. Before that was in Ohio, I’ve in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and this was definitely an improvement.

Dylan Silver (00:40.502)
I’m from New Jersey originally, I’m in Dallas now. I think that there’s something in the water though in Florida, all parts of Florida, because it seems like real estate investors, there’s like a entrepreneurial spirit going on in Florida. There’s people all over the country. From here, I’ve spoken to people from Ohio, all over that seem to be flocking to Florida just to kind of get the vibe down there.

Sasha (01:09.377)
for sure. mean, there’s a huge community we talked about St. Pete before this and huge digital marketing groups and lots and lots of famous people you probably follow online all have homes in St. Pete and go to events up there.

Dylan Silver (01:22.964)
Is it just the vibe out there? I mean, of course it’s business friendly, but is it? Because one of the things I was thinking about, Sasha, just from a standpoint of a networking opportunity, I’m a big fan of networking. have this podcast. I call it, know, Fanatical Networking or Being a Networking Junkie even. It’s just there’s so many successful…

Sasha (01:25.621)
I think so.

Dylan Silver (01:44.286)
entrepreneurial spirited people out there. got the west part of Florida, you got the south Florida area, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, that I’m thinking like just being around that would change the vibe in anyone’s life.

Sasha (01:58.495)
It’s definitely a vibe and then I think, you know, everyone just gets attracted and of course, like attracts like and you know, that’s kind of how it flows.

Dylan Silver (02:06.454)
I’ve seen that same, I wish there was a similar deal happening here in Dallas. There is to some degree. I actually moved from San Antonio to Dallas because I saw so many real estate entrepreneurs. But even Dallas, I think when you compare Dallas to an area like Florida, know, St. Pete, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, really any part of Florida.

It’s just a whole other level. I’ve also seen that same kind of energy actually out in Arizona. I didn’t expect that because I haven’t really been to Arizona except for a very long, very long time ago. And so I’m thinking, man, maybe Arizona is like desert Florida. Maybe it’s.

Sasha (02:49.166)
I would love to live in Scottsdale, Arizona. Like if you asked me to pick somewhere, that’s where I’d move to. I spent a lot of time out there. A lot of time, yeah. I don’t, I’ve never golfed in my life. I might live in the capital of golf, but I’ve never golfed in my life.

Dylan Silver (02:53.206)
Yeah. Have you been there? Do you golf?

Dylan Silver (03:03.694)
I’ve heard very, I don’t, I’m not a golfer, it’s very hard sport, but I’ve heard a lot of golfers, a lot of golfers say they go to Scottsdale for golf. I guess there’s some big tournament out there.

Sasha (03:14.71)
I know, potentially, but there’s some great places. It’s a good vibe, some good people. So I really enjoyed my time out.

Dylan Silver (03:15.342)
I

Dylan Silver (03:22.146)
Pivoting Sasha, talking about your entrepreneurial journey, I think a lot of people will see the success and they’ll see kind of the outcome and the results, but they don’t see the origin story. What was your journey into being a business owner like and how did that start?

Sasha (03:39.191)
So for me, it was when I moved to the States, which would be just over 10 years ago. I mean, I’ve been in online marketing and having a website for probably 20 plus years was the first time I built a website and a blog. And then, you know, over the years I worked in corporate, I worked in the car industry, I worked in finance, all sorts of different things. But when I moved here, I started a YouTube channel and I grew that organically never paid a dollar on ads.

into, um, we did online events. had our own products. worked with big box stores, big net, big name brands and built that out. If you put all of our socials together, we were over 1.2 million people followed us. sold the products on each SN and your life happens. I got divorced. The business was dissolved. And from there, I leaned into my digital marketing knowledge. So having learned into that, I’ve worked with home services companies. I now work a lot with realtors.

on their digital presence. And initially I did everything in digital marketing, but really then honed down onto, I love SEO, I love ranking, I love data. I’m an engineer. That’s why I went to school for originally. And that’s kind where I found my passion. So I focus on ranking people through Google, business, websites, SEO, and whether you are looking for more organic traffic or whether you’re running PPC, which a lot of realtors do, your PPC costs can actually be increased up to 40%.

from bad SEO. So we’ve reduced people’s cost per click down 40%, but then also increased conversions by up to 20 % just by improving SEO. So I think people don’t realize the impact. It’s not just your organic, but your PPC and your paid traffic is also affected.

