A real estate business can gain significantly from digital marketing (this is evident). Did you know that SEO (search engine optimization) can assist you in constructing a popular and effective website for your business? However, many still underestimate its potential. Although traditional methods have their place, the digital landscape offers vast opportunities. This transformation is crucial because it enables companies to reach a broader audience.
The real estate industry depends a lot on building long-lasting relationships with customers in your local area. It may be a little trickier online, as the pool of potential customers and competitors is a lot bigger. This is why, to be able to absorb all the potential property buyers who are searching for prospective properties online, your website needs to rank at the top of the results pages on search engines. For that, you need a solid SEO strategy.
So how do you go about it? Read on as we will tell you the latest and most effective SEO tips and tricks for real estate companies.
Optimize your real estate website
One of the most common issues that hamper the rankings of real estate websites is site speed. Most real estate sites are loaded with images, and for good reason. Otherwise, how can you make the audience completely familiar with the property you are trying to sell them? Too many high-quality images can slow down a website. A slow and low-quality website will automatically create a bad user experience. This means that you’ve got a low chance of ranking well on search engines with this kind of website. So, what to do?
You can fix this by using tools to compress your images. Smaller file sizes for images will ensure that they load faster. You can also try some other tactics to increase speed and enhance user experience on your website –
- Find and fix duplicate content and broken links
- Check the security of your website with an HTTPS certification
- Correct the schema markup of the website
- Submit your sitemap to Google so that it can understand the structure of your website perfectly
Target local keywords
Real estate business needs to focus extensively on local keywords to be popular and successful. As these businesses rely on different target audience groups from small pockets of the same region, you must research and find out the keywords that are best suited for each content and each page on the website.
Finding out what each targeted audience group is searching for will make sure that you appear as knowledgeable in your niche. This will automatically let search engines know about your authority in the industry, increasing your ranks on results pages.
Long-tailed keywords are the easiest to target for real estate agents. These are highly specific phrases that have lower search volumes, but they can be really helpful when it comes to establishing a devoted local audience base. Long-tailed keywords are easier to rank for with a lower keyword difficulty and these are normally used when motivated buyers and sellers in the local market are searching the internet. So, it is the exact kind of keyword that will benefit real estate businesses.
Create valuable and informative content
Real estate is a highly specific niche, where trustworthy information may not always be available abundantly. Potential property buyers (and search engines) are more likely to pay attention to a website that contains genuine and valuable information on niche-based aspects.
If you consistently post high-value, educative content on several aspects of real estate like market conditions, latest properties, etc., you can engage your audience and convert them into clients over time. Although it will take you some time and a lot of regular research, this is a great way to attract people interested in real estate to your website. Those who do not visit your website directly may be visiting it through your blogs and articles when they are searching for a similar topic.
Optimize for mobile users
The biggest part of building a solid SEO strategy for real estate and every other business alike is optimizing for mobile devices. Most people search the internet through their phones today. If your website’s layout and technicalities do not fit well with mobile users, it may be really difficult to rank on top of the results pages Real estate property buyers are predominantly searching (on-the-go), and, thus, mobile-friendly websites will be their primary choice.
Google now employs mobile-first indexing: this means it will primarily utilize the mobile version of your website content for ranking and indexing. Therefore, you are likely to miss out on favorable rankings (however) if you have not optimized your website for mobile devices.
Use social media for backlinks
Today’s property buyers do not rely on newspapers and word of mouth for any news on real estate. With smartphones at immediate reach, most people will jump to social media platforms where they can find the latest news and updates one tap away. Although using social media for backlinks to your website may not directly improve your rankings, it will increase brand awareness and create a devoted audience base. These will help to elevate your rankings on results pages in the long run.
Track important KPIs
To understand and assess how well your SEO strategies are performing, you need to track the key performance indicators of your website. You can track some SEO results like –
- Organic traffic: This measures how many people are visiting your website
- Keyword ranking: This helps you to understand which keywords you have used in your website content are performing well and gaining the attention of online visitors. Based on this, you can adjust the usage of certain keywords.
- SERP visibility: This will show you how visible your brand is to audiences via organic search results.
- Click-through rate: This will show you how many people are clicking on your website among all other options on the results pages.
- Time spent on website: This will show how much time users are spending on your website.