“We know what percentage of our real estate content traffic is from search and relating that to our overall search number, the real estate has clearly had a positive effect. Many publishers I’ve talked to have lost 25–30% of their search traffic [due to AI search], we’re at more like 15–20%. Not having to take as big a dent is a really big deal for us.”
John Sahly, Managing Editor
For about a year, Shaw Media in Illinois has been publishing automated content about local real estate sales on their news site. The newsroom, business and readers have benefited in a number of ways:
• The automated articles and lists constitute unique local content which meaningfully contribute to daily content publication goals, alleviating pressure on journalists – especially on weekends.
• As news publishers’ traffic takes a hit due to AI related changes in search, Shaw’s data shows that the automated real estate content has lessened the impact over the past year.
• The content has converted 45 paying subscribers so far this year and it supports ad sales as well as a couple of additional revenue streams.
“As for readers, I think the real estate content is another entry point to what is happening locally, and one they cannot get anywhere else,” says Shaw Media Managing Editor John Sahly.
Shaw Media serves northern Illinois; from Chicago’s western suburbs across to the Iowa state border, north towards Wisconsin and south as far as Interstate 80. Shawlocal.com reaches some 2.5 million readers a month and covers 14 counties. Each county has its own Home page through a dropdown menu at the top of the main page, and once a reader selects a county it’s set at the default Home for that user.
Shaw Media’s editorial staff is spread across its markets. The sizes of the local newsrooms are determined by the size of the county in question. Each market has at least one reporter, some editors cover more than one. Reporters also cover regional beats, such as Data centers, Cost of living and Public safety.
Shaw Media started testing out the automated real estate content last fall and Managing Editor John Sahly has been overseeing the project throughout. “We got interested because we knew the audience was there. About ten years ago we had an agreement with Zillow; I used to take their listings and photos and do photo galleries of local homes for sale. It was very intense – I could do maybe three or four a day. They performed very well – but that was half my day! So when we saw this opportunity to re-enter that market but in a much more efficient way, it seemed like the perfect thing to test.”
Real estate lists and articles. The company publishes about 115 real estate top lists a month (e g Top ten most expensive homes sold and What X dollars will get you in town Y) as well as about 130 articles about single house sales a day. The content includes Google streetview images of the properties, which, according to Sahly, is absolutely key for search results.
The content, from United Robots, is not produced by generative AI, but is based on actual transaction data and generated by NLG (Natural Language Generation). It’s automatically sent into Shaw Media’s CMS according to a preset schedule. John Sahly emphasises that, while the articles are formatted and ready-to-go, they always have a human in the loop to make sure everything is correct before publishing.
How & where it’s published. The automated content all lives in a dedicated Real Estate section. Relevant single articles and lists are then published under Latest Headlines on each county Home page. A lot of it is also published through social media (Facebook, X and BlueSky) as well as sometimes in newsletters – there are daily morning update newsletters for each county as well as 10–15 weekly newsletters for specific towns. “Our newsletters are populated by AI, and the real estate content qualifies for inclusion,” says John Sahly. “It’s the over performing stuff that gets picked by AI – most often that’s the weekly top lists that we’ve published on a Sunday.”
Spikes in Google Discover. Search is Shaw Media’s biggest traffic source, followed by social and direct traffic. Sahly says that over time, the team has learned what content drives traffic where. “We know that if we post to certain towns at certain times of day we’ll get a real spike in Google Discover – but of course we don’t know why. For example, anything I post at the weekend to the city of Ottawa is almost guaranteed to pop in Discover. I think the lesson here is to test and learn what works.”
The real estate content reduces the impact of AI on search traffic. Like news publishers across the world, Shaw Media’s search traffic has taken a hit due to Google’s AI summaries. However, according to Sahly, for Shaw Media, the real estate content has made up for some of the loss in search traffic seen across the industry. “We know what percentage of our real estate content traffic is from search and relating that to our overall search number, the real estate has clearly had a positive effect. Many publishers I’ve talked to have lost 25–30% of their search traffic, we’re at more like 15–20%. Not having to take as big a dent is a really big deal for us.”
Article publishing goals = relief for reporters. According to John Sahly, the automated real estate content has been particularly valuable in the newsroom as it helps with content publishing goals. “It has been tremendously helpful because it has allowed us to reach those goals. We were especially having trouble on the weekends and the real estate content fills that hole very nicely in an efficient way. Which means it's provided relief for our journalists who are not then scrambling and instead can focus more on their beat specific work.” The automated content has been very appreciated by editors, while reporters have sometimes had questions about priorities with such high volumes of content being published. “But I think when we're able to have conversations with them about the fact that this is supplemental, something that is answering a niche for us and it allows them to continue to focus on their beats – then they come around to it.”
Subscriber conversions. While some exclusive content is set as subscriber-only across the ShawLocal site, a dynamic paywall determines how most of it is shown. The automated real estate content has converted 45 visitors to paying subscribers so far this year. The extra inventory also drives some programmatic ad sales as well as supports a couple of additional revenue streams.
John Sahly encourages other local news publishers to work out what problems they have that automated real estate content could potentially solve, set up goals for what they are trying to achieve, and to start testing.