Dylan Silver (05:19.086)
Now I’m actually I’m a realtor here in Dallas. I’m looking at this two ways But I’m also a I’m really passionate most passionate about real estate investing and I became a realtor frankly because I was seeing a lot of conflict between being a real estate investor and a wholesaler which is my my main deal and

Sasha (05:38.751)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (05:42.166)
contacting and communicating with realtors. They seemed to not take it very seriously or had a bad image. So I became a realtor. I was like, you can’t beat them, join them. But in the real estate wholesale space, we have a lot of…

I’m not sure what the exact term, believe it might be PPC, but it might also just be, know, distressed seller leads. Basically we pay for a lead service where it comes in. And that seems to be a very, popular thing right now. And of course this may probably be completely different in five years, probably even 18 months from now, right? But I’m curious to get your perspective on if it’s better for real estate investors who are doing this kind of lead sourcing to be

Sasha (06:07.254)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (06:30.052)
paying for leads or to be trying to generate their own leads through some type of marketing campaign if they don’t have kind of the, what would you call it, the tool yet to do that, meaning they would have to start it from scratch.

Sasha (06:43.208)
Right. So I actually got into realtors with a real estate investor. That’s how I started in the real estate. So I kind of went the other way, guess, whichever way you to look at it. he bought me in, he was doing some coaching, but also was looking for leads. So he was also paying for the lead and the issue we had with the leads. And I don’t know what it’s like in Texas, but it was very much almost like an Angie’s list type thing. Like there’d be a lead, but it would get sent to six to eight people.

So then it was like race to the bottom, who’s the fastest and you weren’t getting your bang for your buck for your leads. So we actually found that there’s a better way. We created him a funnel and his cost per lead was a little bit higher than paying for the leads, but the closing rate was so much higher because he was the only one getting those leads and he could nurture them through his funnel. He could set the expectations. You know, we put it into a CRM system. We automated lots of things. So by doing that,

And now I’ve scaled that outside of real estate, do it. We have a car concierge, we use the same techniques. So I would say it’s a quality over quantity. So yes, you might pay a little bit more for a lead. Yes, you’ve to set up your own system, but they’re to be a higher lead that’s more likely to convert for you.

Dylan Silver (07:56.472)
So I know this is tough to say because there’s so many different markets and we don’t want to put bad information out there. get it. if you had to give general…

Sasha (08:02.227)
Right.

Dylan Silver (08:06.444)
guidance as far as, you know, what is the value of a lead? Let’s, we could use a market out there, or if you’re familiar with markets where I’m at in Dallas, that people should be expecting if they’re going through a service like yours versus if they’re going through one of these distressed seller lead websites, and how much should they be expecting to pay these days 2025?

Sasha (08:30.134)
So I think it’s very much market dependent. I would do it in terms of percentages. So I would say the thing with setting up your own is you do have some upfront costs to set that funnel up and then you’ve got to pay your ad costs. However, I would say it’s probably going to cost you about $2,000 really to get started with your own system. And your leads are probably going to cost you maybe 10 to 15 % more.

In some cases, we’ve been seen less in different markets that aren’t as competitive. You know, up north, we can actually make your lead cost lower than paying for a lead. But your conversion rates for on average, I would say have increased from 30 to 50 % over paying for a lead. So your conversion rates are much higher, but actually in the long term, it turns out cheaper.

Dylan Silver (09:11.254)
Hmm. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (09:18.434)
You know, it’s something that I’m looking at myself. Aside from here, I have an active real estate wholesale business and have up to this point in time been going the public, what would you call it? Public records route where you’re getting foreclosure or you’re getting probate or mortuary report and trying to go through and reach out to these people as best I can, getting them on the phone and then getting them to opt in to text.

Sasha (09:32.394)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (09:45.004)
But also too, with that route, there’s a lot of kind of extra hoops that I have to jump through, including just getting them to opt in, Versus if they have already raised their hand in some way, then I can thereby go ahead and reach out to them. It’s an interesting almost dichotomy between going from being an investor to a real estate agent. Now there’s almost, I’m handcuffed in some way and it’s good in other ways.

Sasha (10:11.22)
Yeah, I mean, even if you go down the more traditional routes, you know, finding those records, there are very much ways that digital marketing can help you in terms now with automations. do a lot of automations for people. We’ve actually found that old fashioned direct mail is far more successful with those records than reaching out by phone because so many people get so many scammed phone calls. They don’t listen to it. But statistically, I was reading an article the other day. You actually only get six pieces of handwritten mail.

Dylan Silver (10:33.731)
Yeah.

Sasha (10:40.52)
in your lifetime on average. That’s what the average is these days of like a handwritten something. So we have a company we partner with and they we write handwritten notes to these people, make it very personal, but scalable. And we find that that brings actually higher conversions. So if you’re doing that, there’s definitely ways you can work on your marketing and things in that way too.

