Property traders, not estate agents
You buy property at a discount and exit via auction at speed. No refurbishment, no holding. Clean, lean, repeatable transactions with an average uplift of £8,000–£12,000 per deal.
You're solving a problem that estate agents can't: certainty and speed for sellers under pressure — probate, divorce, financial difficulty, chain breaks, problem tenants.
The Edge
- Speed & certainty over headline price
- Lean execution — no drag, no speculation
- North East only — building depth, not spread
- Direct communication — no fluff
- Property Redress Scheme member
The Team
- Paul — Operator
- John — Web development
- Julia — Copy, illustration, visual identity
- Alex — Video
- 5 solicitors, 3 finance partners
- Exits via Hammered Auctions
Early-stage site with room to grow — and the market is wide open
HomeSoldToday.co.uk is a new site and your content team is already building authority — your TR1 form guide is picking up organic visibility across 50+ search terms, with several approaching page one. Core commercial keywords like "sell my house fast" and "cash house buyers" haven't broken through yet. The good news: the paid landscape in the North East is surprisingly thin.
Local Competitor Strength
National players (We Buy Any Home, House Buyer Bureau, Open Property Group) also compete in NE SERPs but lack local trust signals.
The Google Ads opportunity
We pulled live Google Ads data for this niche. The headline: CPCs are high nationally (£30-50 for head terms like "sell my house fast"), but local targeting and smart keyword selection bring costs down significantly. Here's how it breaks down by location.
| Location | Ad Competition | CPC Range | Opportunity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newcastle | High | £10-40 | Highest volume, nationals dominate. Needs strong landing pages to keep cost per lead viable. |
| Sunderland | Moderate | £8-35 | Good volume. Sell With Richard present but beatable with local trust angle. |
| Middlesbrough | Low | £6-30 | Fewest advertisers. Best territory to prove the model quickly at lower cost. |
CPC ranges based on Google Ads auction data (April 2026). Bottom of range = lower-funnel long-tail keywords; top = competitive head terms. Actual CPCs depend on Quality Score, bid strategy, and auction-time competition.
Situational keywords — lower cost, higher intent
Searches like "sell inherited property" (£2-12 CPC) and "sell house in divorce" (£1-7 CPC) have significantly lower costs and often higher intent. Once the initial location campaigns are proven, the natural next step is to expand into these situational terms with purpose-built landing pages and dedicated campaigns — increasing reach into high-intent, lower-cost searches without competing for expensive head terms.
We start with three location campaigns targeting core keywords within your £1,000/month budget. The situational expansion is where this model scales.
Situational keywords — where SEO can win without a fight
Our engagement starts with location-based landing pages and Google Ads — that's the priority. But in our research, we uncovered an organic opportunity worth flagging for future consideration.
When someone searches "sell my house fast," the first page is dominated by national brands with thousands of backlinks. Ranking organically for those terms would be extremely difficult in any reasonable timeframe, if it's achievable at all. But when someone searches "sell inherited property" or "sell house in divorce," the landscape is wide open. These situational terms have dramatically lower SEO competition, and the searchers are in the exact situations Home Sold Today is built to solve.
The data tells the story
Keyword Difficulty (KD) is scored 0–100. Under 20 means a well-optimised page can rank with minimal link-building. Over 40 requires significant backlinks and domain authority.
| Keyword | UK Vol/mo | KD | Avg CPC | Ad Comp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sell my house fast | 1,600 | 41 | £48.70 | High |
| quick house sale | 1,000 | 42 | £45.99 | Medium |
| cash house buyers | 480 | 30 | £44.19 | Medium |
| probate property sale | 590 | 3 | £1.52 | Low |
| sell inherited property | 260 | 19 | £7.23 | Low |
| sell house in divorce | 210 | 3 | £3.21 | Medium |
| stop repossession | 170 | 14 | £26.64 | Medium |
| sell buy to let property | 260 | <10 | £15.33 | Low |
All data UK-wide. KD from DataForSEO, April 2026. CPC from Google Ads auction data. Lower CPC also indicates fewer advertisers competing for these terms.
Inheritance & Probate
The biggest cluster. High-intent searchers who've inherited a property and need to sell. A KD of 3 on "probate property sale" means a well-structured page could rank quickly with minimal effort.
