Realtors’ Guide to Real Estate SEO

The National Association of Realtors survey found that millennials accounted for 36% of all homebuyers in 2020, up from 32% in 2019. This uptick is due, in part, to the fact that millennials are getting older and entering their 30s and 40s, a time when many people traditionally buy a home. But it’s also because millennials are increasingly comfortable buying a house online and using technology to research neighborhoods and properties. In fact, 78% of millennials who bought a home in 2020 did so without ever stepping foot inside the property.

This trend toward online real estate transactions will continue, so it’s more important than ever for real estate businesses to have a strong SEO strategy. Let’s take a look at what SEO is and how you can use it to get your listings seen by more potential buyers.

Real Estate SEO

Now more than ever, it’s essential for real estate businesses to have a strong SEO strategy. Let’s take a look at what SEO is and how you can use it to get your listings seen by more potential buyers.

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It’s a way of optimizing your online content so that people can find you through organic search results, as opposed to paid online advertising like Google Ads. There are many different ways to optimize your content for search engines, including your website, social media platforms, and mobile apps.

In the early days of SEO, the main focus was on emphasizing keywords and links. But now, creating an all-around good user experience that helps meet your user’s needs is the most important. This means making sure your website is easy to use, your social media posts are engaging, and your mobile app is easy to navigate.

Does Real Estate Need SEO?

Yes! As more and more people buy homes online, it’s more important than ever for real estate businesses to have a strong SEO strategy. Realtors who invest in SEO can see increased web traffic, leads, and conversions. And the best part is that SEO is a continually evolving field, so you can keep up with the latest changes and trends to stay ahead of your competition.

What Can SEO Do for Real Estate?

There are many ways that SEO can help real estate businesses. Some of the benefits include:

• Increased web traffic
• More leads and conversions
• Improved brand awareness
• Greater online visibility for your listings
• Enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty

SEO is a great way to get your listings in front of more potential buyers, leading to increased traffic and revenue for your business.

How Does SEO Work for Real Estate?

When someone types a query into a search engine, like Google, they are shown a list of results that match their query. The results that show up on the first page are the ones that have been optimized the best. This is where SEO comes in. By optimizing your content for search engines, you can increase your chances of ranking higher in the search results.

Many different factors determine how well your content will rank in the search results. Some of these factors include:

• The title of your page
• The keywords and phrases you use
• Your website’s structure and design
• The quality of your content
• The number of links to your page
• The age of your website
• The social media shares and likes

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to SEO, so you will need to experiment with different strategies to see what works best for you.

Is Real Estate SEO Effective for Lead Generation?

Yes! One of the main benefits of SEO is that it can be used for lead generation. By optimizing your content for search engines, you can bring more potential buyers to your website, where they can fill out a contact form or sign up for your newsletter. You can also use local data-driven market research to understand the needs of your potential clients and create targeted content that appeals to them.

How Can Real Estate SEO Strategies Skyrocket Rankings and Traffic?

You can use many strategies to improve your real estate website’s ranking. Here’s SEO Vendor’s practical checklist that can help you achieve your business goals.

Competitor Analysis

Identifying your online competitors is the first step. Even if you know your industry competitors well, your SEO competitors can vary from keyword to keyword, so you will need to run a competitor analysis to find out whom you are competing with for search engine rankings. Once you know who your competitors are, analyze what works and what doesn’t for them. What kind of content do they publish? What is the structure of their pages and websites? Learn from their mistakes, and you have a good foundation to build your own strategy.

Keyword Research

The next step is to conduct extensive keyword research. This will involve finding keywords that your potential clients are typing into search engines when looking for housing information. You will then need to determine which of these keywords are reachable based on each keyword’s search volume and competition.

Long-Tail Keywords Opportunities

Once you have your target keywords, it is important to focus on long-tail keywords. These phrases are much less competitive than general keywords but still have high relevance to your audience. By targeting long-tail keywords, you can rank higher for more specific queries and attract more qualified leads from potential buyers.

High Quality Targeted Content

The next step is to create high-quality content that targets your target keywords. This content should be useful and informative for your potential clients and should not be stuffed with keywords. You should avoid using your target keywords too often, as this can hurt your rankings.

Full Technical Website Audit

The final step is to perform a full technical website audit. This will involve checking for any errors or issues that may be preventing your website from ranking high in the search results. You should also check for any optimization opportunities that you may have missed.

