Apply SEO to your real estate business
Seeing as we live in a highly digitalized world and online real estate marketplaces are gaining popularity by the day, it’s only natural that real estate decisions, transactions, and shopping also moves in the online world. However, seeing how robust and competitive the online world can be, a website and social media activity are no longer good enough. Nowadays, going that extra mile in the online world can make a great deal of a difference in your real estate business.
You might have a great website with a user-friendly interface and provide the best information for sellers and buyers, but it doesn’t do you any good if you don’t have a solid marketing strategy. The online world is a busy place, and while your website is excellent, it can get lost in the multitude of 1s and 0s of the world wide web. That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. Learn how to use it, apply it to your real estate business, and get your website on the first page of Google without paying for advertisements.
What is SEO?
Knowing how SEO works is essential if you want to increase your website’s traffic. Suppose you start applying SEO to your website it will work as a tailoring tool for your website’s content to improve its ranking in online search engines like Google. The better the SEO, the higher your website will rank in search engines and the easier it will be for clients to come across your website.
Real estate SEO can optimize your website’s content to bring more people to it by means of organic search results and not paid online advertising. The content that you can optimize to improve your search engine rank can be any content on your website, social media platforms, and mobile apps.
So, if someone searches “homes for sale in New York” in Google, the better your SEO ranking is, the more chances your website has to end up on the first page of a google search. And that is what you want - to increase your website’s visibility. One of the simplest yet most tedious ways to improve your website’s SEO ranking will focus on keyword density. It is the basics of SEO. There are other ways to address SEO, and we’ll take a closer look at the most useful practices. The idea is to create a website that offers an all-around good user experience and meets users’ needs.
SEO is a long-term marketing strategy that won’t bring results overnight. It is, however, a great way to ensure sustainable and healthy growth for your business through your online platforms. SEO isn’t about fast results but your business’s future goals.
How to Apply SEO in your Real Estate Business?
Seeing as every other realtor or broker is trying to grow their business, finding a way to stand out is essential in today’s jungle of information. When applied correctly, SEO can become a great lead generation engine for your real estate business, but we must understand how to use it. Here is what you can do to make your website your business’s most proactive marketing strategy.
SEO Audit your Website
Before implementing all the SEO strategies to boost your website’s ranking, figure out how you stand. Through an SEO audit, you will determine what pages are doing well and which you could improve. The SEO audit might take some time to complete, but you can use it as a benchmark for your SEO journey. It will help you understand how your site is doing locally, whether organic traffic has generated leads or converted clients.
The things you have to focus on are the site structure, the structure of your pages, the content, links, and your site’s usability. When these five areas are improved, organic traffic will increase.
Informative Blog Content
A real estate website benefits massively from a blog. Through the blog, your website can give users access to vast amounts of information, and you get the opportunity to maximize SEO through targeting relevant keywords. Especially if you own a small business, competing with global brands can seem like the story of David & Goliath. Still, if you focus on relevant information, your website will attract more clicks and users.
Make sure you don’t overlook the basic information related to your topic. Hence, if you’re focused on a particular neighborhood, give access to details that might interest buyers related to that area. Things like the cost of living, nightlife, safety statistics, school ratings, amenities, and walkability are essential to someone thinking about moving to a new area. Don’t forget to add visual aid to make the content more user-friendly and inclusive. Show your readers what you are writing about through images, virtual tours, infographics, and live stream videos whenever possible. To increase your content's interactivity, conduct some interviews with business owners in the area to give your readers a more rounded perspective of a neighborhood or city.
Before you make any of this content live on your website, make sure to optimize it for search engines. Don’t forget to include geographical keywords (the city, neighborhood, area’s name) in your title, headings, meta descriptions, hashtags, URLs, and alt text.
Study SEO Competitors
While your local industry competitors are close and you might be familiar with their tactics, your SEO competitors are something else entirely. You won’t see them across the street from you trying to steal your clients. They’re online, and they might not even be in the real estate industry at all, but they are stealing your traffic. The first thing you can do is figure out who you are actually competing against. However, all of this SEO competition isn’t based solely on the desire to get more leads. Because it is SEO, it’s based on keywords. Before including a keyword in your online content, analyze the keyword and find your nemesis. If they are another real estate business, then study their website, see what works for them and what doesn’t, what type of content they publish, how they organize their pages and website. Figure out what you can apply to your website from that and start to build your strategy.
Do the Keyword Research
The whole thing about keywords is anticipating what your clients are likely to write in their search engine when looking for homes. Once you establish a few potential keywords, determine which keywords are more reachable for your business, which is the keyword you can actually gain the most traffic from. This is done by finding out the search volume for each keyword and the competition for each keyword, which means that a keyword with a lot of searches is most likely to bring you a part of that traffic. However, if a keyword has a massive search volume that takes 90% of all traffic to one website, chances are it won’t help you that much. Juggle with the words and find one with a balanced competition and a lot of searches.
Conclusion
While the real estate industry alone is a highly competitive market, the internet makes it that much more competitive. Once you get the first page of Google, you’ll see leads coming in left and right. But still, there are plenty of opportunities to increase your real estate business through a well-rounded website with a high SEO ranking. Getting there might not always be easy, but it’s worth it.
SEO can make a big difference for your business. Still, if you don’t think you have the energy to implement it throughout your online marketing, you can always consult or hire a professional.