Homebuyers of today have started to turn to the Internet. Based on information from the National Association of Realtors, 95% of people looking for a home will go online. Mobile ads have replaced yard signs as the most used place for information about homes for sale, behind agents and search engines. Even though 50% of home buyers have found their home independently, 87% of people use agents.
What is real estate SEO? It is strategies that get developed to help home buyers and renters find you searching online. Many customers go online to find their new homes, and those who use real estate SEO will knock the competition out of the water. Realtors who use digital marketing know how important that is. Below are ten tips that you can use for your real estate SEO to be successful for your business.
Build Relationship and Build Backlinks
If you attract visitors from other sources, Google will provide you with more traffic. Backlinks or links from other websites to your website are an essential factor in improving rankings. To create backlinks, please contribute or advertise on well-known websites in your field and community. Use your broker website and connect with local media and community partners. Building relationships is as important as offline relationships.
Keep Everything Simple
Don’t overthink about your design and network products. Customers are looking for a hassle-free online experience. Think carefully about your web design and navigation. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Does your website have technical issues?
- Is it challenging to find content on your website?
- Is your design unstoppable?
- Do you make it difficult for customers to contact you?
- Is your website slow?
Set aside time to regularly check your website, especially if you frequently add to your website to check for any issues that would hinder the customer experience. For example, a slow website can impact your conversions in a negative way. Google found that web pages that took more than 3 seconds to load lost 53% of visitors. Besides, image damage and page loss have little impact on your business. There are many tools available to check loading speed and identify technical issues.
Navigation also plays a vital role in the customer experience. Keep the structure of your navigation strategic and simple while providing internal links on every page of the website. Encourage your audience to further explore your website with links related to the content that attracts them. Include calls to action and links to related resources on blogs, lists, and company information.
Find Targeted Keywords
Search engines are engaged in matching business. To attract and convert new customers, choosing a wide range of high-quality content on your website and mobile applications is vital. Keywords make online users get the best resources. These keywords need to be displayed throughout the online product for search engines to include you in keyword searches. Search engines also index keywords in URLs, page titles, and metadata. Be sure to pay attention to these additional opportunities to target keywords. However, it’s essential not to use too many keywords. Google will penalize you with “keyword stuffing.” The term “keyword stuffing” describes too much of the exact keywords in the entire website.
Determining the keywords to be targeted is an essential part of a real estate SEO strategy. You are unlikely to compete with broad keywords such as “real estate” and “real estate agent.” Competition for broad keywords across the country is fierce. You can rank better in searches that contain long-tail keywords along with local keywords. To ensure a match with local search and long-tail search, these phrases, and local identifiers must be on your website.
Add Calculators and Maps
Also, valuable content is not limited to articles and blog posts. Tools like mortgage calculators have become popular and not to mention are some of the most searched items for real estate. Many websites offer calculators that can get embedded for free. If you use WordPress to manage your website, you can use maps, quizzes, and calculators as widgets.
Quality is Important
Quality content is as important as quantity. The Internet is full of 500-word blog posts filled with keywords, but they are rarely said. Your customers will find valuable and high-quality content, and blogs and articles will get higher rankings in Google and thus get rewards. Google will notify the user when to visit the page and then return to the search results to try again. This practice is called “pogo-sticking.” Google hopes to pair in the first attempt successfully. So, in short, your content must be good.
Encourage People to Leave Online Reviews
91% of people read online reviews, and 84% trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Comments can determine the success or failure of your business. Implement a follow-up system with customers, and encourage customers to comment on Yelp and Google and dedicated resources for real estate agents such as Zillow.
Make Social Media Your Best Friend
It will help if you manage to maintain a Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook account. It’s everywhere and often posted. Just having a social media account is not enough. Your social media account is only valuable if it is updated frequently. There are some tools like Buffer that will let you schedule posts to various social media networks at the same time. If you do not have the time to do that, or a team to create and manage multiple social media accounts with regular content? You can also hire an experienced social media marketing agency to handle such tasks.
Add Multimedia
Your valuable media does not need to get limited to plain text. Consider publishing video walkthroughs and investing in virtual reality, which is very popular among millennials. For these resources to appear in Google Search, be sure that you include metadata and keywords inside of the alt tags.
Go Local and Be Local
Especially in mobile devices, Google focuses on local content, so the real estate sector has a huge opportunity to attract local traffic. Search engines try to provide customers with useful information, and localization is the key to achieving this goal. Make sure to include content that highlights resources in the states, cities, and communities you serve. You can provide information about community resources, festivals, shopping, sports teams, landmarks, events, schools, restaurants, and attractions. Great real estate SEO has successfully provided potential homebuyers with valuable local resources. Local SEO is essential for real estate agents. Make sure to embed Google Maps and use the framework to improve your position. Needless to say, but check that your contact information and company information are correct and easy to find.
Become Mobile Friendly
Mobile is making how renters and buyers find their homes much different. 72% of home buyers have searched for a home through their mobile device, and over 50% of millennials found their homes through a mobile device. Over 50% of rental searches get done through mobile. With Mobile-First, Google can now privilege content tailored for mobile. Make sure to optimize content and design for tablets and smartphones. Create mobile apps for Android and iOS. Use mobile-appropriate templates and mobile testing tools to ensure that your product works across various mobile devices.
Conclusion
Finally, if you don’t have a Google Analytics account to monitor your marketing activities, please set up one. Like the Internet, SEO is continually changing, but the basic principles remain the same.
Ultimately, successful SEO will depend on whether you use common-sense practices. You will need to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Become a valuable resource, allowing customers to find you through various sources on a multitude of devices, build community relationships and highlight the community that you serve and make sure that the experience of your customer is good. Become a resource that customers need and want.
For more information about hiring the right real estate SEO agent to generate more income, please contact us immediately.
