What is Real Estate SEO?

The SEO for Real Estate companies involves applying search engine optimization techniques to the websites of individual real estate agents or agencies to boost their website ranking to the first page of Google, ideally achieving a top rank. Although generic SEO techniques are fully applicable to the real estate sector, there are specific strategies that one must utilize to achieve the best results due to the sector’s peculiarities.

SEO Challenges faced by Real Estate businesses

The online market of the real estate sector is dominated by either large corporations or Real estate listing aggregator websites, which gives the small businesses little room to grow. Without a very well-designed real estate SEO strategy, it is tough for a small agency to compete and outrank large websites to attract traffic to its real estate website. That said, few real estate agents and agencies have devoted significant effort and resources to improving the search engine optimization of their websites, which has opened up new opportunities for them. By implementing the right strategies, they have successfully transformed their real estate website into a valuable asset that consistently attracts new customers. You can achieve a similar result for your business too. It’s all about finding and implementing the right strategies.

Real Estate SEO: How does it work?

SEO strategies for real estate businesses involve creating a long-term marketing plan (6 months or more) that aims to bring targeted traffic to the website. A successful campaign requires creating quality content that provides useful information to the website visitors and generates leads. Optimizing the technical aspect of website and SEO is very important, which involves developing a responsive website, optimizing HTML, CSS, and images to improve the site speed and provide the visitors with the best user experience.

• SEO strategies are a long-term marketing plan (6 months or more).
• The goal is to bring targeted traffic to the website.
• A successful campaign requires creating quality content that generates leads.
• Technical optimization is crucial, including:
• Developing a responsive website.
• Optimizing HTML, CSS, and images for site speed and user experience.

Given the unpredictable nature of Search engine algorithms and digital media in general, it isn’t easy to assert how long the SEO campaign will take to bring results. However, a well-planned campaign using the best strategies leads to increased chances of success in the shortest possible time. At the Social SEO team, we’ve achieved excellent results for hundreds of real estate businesses in the USA, Canada, the UK, and Australia over the last seven years.

Steps for creating a successful SEO campaign for a real estate business.

Phase 1: Organize and configure the real estate website. The first step of any real estate SEO project is to know the starting point. Analyze and check if the website is functional and user-friendly. Create fluid navigation and fix any usability errors.

• Analyze and check if the website is functional and user-friendly.
• Create fluid navigation and fix any usability errors.

It is essential to establish specific objectives to design the architecture of your real estate website. Conduct keyword research to find the best keywords by which your potential clients will find your site. Implement analytics tools like Google Analytics to monitor the behavior of website visitors.

• Establish specific objectives for website architecture.
• Conduct keyword research.
• Implement analytics tools (like Google Analytics).

Phase 2: Build a solid foundation with high-quality content. Content in the king. And to become a real estate magnet, you must create a website with high-quality content.

Create a content-rich website by following these steps. The main pages should contain information about the company and its services. Create a real estate blog section on your website to offer your visitors the latest real estate news and updates. You must ensure to update your content regularly with the best information to convert visitors into customers. High-quality content is essential to increase the positioning of your real estate website.

• Main pages should contain company and service information.
• Create a real estate blog section for news and updates.
• Update content regularly to convert visitors into customers.

In addition to the creation of content, you must structure and optimize the content in your real estate to improve its performance in search engines.

Phase 3: Content marketing and link building for business growth. Once you’ve created and optimized the main parts of the real estate website, it is time to make a strategy to promote the site on the internet. The creation of content must follow a specific plan and frequency, as well as opportunities to increase traffic through social networks. Further, you must create a niche-focused link building campaign to boost the authority of your website.

• Content creation must follow a specific plan and frequency.
• Increase traffic through social networks.
• Create a niche-focused link building campaign to boost website authority.

Phase 4: Maintain the lead and set new goals. Once you’ve achieved the initial goal of bringing in new clients, it is essential to continue updating the content on your website. You must utilize content marketing and link building to attract even more clients to your business and establish yourself as an authority on real estate buying and selling in your area. Real estate SEO is an ongoing process that involves setting new objectives, identifying new keywords, increasing traffic, and attracting more customers.

