Wouldn’t it be great if you could get quality leads from your local area without having to put in a lot of effort? If you want to make this a reality, real estate SEO is the solution. Search Engine Optimization will help you show up and stand out on Google when people are searching for agents in your area. Today, 90% of home buyers use the internet, so if you can master real estate SEO, you’ll be ahead of the competition.
The best thing about real estate SEO is that it’s always working. You don’t need to make calls, buy ads, or do any extra work to generate leads–it happens automatically. If you’re ready to get off the Lead Generation Hamster Wheel, follow this guide. It will help you understand what it takes to rank in your local market, and give you a plan to make it happen.
Let’s jump in.
What Is Real Estate SEO?
in order to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), ideally for searches related to buying or selling a home. SEO for real estate can be defined as the optimization of a website and its content to appear higher in search engine results pages, with the goal being searches related to buying or selling a home.
The optimization that is done is to make Google see that your business is a trusted and legitimate source for real estate information.
However, this is not always the case. Most real estate businesses think that a website is all it takes to improve their exposure and produce more leads and conversions. However, this is often not the case.
Although certain objectives can be achieved, they cannot be accomplished by website creation alone. However, improving a company’s SEO will increase the likelihood of achieving those goals.
SEO in real estate can:
To benefit your business, it is important to rank your website on Google so that you appear before your competitors. The number of Google users who search for real estate in your area can be in the hundreds of thousands to millions. This exposure to such a large number of potential customers can have a significant impact on your business.
Google is a credible and legitimate source of information that people trust. If your real estate business is on the first page of Google, people will know that it is a credible and legitimate source of information.
If you do SEO correctly, you will get more exposure and credibility, which will lead to more inquiries and sales.
Now that you know how important SEO is for real estate, it’s time to learn how to use it for your business.
Is SEO good for Realtors?
Since there are so many businesses competing for space on the SERP, it has become very competitive for brokers and agents to try to optimize their website for search engines.
If you want to rank for important keywords that will result in qualified leads, you need to have a realtor SEO strategy.
Why is SEO important for Realtors?
44% of real estate buyers use online property listings as the first step in their buying process, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Hundreds of home searchers visit the site each month from a small set of keywords.
Wherever you look, no matter the location, there’s going to be between hundreds and tens of thousands of prospects searching for real estate in that local area every month:
- san antonio homes for sale is searched 7900 times every month
- studio apartments chicago is searched 1700 times monthly
- houses for sale in florida with pool gets 600 searches monthly
If you are in the top spot on Google, you will receive approximately 36.4% of the total clicks.
Then ranking #1 for
- San Antonio homes for sale = 2875 targeted leads visiting your site every month
- Studio apartments Chicago = 618 targeted leads visiting your site every month
- Houses for sale in Florida = 218 targeted leads visiting your site every month
However, not all prospective purchasers have the same perspective, with some being hindered by legal or financial concerns that impede the process.
About 13% of searchers are just looking for more information and are not sure about next steps, but they are still valuable real estate leads that should be nurtured.
If you want to grow your lead list, you should target informational keywords to present searchers with helpful content. This will help build brand awareness.
What are the 4 types of SEO?
Now that we understand the basics of SEO, we can dive deeper and explore the four types of SEO that will help us create more effective content and become true experts in the field!
1. On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is the optimizing of a website to make it more visible to search engines. This can be done by filling the website content with real estate seo keywords, adjusting navigation, and making sure all URLs are seo-friendly.
2. Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO increases the visibility of your website by building links to it from other websites. This includes social media, other websites, external blogs, guest posts, and brand mentions.
Additional content must be created for social media managing off-site SEO. This includes content with links to your website from other creators in a cooperative effort. The effort is worth it, but remember that not every link is created equal. You also cannot control everything published on external websites that link to yours. Therefore, be choosy about the promoters you allow and make sure their website are also SEO-friendly.
3. Technical SEO
Technical SEO can be difficult to manage and might require coding knowledge or a specialist’s support. Technical SEO consists of all the technical aspects of your website that need to be adjusted to meet the requirements of the search engine, such as indexing, crawling, website architecture and navigation, rendering, page speed and security, and mobile-friendliness.
It is helpful to have a professional review your website’s technical SEO, but there are some things you can do to improve these aspects of your site without having extensive tech knowledge. For example, you can avoid duplicating content across different pages of your website, remove any broken links, and ensure that all other links are working properly. Additionally, if possible, you can try to improve your website’s architecture by making sure it is logical and easy to navigate. These small changes can make a big difference in how search engines rank your website.
