Everything You Need to Know About Real Estate SEO
Physical house visits aren’t a thing of the past but probably not the first instinct of people looking to buy a home, anymore! After all, who has all the time to physically visit multiple real estate offices and get a quote on the ongoing rental rates? Especially when everything is just a click away. Just like buying a T-shirt, shoe, or web service online, real estate is also having a deep grasp on the digital world.
Safe to say, that smart real estate businesses have impressive and well-maintained websites to create a good first impression. Moreover, according to the National Association of Realtors, 97% of home buyers begin with an online search for a home. At the same time, almost half of them end up making a deal online. This means that there is some potential in SEO real estate.
But to think that only having a website is enough for the highly competitive real estate market is completely wrong. You need a real estate SEO-optimized website if you wish to reach the target audience and want to proceed with the sale further. Considering the oversaturation of real estate in the digital world, there is an automatic need to invest in real estate SEO services that are capable and promising.
Hence, we are here to guide you about everything that comes under real estate SEO, and how to follow the best SEO methods as a real estate agency.
What is Real Estate SEO?
SEO for any business includes the optimization of digital content in a way that your target customers can easily find it. This doesn’t include paid advertising like PPC or Google Ads. The purpose of real estate SEO is to ensure that your website ranks higher in the search engine ranking and has a chance of visibility to the target audience.
This is an extensive process and just like SEO for any business, real estate SEO also requires some key points to follow.
- Optimizing website content
- Social media platform optimization
- Mobile app
- Keywords
- Backlinking
- User-friendly content
- Good user experience
All these features combined and more can guarantee a website that ranks higher on the search engine and is accessible to the desired customer base. However, it is important to note that, SEO is a long-term work and consistent strategic effort. It isn’t a single-time job and especially for a business-like real estate, where people have been fond of physical marketing methods more than digital, making an impact becomes even more challenging. Fortunately, with our methods for SEO for realtors, you can easily optimize your website for enhanced customer reach.
How does Real Estate SEO differ from Common SEO?
The SEO practices, methods, rules and desired results are all the same but there are some key differences between real estate SEO and regular SEO.
- Real estate SEO has more location-specific real estate keywords
- SEO for real estate investors caters to the audience in a confined location rather than globally
- It is just the first step of marketing where a customer will know about your agency and then proceed with physical listings or in-person meetings.
- It requires an in-depth analysis of certain groups of people
- It is more query-centred rather than your product’s qualities.
- Real estate SEO requires transparency about all the information upfront.
- In real estate SEO there is no better (product) from the competitors but a better strategy to make your deals seem more amusing.
Why Do You Need Real Estate Search Engine Optimization?
As more realtors are shifting towards SEO for real estate, the increasing competition calls for unique strategies and online business building. This means that now the need for SEO for realtors is greater than ever. Here are some reasons why you should hire a real estate SEO company for your online presence:
Increased online traffic
The foremost purpose of investing in SEO techniques is to increase online visibility. But not just ordinary visibility but to become more reachable to the target audience. In this case, the interested buyers are from a certain area. Once you gather the right traffic, the next step of generating leads.
Therefore, with the help of SEO practices such as publishing content with target keywords, and location, and linking your brand to the relevant websites, the chances of increasing traffic significantly multiply. This also means more listings and more buyers finding your website as the number one real estate agency in the area.
Brand Awareness
Once you begin to gather the right traffic, brand awareness increases automatically. This is especially highly beneficial for real estate SEO because all of your desired audience is location-centric. So, the chance to score better word of mouth increases the chances of brand awareness. With the right SEO practices, soon your real estate business could be known as the best in the vicinity.
Less Paid Campaigns
Paid campaigns are one of the best ways to drive traffic on your website. But if you are a start-up or to mid-sized agency, paid campaigns might not fit into your budget. Therefore, investing in a specialized SEO agency is the best bet. With expert SEO practices, you can enjoy such organic traffic that there is no need for paid campaigns. Hence, the more you invest time and effort in SEO, the less you need to spend money on paid business campaigns.
Better Brand Security
SEO and organic audience reach is a much safer and better way of improving brand reach as compared to affiliate marketing. There is an added benefit of a secured brand reputation. You are in control of keywords, and linking and have searched the right type of audience you wish to reach. On the other hand, affiliate programs can put your brand in a bad light by promoting it via keywords that are untrue, not your brand’s characteristic or just popular. This is done by affiliate links to generate traffic. Even though you might get the traffic, anything untrue can be caught and become a serious blow to your brand’s reputation in the long run.