• Continue updating content.
• Utilize content marketing and link building to attract even more clients.
• Establish yourself as an authority.
• Real estate SEO is an ongoing process of setting new objectives and identifying new keywords.

Organic Traffic vs paid traffic for real estate websites

SEO is one of those terms that everyone knows, but very few understand. It is essential to understand what organic traffic means: Organic Traffic is the traffic your website receives through Google and other search engines for which you are not paying anything. Your real estate website appears in the top positions, and users click on it.

In addition to organic traffic, it is also possible to pay to bring visitors to your real estate website. The SEM Real Estate, or Search Engine Marketing, is an area specialized in managing digital real estate advertisement campaigns to achieve the highest number of visitors at the lowest possible cost, ultimately resulting in the highest number of sales and profitability for each dollar invested.

The magic of real estate SEO lies in the fact that once your website has reached the top position on search engines, maintaining that position is possible with minimal continuous SEO work. Achieving the top spot makes your real estate website a great asset and a constant source of new clients for your real estate agency.

Real Estate SEO: What does not work

Due to the high competition in search engines, reaching dominant positions requires doing a lot of things well. That’s why you must consider some actions that don’t yield any results and can hurt your business. These are some frequent examples on most real estate websites:

1.- A large number of properties

Posting a large number of properties, without any real estate SEO strategy. Many real estate agencies believe that having a large number of real estate properties (either owned or shared) will result in a high volume of requests for information. This usually has a negative impact as it dilutes the focus of marketing campaigns. The more property you post, the more you must invest in marketing. That’s why at the beginning, real estate businesses must focus on a small number of highly valuable properties for the best bang for your buck.

• Posting a large number of properties without an SEO strategy dilutes the focus and increases necessary marketing investment.
• Focus on a small number of highly valuable properties initially.

2.- Unfocused content strategy

Real estate website with content without a plan for publishing, promoting, and creating links. Creating and optimizing content is essential, but it is only part of the web positioning strategy for real estate agents, and without an appropriate link strategy and increasing the authority of your real estate website, it will not be enough.

• Content without a plan for publishing, promoting, and creating links is insufficient.
• Content requires an appropriate link strategy to increase website authority.

3.- Mediocre content.

If your goal is to attract visitors and then turn them into customers, the content must be excellent. Only the best content will rank for competitive keywords, and for this, it is necessary to be familiar with both digital marketing and real estate.

• Content must be excellent to attract and convert visitors.
• Only the best content will rank for competitive keywords.

Real Estate SEO: What does work.

An effective real estate SEO plan has a good number of aspects, and all of them must be executed to achieve your goals:

1.- Build a domain with authority

One of the most relevant factors to achieve a good search engine position is to build an authoritative website. You can have the best articles, but if Google does not value your real estate website, you will not get any visitors. Simply put, a domain of authority and high-quality, optimized content are the keys to success. The primary method for achieving this is to maintain regularity and consistently acquire high-quality backlinks to your real estate website, distributed across the home or main page and inner pages of your website. Additionally, a catchy brand name helps instill confidence in customers about your business.

• Build an authoritative website.
• Keys to success are a domain of authority and high-quality, optimized content.
• Achieve authority by maintaining regularity and consistently acquiring high-quality backlinks.
• A catchy brand name helps instill confidence.

2.- Local-focused content strategy.

A point of great importance in real estate SEO is to get visitors in the form of people who can access your services, usually living near you, or looking to buy or sell a property in your area. By creating local content and getting other companies and websites to share and link your content, you will be perceived as an authority on Real estate and be able to compete at that level with large companies and real estate websites.

• Focus on attracting visitors who are local or looking to buy/sell in your area.
• Creating local content and getting others to link to it helps establish you as a local authority.

3.- Long-tail keywords

Creating content for your real estate website and competing for the first position for the term “Real Estate + your city” can be very challenging. So as a small real estate business owner, you must focus on finding the best long-tail keywords for your business. Long-tail keywords are usually easier to rank. Using this strategy will give your business the head start it needs without worrying about outranking the large corporations.

• Focus on long-tail keywords instead of highly competitive broad terms.
• Long-tail keywords are usually easier to rank.

4.- Interesting content that gets shared in social networks.

