7 Local SEO Tips for Real Estate Agents
When we talk about search engine optimization (SEO) and real estate agents in a sentence, only one thought comes to our mind: a love-hate relationship. Getting tons of leads is not that tough in this age of the internet, you just need to look in the right places. Everybody wants to get tons of leads while sitting at one place. On one side we have the old fashioned marketing strategies, which are time-consuming and also tiring, and nowhere close to the term being cost-effective. Needless to say, old had to give way to the new and more sophisticated strategies, and so grew SEO.
If you think SEO for real estate business is a tough nut to crack this article is just right for you. Have a read. #seotips #seo #websitedesigner Click To Tweet
You need to keep one thing in mind, and that is…
In its true meaning, SEO are the tasks you need to perform so that your target audience finds you. And all these tasks are to be performed online, for search engines, like Google, Bing, and so on. Now, many people, including you and me, might be familiar with the word “SEO”, but are you aware that there is Local SEO and National SEO? More on that later!
Enough with the differences and everything else, it’s now time we talk about how you can use SEO to amp-up your real estate marketing game. It’s time to share some amazing tricks. Read along…
1. SEO: UNIQUENESS IS KEY
Every good marketer knows that marketing is a beautiful amalgam of art and science. You must have come across numerous real estate coaches, workshops, and marketing books, telling you how to improve your gross commission income (GCI), how to build a name for yourself in the market, and what successful advertising is all about. However, if you are not able to connect with the correct audience, none of these tactics will work. It all sounds good on paper, but reality is sometimes way far away from theory.
So now the question comes, how is this connected to local SEO? Don’t worry; we are here to answer that for you. First, let’s see how search engines work. Say you enter a search query on Google, then Google matches the keywords and relevant answers displayed on the SERP (search engine result page).
The higher the relevance of a resulting link, the more traffic it will get. Basically, if we don’t have people searching for your topics (or keywords), there would be no a Google and no advertising.
So, as a marketer, it becomes your top priority to make your story unique, fascinating, and original. This is the only UFO’s you should be interested in right now (Unique, Fascinating and Original).
2. USE KEYWORDS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE IS SEARCHING FOR
One of the most overlooked aspects of SEO is the keyword research. While it is a common practice among a majority of real estate marketers to dedicate a good amount of time planning their social media strategies, many fail to understand the power of a thorough keyword research.
If you knew how these keywords could help users to find you, you would get psyched out! If you know what people are looking for, you can appear right in front of them and lead them to your website. The key is to go for long tail keywords and look for organic terms (you should use Google Analytics for this). Try a few free keyword research tools to get a better idea on how to get the closest long tail keywords with respect to the user’s search patterns.
3. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A GREAT HEADLINE
As Ben Franklin once said, “People are best convinced by things they themselves discover.”
Nothing kills content on a real estate website faster than a boring headline. We have all been there, the email subject line that says a prince is sharing his fortune with you (oh, you missed that one?), completely bland book covers, that are not at all worth a second look, and those cringe-worthy pickup lines (Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?). The list is endless, literally endless. Don’t let the lack of creativity hinder you from catching the attention of your audience. If you aren’t good with headlines, find someone who is.
4. AND THEN, THERE IS CONTENT
The ugly truth is that the real estate industry is not famous for good quality content. It is generally flooded with the same old boring content. Housing, apartments, independent houses, mansions, dream homes, and what not! Ugh, I’m sure you agree!
Now is the time to work your content. When you write it, read it aloud once. If you get bored while speaking it aloud, your audience won’t read it either. Inform, engage, and educate your audience. They should realize why they need you. Only then they will come to you.
5. HAVE YOU HEARD OF ON-SITE SEO? USE IT.
Realtors need to understand what Local SEO is and what National SEO is to make sure they are proceeding in the right direction. For example: if you are offering a vacation house for international travelers, you may want to target people across the globe. But when you are into selling homes for residential purposes, you will want to see people who are searching for homes around the locality you are selling for.
What most realtors don’t realize is that when it comes to on-site SEO, they need to understand the difference between Local SEO and its national counterpart.
First of all, when you are preparing your strategy for Local SEO, you must ensure that the Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) of your business are mentioned generously on your website, like, on every page. It should always be in the sight of your audience. Along with that, you also need to make sure that this is the same NAP as you mentioned in your local listings. Any discrepancy here will raise doubt in your audience’s mind, and it is not good news for you.
➕ BONUS: Make sure you include your city, town or state name in your content. This includes snippets (Meta title and Meta descriptions) and the write-up as well (which means blogs, articles, and/or listicles, or video blogs, or anything and everything else).
6. UNDERSTAND THAT LOCAL SEO + NATIONAL SEO AREN’T THE SAME
And it’s not just the names that set them apart, it’s also how you approach the two processes altogether. While there are elements such as indexing, listing optimization, amazing content, and backlinks, which are common among local and national SEO, there are few elements, which are rather more inclined towards local SEO. Focus on these elements carefully. A real estate agent website is incomplete if local SEO is not taken care of.
Let’s take look at an example: A user may search “trustworthy realtors” and the search engine will show a nationalized result. But when a user types “trustworthy Realtors in Orange County”, the search engine knows which location needs to be focused. That’s the power of localized searches, don’t ignore them!
7. YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD BE MOBILE FRIENDLY
Take a good look at yourself, you’ll find everybody hooked to their mobile devices. This is why you need to have responsive websites that can be viewed easily from all sorts of screen platforms without needing to scroll too much or constant zooming.
This is an absolute must! Or you can simply kiss your business goodbye! No, we are not kidding. Just a look around, oh wait, just look at yourself, reading this article on your smartphone. That’s what this age is, completely hooked to mobile devices. Why would anybody want to open their laptop when they can see the same amazing content on their mobile phone?
Smartphones have become the first priority device when it comes to the choice of gadget to view a website. And it’s just right; this is the only device that spends so much time in our hands. If your website isn’t responsive, you really need a new website!
So what do you think? Did these tips help you out? What SEO strategies are you implementing?