SEO is Evergreen
The ultimate benefit of SEO is that it never goes out of style. Many marketing methods have come and gone, and the type of campaigns have risen and diminished but SEO is ever green. Since it is a collection of methods based on real-time data collection and industry insights, SEO can never be wrong for your business. If you follow and stick to real estate SEO rules properly, the chances of your business becoming irrelevant are almost none.
Best Real Estate SEO practices to implement and follow
A smart real estate SEO plan isn’t just a single method to drive your business towards success but is one of the crucial parts of business growth. Together with other marketing strategies and practices, SEO creates new opportunities for growth and business expansion. Here are some ways to implement the best methods of SEO for real estate agents:
Analysis of Competitors
In any niche, competitor analysis is a major part of business strategy. Without competitive analysis, it is impossible to derive methods that are unique from the rest. Even if you are well aware of all the things in your real estate industry, different competitors have different marketing styles which are worth noticing. This helps you identify what methods other real estate agencies are using to grab the customer’s attention and which methods work better than the others. Also, by analysing competitor methods you can draft something that is different and hasn’t been offered before.
Keyword Research
An extension of competitor analysis is keyword research. In this step, you will analyze the most common keywords used by the competitors and the target audience. For this, you can use tools that uncover keywords and Google Analytics which identifies the target audience’s online behaviour. Since keywords are the most common phrases used by customers to look for a query, it is unwise to change it into something unique. You, however, must analyze the way keywords are used on the competitor’s site and then come up with a more creative, attractive plan.
Website Optimization
Once you have searched the right keywords to use, it’s time to work on incorporating them into your content. And this falls into the most crucial step of website optimization. Drafting content wisely and making it user-centric is a real challenge here. You must be smart with the tactics you use.
The content should be informative but not boring. It should address all the key points but must not be lengthy to waste time. It should have a certain style as per the audience’s interest level and should also use niche-specific language. Also, one of the best ways to create an impressive real estate SEO website is to add original pictures/videos of the properties on your page. This gives them an initial idea about what they are looking at.
The Technical SEO
Content and keywords are some on-page aspects of SEO. But to make sure you are all covered, technical SEO is of equal significance. Technical SEO includes all that happens behind the curtains or more precisely the Off-page SEO optimization. This includes page flexibility, user-friendliness, layout of the website, page and image optimization, load times etc. You must make sure that all the images, content placement and ads on your website or optimized. The website loads quickly and there is no lag while scrolling.
Progress Tracking
Stats by clearscope.io state to expect at least 12 months of wait time to rank in the top 15 of SEO ranking, that too with constant SEO practices. Therefore, it is important to note that, patience is a must when implementing SEO methods. Also, the best way to identify where your real estate SEO campaign is headed is to monitor the progress constantly. By using Google Analytics and other numeric data tracking you can monitor how the audience reacts to your website with new SEO practices.
Tips to Become a Real Estate SEO Expert
Becoming an SEO expert in any field let alone real estate, isn’t a one-night practice. There is a constant learning curve that changes with changes in market trends. Also, with a market as fast-paced as real estate, there is no chance to be lazy and lose your prospective clients. Here are some pointers to craft a solid real estate SEO game:
Real Estate Blog
Despite all the best SEO practices on your website, there is only so much creativity you can bring to the landing pages, infographics and ads. Hence, a way to stay relevant and active is to start a blog. Especially in niches such as real estate, helpful tips and insights about this high budget will drive future home buyers as your readers.
Work on your Metas
Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions are the first impressions your business creates. Especially meta description is a summary of your entire website. To generate higher chances of a click, design meta descriptions that answer what your audience is looking for. For instance: affordable housing properties, slashed prices on apartments, 2 bedroom attached bath only for $X, etc.
Be Accessible
Being accessible and showing your availability is a key to authenticity for any business. but when it comes to the real estate business, this need increases by several folds. Make sure to mention your details such as office location, contact number, working hours and where to find you- on the website. One best way is to claim your Google My Business listing and set it to your business in the desired locations.
Discovering the Best Real Estate SEO Strategy for you
Whether hiring a real estate SEO agency or designing your strategy, there is a need to smartly implement all the best SEO practices on your real estate website. Since a real estate business works on both ends, buyers and listers, an impactful real estate SEO strategy can be the entire game changer in enhancing your online visibility.
