Hosting an open house for a prime real estate property is only beneficial if people attend. The same can be said for having a website; you may have done all the staging and primed it for viewing, but none of it will matter if people can’t find your site. Keyword planning and search engine optimization (SEO) for real estate agents are two methods of getting people to your website and making your presence known online.
What is SEO for Real Estate Agents?
SEO is the process of incorporating highly searched for words and phrases into your website content so that your website is visible in search engine results. SEO is also achieved by using strategies like posting content on social media and having your website URL linked on other sites (known as back linking).
What makes real estate SEO challenging for Realtors? Because real estate is a such a competitive industry, SEO for real estate agents is tricky. If all Realtors are optimizing for the same keywords, it’s difficult to make your website appear above all the others.
SEO for Real Estate Agents Best Practices:
The good news is that SEO for real estate agents is still viable even in a competitive industry. The tips below from a vetted San Francisco SEO company for keyword planning and SEO best practices will help your website be found before all the rest:
Keyword planning. Hire a professional to analyze your website and your geographic location to find out if there are keywords that it will be easier to rank for, and, in general, to use in your blog posts and across your social media profiles.
Review sites. One way to get to the first page of the search engine results pages is to get to the top of the results in the review sites. This strategy works very well with sites like Yelp. Because those sites have such high page rank, they show up on the first page. When clients click through and see your 5-star reviews they are motivated to go to your website and get in touch.
Back links. You’ll also want to make sure that there are plenty of links back to your website from other high-quality websites. This can be accomplished through getting press releases and by submitting content to the pros you know in related industries. Why not write a blog post for your favorite certified public accountant (CPA) about how home ownership benefits tax planning?
Optimize for Local Search. In addition to reviews, you need to make sure that you are set up with Google My Business and Google Maps. You’ll need to set up a profile and then have your location verified by Google.
Optimize for Mobile. Optimizing for local search and optimizing for Google are related. When you optimize for local search, you are making sure that your website shows up well on mobile devices such as phones and tablets. As you are well aware, people looking for real estate are on the go, so being findable is critical.
How to use SEO for Real Estate Listings
In addition to making your website visible through keyword planning and SEO, you can also use SEO for real estate listings. Optimizing real estate listings will increase the likelihood of your website appearing in local search engine results and will ideally convert visitors into real estate clients.
Tips for Using Keyword Planning and Seo for Real Estate Listings:
Keyword planning: Focus on localized keywords in addition to the keywords created in the keyword planning for your website. A real estate listing already contains keywords in the property address, and a professional digital marketer can help you uncover other local keywords, such as the neighborhood the property is listed in, that your listing could rank for.
Social media: Platforms like Facebook and Pinterest have high page rankings on their own, so posting your listings on these two platforms will help them appear on the first page of search engine results. Create a real estate listings board in your Pinterest account and pin every listing, and post your real estate listings regularly on your Facebook page. This practice will give you valuable back links, too.
Website: Devote a section of your website to providing a thorough description of each real estate listing. Ideally, the descriptions should be 800 words (or more) in length and should incorporate the keywords from your local keyword planning.
Keyword planning and SEO for real estate agents, although it takes time and effort, represents an excellent long term return on investment for your digital marketing dollar. Get our FREE Top Producer’s Guide to (Digital) Real Estate Marketing Methods and find out how you can use keyword planning and SEO to boost your real estate business.