4. Local SEO
Local SEO is the fourth type of SEO and it is probably the most important one for real estate seo marketing. Essentially, local SEO optimization means creating content that is relevant to the queries of local users. If users look for general information such as “how to do something” or historic facts, most likely they will get similar Google search results. However, if they search for “homes for sale”, most likely they will end up with completely different results that depend on their localization. That’s because Google uses our localization to show us the most relevant results.
How To Do DIY Real Estate SEO
There are a lot of things you can do yourself to help your business rather than hiring an agency. Hiring an agency can be expensive, so doing things yourself can save you money. Here are 10 ways you can help your business.
1. Do some competitor research
If you are behind on SEO relative to your competitors, start by researching what they are doing.
You should examine their website, content, social media presence, the keywords they use, and the backlinks on their content.
As you do your research, make note of the questions below. Are they active on social media? Do they utilize quiz makers to learn what their market wants? Are they heavily focused on video content or written form?
Some businesses never improve their SEO because they never research their competition seriously. They think checking on their competitors will hurt their ego, but they don’t realize that they’re falling behind because their competitors are doing something right that they don’t know about.
You can use the information you gathered about what Google wants to improve your strategies or come up with new, better ones.
2. Conduct a technical audit
It is essential to conduct a technical audit on your website and content. The reason Google does not recognize your business is likely due to some technical issue.
One of the first things you can do to improve your SEO is to identify any factors that are hindering your success and eliminating them from your process.
To help with running your technical audit, here are some of the things to look at:
First, make sure all of your web pages are running. If they’re not, Google will never rank them.
Make sure that the links and keywords you use are relevant to your content. Google uses software called web crawlers to search public web pages, follow the links, and observe the keywords used.
The information you get from your analytics software will help you understand what strategies are working for your business. You can then use those same strategies for other content, while also taking note of what doesn’t work so that you can avoid repeating those mistakes.
Google has said that the speed of your website is one of the things their algorithm looks at when it decides where to put your site in the search results. So if you want your site to be on the first page of the search results, you should check your site’s speed with Google PageSpeed Insights.
More and more people are using mobile devices to access the internet. If your website is not designed to be used on a mobile phone, you are missing out on a lot of potential customers.
3. Focus on keywords
Keywords are essential for any SEO project. Using keywords is one way to ensure that your content will be seen by Google.
A tip for improving your keyword research is to go beyond the typical keyword searches. Try to find low-hanging fruit keywords that you can use to improve your website.
Low-hanging fruit keywords are keywords that are not being used by many other people or companies but still have a significant number of monthly searches.
4. Zero in on quality content
Having high-quality content on your website is essential for good SEO. This is something that any great brand designer or business owner knows.
The main goal for any real estate website should be to act as a central hub for information regarding the market. This means publishing content that is helpful and tailored to your specific audience. In doing so, you increase the chances of becoming the go-to website for all things real estate in your market.
Having goals that help people strive to create quality content puts everyone in your business on the mindset of helping people.
You can create blogs that focus on solving the problems your market is facing. For example, you could write a blog post about how to help your readers sell their listings faster, or tips to help them grow their real estate network.
You can share content that will be useful for your customers’ current real estate goals, such as which Instagram presets to use to make their homes more visually appealing, or tips for increasing their conversion rates.
If you take the time to create quality content, you will improve your leads, because more and more people will want to hear from you. If you are good at providing helpful content, this can even help to increase your conversion rate.
When you create high-quality content, you showcase your skills and expertise in your field. This helps build trust with your target audience and makes you a go-to source for information.
5. NAP should be consistent
The NAP acronym stands for Name, Address, and Phone number. It’s an important aspect of your SEO that should be consistent, so Google can always refer to your business when a user searches for something related to it.
If you want to be successful in digital marketing, it is essential to have your Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) listed correctly and consistently across all platforms. This is something that top marketing agencies will look for when considering working with a business.
Google uses your NAP to determine whether you are a trustworthy website that is near the user.
If your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) are listed consistently across all of your online platforms, it will improve your real estate company’s search engine optimization (SEO).
To help you with setting up your NAP, here are some tips you can follow:
Tip #1: Avoid abbreviations
Abbreviations can make your text look shorter and more enticing, but using them may hinder Google’s algorithm from understanding your location. Write out “street” and “New York” instead of using the abbreviations “st” and “NY.”
Tip #2: Be consistent
It is important to be consistent with your NAP information (Name, Address, and Phone number) across all platforms including your website, social media, and listings.
Tip #3: Keep it updated
Make sure to update your NAP (name, address, phone number) when you change your address or get a new phone number. Many small real estate companies forget this since it is just a small aspect of their business.