Solve Crawling And Indexing Issues

Following an audit of your website’s technical elements, you should focus on fixing the problems that impact crawling and indexing. Even the best content is worthless if it isn’t being crawled and indexed by search engines. Broken links, outdated URLs, missing or inaccurate sitemap, duplicate pages, and slow loading speeds can affect crawlability.

Localize Your Business

One of the best ways to improve your real estate SEO is to localize your business. This means including your name, address, and phone number on your website on as many pages as possible. You can also use localized content to target specific markets. For example, if you target the Canadian market, you will want to create content relevant to Canadian buyers.

Claim Your Google My Business Listing

Create a Google My Business listing. This will help you appear in the local search results and give you access to valuable features such as customer reviews and insights into how people are finding your business.

Real Estate Agent Schema Markup

If you are a real estate agent, it is crucial to use the Real Estate Agent schema markup. This will help search engines identify you as an agent and provide your contact information so that potential clients can easily find you.

Local Backlinks Can Help Your Real Estate Website

One of the best ways to improve your real estate SEO is to get local backlinks to your website. This can be done by targeting local directories, newspapers, and other online sources. You can also reach out to local bloggers and ask them to include a link to your website in their articles.

Keep An Eye on Your Keyword Rankings

To keep track of your goals and report your performance, you must monitor the evolution of your keywords. By staying on top of changes to a keyword’s search volume or ranking, you can make any necessary adjustments to your strategy. Monitoring also ensures you keep an overview of which pages have low rankings and need further optimization.

Set Milestones For Your Real  Estate SEO Campaign

Setting milestones and tracking your progress is important to get the most out of your real estate SEO campaign. This will help you stay on track and ensure that you are making the desired progress.

Set milestones like:

• Rankings gained on the key terms of your real estate business
• Increase in website traffic
• Interactions on your GMB profile
• Improvement in click-through rate (CTR)
• Improvement in conversion rate
• Increase in session time
• New vs. returning users
• Decrease in bounce rate
• The number of inquiries

Use Web Analytics Tool

You can use web analytic tools, such as Semrush to measure the success of your SEO campaign. This will allow you to gather data on how your users behave on your website and the typical user journey. You can also set specific goals and events related to actions on your website that allow you to segment your users so that you can target different groups more effectively with the relevant content and information. You can also consider using heatmaps on your key pages that would allow you to understand how your users are interacting with them. By doing all of this research, you will be able to improve your real estate website and see a corresponding increase in traffic and conversions.

Build a Fully Functioning Search Feature On Your Website (Internal Search Engine)

One of the best ways to improve your real estate SEO is to build a fully functioning search feature on your website. This will allow your users to quickly find the information they are looking for on your website. You can use an off-the-shelf search engine, such as Google Custom Search Engine, or you can build your own search engine using open source technology. Whichever option you choose, be sure to configure it to return the most relevant results for your users.

Use A/B Testing

Consider testing different versions of your website to improve user experience and conversion rate. Find out what combination of elements on your website works and eliminate those that don’t. The goal is to improve how visitors interact with your website since this will help you rank higher and convert more visitors into clients.

You can also use A/B testing for other goals, such as improving click-through rates (CTRs) or increasing the number of leads generated from your website. Test out different headlines, images, calls to action (CTAs), and layouts to see which ones produce the best results. By doing this type of experimentation, you can fine-tune your website to perfection and improve your real estate SEO at the same time.

Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

As mentioned earlier, more and more people search from their mobile devices. This means that your website needs to be optimized for mobile users. Your rankings will suffer if mobile bots cannot easily navigate your website. Ways to improve the mobile experience on your website include improving page speed, ensuring your website’s design adapts well to smaller tablet and phone screen sizes, and using a responsive design.

Improve your EAT factors

To rank better in the search engines, you need to improve your Expertise, Authority, and Trust (EAT) factors. This means that you need to focus on building an authoritative and trusted website. Ways to do this include creating high-quality content, getting involved in social media, and building strong relationships with other websites in your industry.

Ensure That Your Website is ADA Compliant

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to provide equal access and services to people with disabilities. You might need to install ramps or widen doors at your real estate or home offices where you conduct business with clients. This also applies to your real estate website. Consequently, to avoid litigation and loss of business, you should ensure your website is ADA-compliant by checking it for accessibility issues, such as non-compatibility with assistive technology.

By following these tips, you can improve your real estate SEO and see a corresponding increase in traffic and conversions. Keep in mind that SEO is an ongoing process that requires constant attention in order to stay ahead of the competition. However, if you put in the effort, you will be rewarded with better rankings and more business from your website.