With the changing times, the real estate market has become extremely competitive and it’s really hard to make a place of your own. Be it a solo entrepreneur or big company, everyone out there is working hard to increase their visibility and also get those listings. Well, now that half of the population is using the internet, the game is now on the online platform. With this, you’ll not have to worry about competing with thousands of other real estate agents.
Now that you’ll be only working with the area that is hyperlocal, it means that you’ll only be competing with the people in that particular area. Well, it does depend on the location and there are also chances of competition being tough among small businesses. So, you must definitely check out our real estate SEO tips that will help you stand out from your competition.
Real Estate SEO Tips
Initiate Keyword Research
One of the most essential aspects of SEO is nothing more than keyword research. If you’re about to get your traffic from Google, then, you’ll have to target your efforts towards it. The best-considered way to do so is to know what your keywords are ranking for.
In the world of SEO, keywords are all about what people are actually looking for on Google. So when we are talking about real estate SEO keywords, it is all about finding phrases that people are looking for on Google and the ones you wish to rank for.
Once you have the list of real estate keywords, you’ll have a fair idea of what your target audience is looking for. Post that, you can make the necessary changes or any other additions to your website.
Understanding The Site And Page-Level Structure
Once you’re done with your keywords, now it is time to understand the structure of your website for creating a full-proof real estate SEO campaign. In order to achieve a good site structure, there is a need for organizing your navigation appropriately and also ensuring to format everything properly on all the individual pages.
Talking about the structure of your website, ensure that the organization must look like a pyramid structure that has your home page at the top, after that the category pages, and last but not the least, individual pages.
With this, it will be easier for your users to navigate through your website. Not only that, but it also helps the search engines in understanding the structure of your website. One of the most important things for helping the search engines and users in navigating your site is nothing, but internal linking.
While you’re linking from one page to another, it’s extremely essential that you make use of descriptive anchor texts that tell the users and search engines what to expect when following a particular link.
Talking about the anchor text, it is nothing but a clickable text of a link. As a point of view of a user, it describes where they are actually going. Search engines make use of anchor text for assigning the ranking value of the page you’re linking it to.
Creating Quality Content
One of the most important real estate SEO tips is to create meaningful content that is useful to your users. Now that you know about the local area, you’ll have an idea of the total number of potential clients. Quality content is one of the most effective ways of providing this information on your website so that it can be used by search engines.
It is advisable to create several contents on the same topic or similar topics, but make sure that you use different keywords for each of them. You can try creating a list of top things to do in your state.
Suppose, you’re based in New York, you can churn out a top 10 lists that feature the best things to do in New York, around New York, and in surrounding areas, such as:
“10 Best Things to Do in New York“
“10 Things to Do Near New York“
Before writing content, ensure that you know and everything about that particular topic. Because your aim is to help people by providing them the information they need. At the end of the day, the purpose of this content is to get traffic from search engines.
The best way to come up with some content ideas is to do the things as follows:
- Have a look at the most common questions asked by your users on Google. And then pay attention to the headlines shown in the top three results.
- Quora for questions about real estate or your city.
- Ensure to review Google’s “People also ask” questions for related search terms.
Make Accessible Website
No matter what, every single person should be able to access the internet with the utmost ease. With the help of screen readers, people with visual impairments can read everything. But suppose the website isn’t built with accessibility in mind, the user experience suffers a lot.
Generally, when people think of the Americans with Disabilities Act, they hardly consider how it applies to online media as the law predated widespread internet access. So, it is extremely essential to ensure that your website is compliant with the ADA. Well, this stands true for real estate as agents are frequent lawsuit targets.
Mobile-Friendly Website
According to research, more than half of the internet traffic comes from mobile devices or tablets rather than computers. So, if you wish to keep Google and your users’ content, then you’ll have to make sure that your website works smoothly on mobile phones and tablets.
While you’re optimizing your website for mobile devices, make sure to focus on areas such as page speed, the home page, hosting speed, responsive design, site search, conversions, forms, and usability.
With responsive design, your website will fit any device’s screen, which is extremely important for usability. There is hardly anyone who would like to be on a slow working website, so if you want your users to stay on your website, then maintain your page speed. Apart from that, keep things as simple as possible.
With the help of the Mobile-Friendly Test tool, you will be able to determine if your current site passes the test and provides you with a list of issues that need your attention. In order to speed up things, minify your code and optimize your images.
Google My Business and Other Directories
One of the most important parts of real estate SEO is to focus on local citations. You must list your website with your name, address, and phone number on a number of directories. As it helps you to reach your target users.
First of all, start with Google My Business, and keep updating your profile once in a while. Make sure to complete as much of the profile as you possibly can. Try to oomph it up by adding some relevant content, pictures, or videos.
With this, you’ll be able to rank higher on Google’s local searches. Not only that, but it might also increase your chances of ranking better than other sites, but make sure that you have signed upon them.
Don’t forget to run a quick search on each of the platforms that you’re interested in. You might have some business profile that is just in need of a claim. The day you’re verified, you’ll have a
greater control over the information presented there.
Generate Video Content
One of the most important real estate SEO tips to opt for creating and optimizing video content. This is the best way to set yourself apart from the competition. If you’re looking for ideas to create video content, here we bring you some. You can opt for listing videos, open house videos, virtual tours, or Q&A videos.
Here, you’ll also have the opportunity to repurpose the video content and create another content out of it. This content can be written as a blog or may be used on your various social media platforms.
But before doing all of this, you must consider the following:
Launching a Youtube channel of your own.
Making sure that your upload videos on that channel
Share or upload your videos to your website and social media pages.
Make Use of Structured Data Markup
With the use of structured data markup or schema, Google and other search engines will be able to understand the kind of content that is on your page. If your website is displaying rich snippets in search results, then you must implement it wherever it is possible to do so.
Real estate has greater chances to benefit from product, place, residence, real estate agents, offer, webpage, search result page, etc. what you choose to be dependent on is fully based on your site structure. If you’re still not sure how to do it and where to start, you can opt for an SEO professional. Once a schema is added to your site, make sure to check it for accuracy with the Structured Data Testing Tool.
Optimize Your Featured Snippets
In the world of real estate SEO, featured snippets can act as the real game-changers. With featured snippets, you’ll be able to increase your traffic, improve your search ranking, improve conversion rates and attract users to your site.
Rather than competing with the big websites that have already made their place, try to look for questions that are still unanswered. But remember, Google doesn’t display the featured snippet with geo-targeted queries.
Commence an SEO Audit
With the help of an SEO audit, you’ll be able to know which of your website pages are doing well and which ones are in need of some improvements. Well, an audit is a really time-taking process, but it is extremely essential to do so as it acts as a benchmark for your progress and also provides you with essential information that you need for creating a roadmap.
Here are some questions that we are going to list, if any of these questions answer is a NO, then you must definitely opt for an SEO audit.
Are you getting the expected organic traffic on your website?
Are you able to get any leads or able to convert your clients?
Is your website ranking on a local level?
In order to know which of your website pages need the most attention, you need to make use of Google Analytics. And to find any issues with your website, take the help of Google console. Over here, you might also find the Mobile-Friendly Test tool and PageSpeed Insights tool.
Conclusion
There is cutthroat competition in the world of real estate, but still, there are several opportunities too. All you have to do is make use of the real estate SEO tips mentioned above. These tips will help you in dominating the local search.
Investing your resources in SEO with all of these strategies will definitely help you rant better on the search engine. If you’re someone who is not very amicable with the idea of SEO, then you must hire an SEO professional.
If you have any questions or queries regarding the blog, please feel free to ask in the comments.