One of the factors Google uses to determine if an article or web page is pleasing is by analyzing its dissemination in social networks. The theory is that if a webpage has been shared by many users on social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook, then it must be a quality article.

• Google analyzes social network dissemination (shares) as an indicator of content quality.

5. – Create helpful resources related to real estate

In addition to creating informative content on your real estate blog, you must develop guides and tips on life in your city and the cities you operate in, as well as information on the process of buying or selling a property. You should also provide real estate investment resources to your website visitors. This type of guidance will enhance your business’s credibility and contribute to improvements in search engine rankings.

• Develop guides and tips on life in your city/area.
• Provide information on the buying or selling process.
• Offer real estate investment resources.
• This guidance enhances credibility and improves rankings.

6.- Plan for Long-term

Real Estate SEO strategies can take months or even years to yield results. Many of your competitors will opt to launch advertising campaigns that yield results from day one, overlooking the importance of real estate SEO. In my view, it’s ideal to combine both strategies to get the best results in the short and long term. If you could create a real estate website that, in one year, generates prospective clients for you every day while you sleep, would you do it? Of course, yes! So, keep in mind that sticking to deadlines and being consistent is crucial for implementing a successful search engine optimization strategy for real estate.

• Plan for the long-term (months or years).
• Ideal approach is to combine SEO and advertising campaigns.
• Sticking to deadlines and being consistent is crucial.

7.- Use photos and videos on your real estate website.

Good quality pictures and videos are essential for a real estate website to generate visitor interest in the properties you’re selling. Most prospective buyers want to have a basic idea of what a property looks like before contacting the agents. That’s why you must take high-quality pictures of the interior and the exterior of the property. Additionally, you must optimize and tag the images correctly to achieve a high ranking in Google Image search.

• Use good quality pictures and videos.
• Take high-quality pictures of the interior and exterior.
• Optimize and tag images correctly for Google Image search ranking.

8.- Create a Responsive website.

Smartphones have already surpassed computers in local search queries. That’s why you must create a responsive website for your real estate business. If your website functions properly on smartphones and tablets, you won’t lose sales from people using these devices.

• Create a responsive website that works properly on smartphones and tablets.

9.- Personal and professional information.

As a professional working in a real estate agency, you must develop a dedicated page with information about each member of your team. Many people search for a real estate agent’s name on Google and Bing, looking to learn more about them before choosing them as their agent. Ensure that you have a comprehensive profile of yourself, including your work experience, on your website. Further, it’ll also help to create a profile for yourself in real estate directories.

• Develop a dedicated page with information about each team member.
• Include a comprehensive profile of yourself and your work experience.
• Create a profile in real estate directories.

How to find the right keywords for your real estate SEO campaigns?

The first step is to create a list of possible seed keywords in the real estate sector by seeing through the point of view of your potential clients. Ask yourself this question: if you were a potential customer for your business, what keywords would you search in Google to look for your business? Most likely, it’d be “real estate + city or town”. Once you’ve figured out the keyword, you must think of other variations for the keyword. For example, “real estate agency + city”, or “sale of apartments in + neighborhood”, or “apartments in + neighborhood/town”. After you’ve created a list of seed keywords, it’s time to generate more related search terms using keyword research tools.

• Create a list of possible seed keywords from the client’s point of view (e.g., “real estate + city”).
• Think of variations (e.g., “real estate agency + city,” “sale of apartments in + neighborhood”).
• Generate more related terms using keyword research tools.

There are also several tools that can help us determine which keywords are the most effective, based on the number of people who use them (Traffic) and the difficulty in ranking each of them (competition) on search engines. These tools will help you to discard complex and unrelated keywords and prioritize your objectives.

Here are the best keyword research tools for Real Estate business:

• Google Keyword Planner: A free tool that provides related long-tail keywords, search volume, and ranking difficulty.
• Semrush: A powerful SEO software (mostly paid) offering basic user data, keywords, and competitor position analysis.

Conclusion:

The best way to win with a real estate SEO strategy is to conduct thorough competition analysis and keyword research, and create an effective SEO strategy to outrank your competition and attract more customers for your Real estate business. If you have any questions related to Real Estate SEO or would like to suggest something to add to our guide, go ahead and post your thoughts and questions in the comment box.