Dylan Silver (11:03.926)
I think I may have to do something along the lines of that. spoke with a gentleman, I forget which area of the country, was some flyover state, and he was talking about how for his first deals, he just wrote literally hundreds of handwritten letters himself, and then found a service that will do it for him, effectively makes it look handwritten, and that was kind of his way to get in.

It seemed very, very time consuming, but now that I know the cost of the leads, I’m thinking, well, you give a bid over here and you take a bid over here, it kind of works out.

Sasha (11:45.909)
Yeah, I think we’ve definitely found the direct mail approach with that handwritten letter is the most effective way with records. Fun calls and everything are great, but people just see scam, scam, scam, and they get really turned off by it. And you have to think of the market you’re appealing to, particularly here in Florida with that kind of record. So we’ve really found success with our clients with the direct mail approach.

Dylan Silver (12:06.22)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (12:10.476)
Sasha, you mentioned the automotive space. Before I got into real estate, I worked for Nissan. And before that, I’d been in the car business for three or four years. And so my background was really…

sales experience in the automotive space. And so anybody who tells me that they’re in the automotive space, it kind of piques my interest because I know what that world is like. I have friends right now who are still in it. A lot of people right now, think Turo is very big, very, and I think it’s only going to get bigger actually. And so curious what your business currently is like in the automotive space.

Sasha (12:47.392)
So right now I work with a car concierge, as I mentioned, so they do actual tour management. So for snowbirds who want to rent their cars out when they’re not here, for more prime clients who are looking to purchase a car but don’t want to spend forever in a dealership, they find source, whatever their dream car is, whether it’s a 1950s classic, whether it’s a 2025 Cadillac, you tell them what you want, what your budget is, they find it, they deliver it, they check it, they do everything.

I also work with some local mechanic shops on the local services side. So I kind of do a little bit of everything in there.

Dylan Silver (13:24.246)
And so in those businesses, you’re helping them find new and acquire new customers, find leads and generate leads.

Sasha (13:34.034)
Exactly. So SEO, Google My Business Profiles, PPC, networking strategies, partnerships, strategic partnerships with local things. We actually work with lot of realtors, you know, because they have those prime clients who are here part-time and need some of those services.

Dylan Silver (13:51.862)
Sasha without giving away all the the gold all the sauce here I’m wondering if you can tell us you know being on the the the inside of the SEO space and then seeing How things have changed so much over the last five years year two years No one has a crystal ball to the future But are you seeing some trends right now as far as ways that people can get ahead in the next three to six months?

Sasha (13:56.115)
you

Dylan Silver (14:19.668)
in general in marketing their business.

Sasha (14:22.966)
So I would say don’t rely on AI. We’ve had a lot of clients come to us. They were either working with a marketing agency or doing it themselves. And either the agency moved primarily AI or they said, okay, we can do it myself because chat GPT can do it for me. And then they see the results tank because since the, you know, the Google updates, they don’t prioritize AI content. They know if AI have written it, it’s all about.

When you write anything or put anything online and you’re wanting to be discovered, do you make Google look good by serving your content? And I have lots of analogies about, know, how your website’s kind of like a book in Barnes and Noble that Google’s looking for, and you want to make it as attractive as possible. But Google actually has four pillars and they’ve had four pillars that have stayed the same for the last 17 years. And as long as you follow those, you will never get penalized by a content update. And that’s what we use for our clients. So it doesn’t matter whether

There’s another useful content update or penalizes AI or prioritizes AI. We’ve very much stay consistent with our methods. They’ve been proven over 17 years that they don’t get penalized by those updates, as long as you stick to those four core things.

Dylan Silver (15:28.022)
If someone has a natural affinity, they take a liking to a certain platform and they say, hey, I really wanna go all in on this platform. Like for instance, me, I really like Instagram. I just like the photos, I like personally, I like browsing, I like scrolling and it knows what I know and I see content that I like and I’m like, man, if I could go all in on Instagram, is that a bad strategy to have if I wanted to just roll with Instagram and see how this works?

Sasha (15:54.155)
I would say for lead generation, yes. If you look at the statistics of buyer intent, the majority of buyer intent starts with a Google search and then it starts with a Google My Business page. So that’s really where you want to put your efforts. Then from there, you know, you look at website and SEO and yes, social is important. You know, people want to see that you have a presence and you can get things out there. But Google is also turning your Google My Business profile into a social media platform. This week they launched a new

option where you can do like live updates, almost kind of like a tweeting type feature. So they’re heading in that direction too. You know, they want you to be on Google more and more. And, you know, if anything, I would say, if you’re to go all in on something, go on my Google, my business profile, because that’s where people are going to find you. And as real estate agents, you can also do a Google verified. That’s a really great way to get found and find you high intent buyers as well. there’s, lots of different things you can do on Google, my business pages.