- probate property sale (590/mo, KD 3)
- sell inherited property (260/mo, KD 19)
- sell house after death (30/mo)
Divorce & Separation
Lower volume but exceptionally high intent. A KD of 3 means a single well-written, well-structured page could rank on the first page within weeks — not months. These searchers need resolution, not estate agents.
- sell house in divorce (210/mo, KD 3)
- selling house during divorce (70/mo)
- can i sell my house during divorce (20/mo)
Financial Distress & Buy-to-Let
Repossession terms cost £27/click in paid search but have an SEO difficulty of just 14. Buy-to-let sellers are a growing segment as landlords exit the market post-Section 24.
- stop repossession (170/mo, KD 14)
- sell buy to let property (260/mo)
~1,600 UK searches/month
Combined volume across all situational clusters. Average keyword difficulty: 10 (vs. 38 for head terms). Every one of these searchers is in a situation and needs a solution — not browsing, not comparing estate agents.
When you're ready to invest in organic content, a focused strategy targeting these terms — built on top of your existing situation pages — could produce organic leads within 3–6 months, running alongside paid campaigns at zero ad cost. Something to explore once the paid campaigns are established.
Informational content as a top-of-funnel play
Beyond the high-intent terms above, there's a layer of informational searches from people earlier in their journey — not yet ready to sell, but researching their situation. The standout:
- capital gains tax on inherited property — 1,300 searches/month, CPC just £1.35, LOW competition
- Similar patterns exist for "selling house after divorce rights," "probate timeline," and "can executor sell house before probate"
A well-written guide answering these questions positions Home Sold Today as the knowledgeable, trustworthy option — and captures people before competitors even see them. These readers convert into sellers over days and weeks, not immediately, but the traffic is essentially free once the content ranks.
Purpose-built landing pages + targeted campaigns
We're not touching your main site. Your team handles organic SEO, content, and video there. We build a separate paid funnel on a subdomain that we control and can test rapidly.
- 7-field form (too much friction)
- ~200 words per location page
- No reviews or trust badges
- No urgency or CTA above fold
- Est. 2-4% conversion rate
- 2-3 field form (postcode + phone)
- Location-specific content & stats
- Reviews, trust badges, social proof
- Clear CTA: "Cash offer in 24 hours"
- Est. 8-15% conversion rate
Messaging angles we'd lean into
Based on your positioning and what competitors aren't saying:
- Local trust over national scale — Hoults Yard address, NE testimonials, named team. Nationals are faceless; you're not.
- "We complete" certainty — In an unregulated industry where buyers pull out, this is your biggest differentiator. Lead with it.
- Speed without pressure — Your sellers are already under pressure. The messaging should feel like relief, not a hard sell.
- Transparent pricing — You already publish the 75-85% range. That's unusual and builds trust. Competitors hide the number until the call.
- Situation-specific empathy — Divorce, probate, repossession each need their own tone. Generic "sell fast" copy won't resonate the same way.
What we're building
3 location pages on subdomain
Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough. Set to noindex — no conflict with your main site's SEO. Lightweight, fast-loading, mobile-first. Expandable to Durham, Gateshead, Hartlepool.
3 search campaigns
One per location. Starting budget split: 50% Newcastle, 25% Sunderland, 25% Middlesbrough — adjusted on data. Situational ad groups for high-intent keywords.
Google Ads tracking + reporting
Google Ads conversion tracking on the subdomain via AW tag. We report on a custom dashboard showing leads, cost per lead, and campaign performance. You compare against your organic results.
Remarketing (when ready)
Once we have sufficient conversion data, we build a remarketing campaign targeting visitors who didn't convert. Likely Performance Max for maximum exposure.
From here to live
Campaign investment
Google Ads spend: £1,000/month
Split across three location campaigns — 50% Newcastle, 25% Sunderland, 25% Middlesbrough. Adjusted based on performance data as campaigns mature.
- Scalable based on results — increase spend into locations that convert
- 3 purpose-built landing pages included
- You own all code and assets
What we need from you to get started
DNS access
We'll need access to your domain's DNS settings to configure the subdomain for the landing pages (e.g. sell.homesoldtoday.co.uk). This may sit with John or your hosting provider. We'll coordinate when the build is ready.
Google Ads account
Access granted — we're connected via our MCC and ready to begin campaign planning.