But yeah, that’s where your main buyer intent, if you look at the statistics, is going to start on Google.

Dylan Silver (16:58.464)
If someone doesn’t have the Google My Business page, is that something that they have to do prior to coming to you, or will you help them set that up?

Sasha (17:04.532)
We can do everything from scratch. whether you have a website, don’t have a website, if you need a new website, if you need to build the profile, improve the profile, maybe you’ve got your profile banned. We see a lot of those. We have to kind of get them unblocked or start again, just depending on the circumstances. So we’re full service when it comes to SEO and local SEO.

Dylan Silver (17:23.554)
you know as you’re talking about this i’m thinking about yelp right and i i feel like there was this kind of battle between google and yelp and google one but if you go years ago i’m remembering like ten yelp was that the fighting everyone was doing yelp reviews right and i think even right now actually if i’m not mistaken if you open up

Sasha (17:37.45)
Yep.

Dylan Silver (17:45.588)
Apple Maps on your iPhone, right? And you go to a place and you go to review, it’s still Yelp. So somehow they have some type of agreement between Apple Maps and Yelp, right? But Google ended up winning. It’s funny, no one really talks about writing Yelp reviews. And if they talk about writing a Yelp review, they mean writing a Google review.

Sasha (17:48.328)
It still links to you.

Sasha (18:03.818)
They do, but I would say that they’re equally important. So for our clients, we set you up on 125 different platforms and make sure what’s called your NAPs, your name, address, phone number is consistent across all of them. Cause Google see those citations and it gives you credibility in Google. So the Yelp is still important, but not because you want people to find you on Yelp, but because it gives you Google credibility.

Dylan Silver (18:25.698)
Very interesting. for folks who are just starting to scale a business, right, when would you say is the right time for them to consider getting ranked higher in Google searches and when should they reach out to someone like yourself?

Sasha (18:42.998)
So the thing I always say is dig your well before you’re thirsty. It’s a very famous business book, but it’s also so true. Like don’t wait until you’re desperate for leads to say, hey, I want to develop an online presence because online presence takes time. So Google cares about your structure, your content, your consistency, but mainly it cares also about your credibility. So you’ve got to start building that credibility with Google. You need to build it in your online space, getting backlinks. So the earlier you start, the more successful it will be.

Dylan Silver (19:12.022)
Now for folks who may be let’s say newer realtors, I’m a newer realtor, right? And I’m thinking, well, I’m on this platform, I’m on this platform. I have a brand, but I’m not exactly sure what I want to be putting out there. Once they put that information out there, so their brand identity and they want to pivot down the line, is it something that they can do? Or if they’re already branding themselves as, know, Texan realtor, that Google is gonna now think of them and associate them as being Texan realtor.

Sasha (19:42.07)
So Texan Realtor is fine. If you want to then specialize, that’s okay. If you want to rebrand as a Florida Realtor, then that’s a much bigger project. So, you if you do kind of make that move, that’s when you need to think about, is it easier to create a new footprint that’s linked to my Texan footprint or do I want to edit that? Like that’s a little bit of a bigger subject, but we also offer strategy sessions. So for newer realtors or maybe realtors who are kind of feeling a bit lost or, you know, any home services company who needs local presence.

Dylan Silver (19:53.155)
Yeah.

Sasha (20:11.252)
We do a half day strategy. we come, it’s a two week process, but we spend half a day with you and your team. We really get clear on your vision and then help you produce a marketing strategy. And then you can either take that in house. We offer fractional CMO or you can employ an agency. So it kind of gives you the option to be like, okay, here’s my reset. This is what I want to do. And then you can get clarity to go forward.

Dylan Silver (20:32.236)
Very cool. Sasha, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Sasha (20:35.958)
So you can find me at digitalphoenixseo.com. That’s my website. And I actually have a book coming out in September, hopefully, touch wood if all goes to plan. And you can sign up to get information on that. It’s very much meant to be an actionable guide. I read so many SEO books that were not actionable. So it takes you through here’s the problem, here’s how to fix it, and here’s your homework to actually go and fix it. And if you would like me to do an audit on your website, it’s totally free.

I do like a 10 minute loom video, go through your website, you Google my business profile, give you some opportunities, actionable insights. You can go to get my free SEO audit.com. So super easy ways to go. And we can chat from there and you can find all the information. And if you sign up for info on the book, you’ll also get a seven day email set of things you can do to increase your own SEO rankings in house as well.

Dylan Silver (21:29.536)
Sasha, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Sasha (21:33.259)
Thank you so much for having me, Dylan.