Real Estate SEO Can Be Used To
Increase Your Websites Traffic – Here’s How:
Bandit signs, direct mail postcards, and posting on free classified ads websites such as Craigslist used to be the most effective ways to find many motivated seller leads…
…but they are no longer producing the same response rate they previously did.
What worked beautifully in the past no longer does due to the increased competition in the market and the increasing reliance on technology in our everyday lives.
You are probably frustrated with all the changes and probably want a more effective and efficient approach to help you find the best-motivated home sellers.
Fortunately, there’s something that you can do to change your fortunes – invest in the right Real Estate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies.
What Does SEO Mean in Real Estate?
What is Real Estate SEO?
A good place to start!
SEO refers to optimizing a website for the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc), with the ultimate goal being to get it to rank higher on the search engine result pages. Real estate SEO is, therefore the same, just focussing on the RE market.
How Do I SEO My Real Estate Website?
The aim is to find real estate words that sell & words that people are actively searching for – motivated seller keywords. This should result in higher traffic clicks through to the website.
Is SEO worth it?
Is SEO still relevant in 2020 and beyond?
Yes!
SEO is a much more effective tool for finding people who want to sell their houses quickly. It enables companies to target very specific traffic of a much higher quality than other platforms, such as boards & newspaper ads.
How Can You Target Motivated Traffic Using Real Estate Focussed SEO?
If you are looking to increase the number of motivated and relevant leads for your real estate (‘we buy houses’) business, in that case, all you need to do is implement the following 7 effective real estate SEO strategies:
1 – Research the Keywords to Target
Keyword research is one of the most overlooked aspects of SEO & this is no different in the real estate SEO niche.
Lots of people find it boring.
Many rely on the hundreds of ‘Keyword Tools’ that exist.
If you plan to get traffic from search engines, you must properly target your efforts. The best way to do that is by having a good understanding of the keywords you want to rank for in your real estate SEO plan.
Commercial real estate SEO keywords need to have commercial intent, ideally with a sense of urgency. They do not need to be ‘fact-finding’ and generic.
Keywords are the terms you want to show up for in the searches i.e. when someone types a question or query into Google, if that is something that you can help with, then you want to appear on the 1st page of the results.
e.g. – “need to sell my Dallas house fast” – If you are a Dallas Homebuyer, then you want your website to appear on Page 1 among the first 10 results (ideally #1-3).
It is important first to create a list of the keywords that you wish to rank for. The key to success is to be fairly ruthless initially & just go after the best ones and not try and target as many as possible.
Also, if you are in a very competitive market e.g. – California, Florida, Washington, etc.- you should initially focus on smaller areas (towns & neighborhoods) to get traffic.
For this to be effective, you need to ensure that you have unique pages and content for all of the towns & neighborhoods you are targeting.
Ideally, you should target long-tail keywords since they should be easier to rank for. e.g.
“sell Vegas house cash” – Standard Keyword Phrase & harder to rank.
“sell my Las Vegas home for cash” – Long-Tail Keyword Phrase – Same Intent but a longer version & should be easier to rank for.
2 – Optimize Your Website Structure
You are targeting traffic from the search engines, so it only makes sense to ensure that your website structure is properly optimized to how they expect a website to be.
Each website page should ideally be optimized around a particular keyword or service and the geographical area you wish to rank.
You can’t expect one page of your website to give all the answers to all the questions across all the areas.
Optimizing the website according to your location is critical if you want your business to be known & found locally.
This involves strategies such as optimizing the title, image, alt tags, meta descriptions, headers, keyword density, real estate SEO description, etc.
The list does go on!
3 – Create Quality, Engaging Content for Your Keywords
I am sure you are already familiar enough with your local real estate market and have a good understanding of sellers’ motivations in your area.
Content is simply an effective way to communicate with potential sellers on your website so that search engine users can find it.
Creating multiple content pieces around the same or similar topics is advisable, using different keywords. Ideally, you should write content based on one subject & related keywords.
e.g. If your Co deals with house sales linked to Foreclosure, write a helpful article that looks at all matters linked with foreclosure. Link out to useful foreclosure resources…do not start talking about divorce, water damage, or bad tenants – they should be covered in their articles.
Ensure you write helpful content with information people search for, people need & people will find useful.
Always remember, search engines are just trying to find answers to people asking/searching for questions.
If you can provide useful answers (& with a little help from SEO), they will reward you with rankings & traffic!
4 – Ensure that Your Website is Mobile-Friendly
Today, more people are accessing the Internet via mobile devices – phones & tablets.
This means you need to switch up strategies for interacting with potential clients.
One of the changes you must make to your marketing strategy is ensuring your website is mobile-friendly. This should be a high priority for your real estate SEO strategy.
Many Google rankings are now based on ‘Mobile-First Indexing’ – meaning “The majority of Google’s crawl requests to your site will be made using a mobile crawler”.
This means that how you rank for a particular keyword in your market will be based on how your website looks on a phone & not on a Desktop.
So having a fast, clear & mobile-friendly website is essential!
See how your website does by using this tool:
– Google’s Page-Speed Tool
You must ensure that your website is accessible and readable for mobile users. Ideally, you should have a responsive website that resizes on its own and adapts to the screen of the device it is being accessed from.
The importance of Mobile now is that when we look at how the SERPs are doing (how ‘active’ Google is in changing their algorithm & therefore, the rankings), there are separate readings for Mobile v Desktop.
Here are 2 very useful graphs (from SEMrush) that show how the SERPs are responding in the Real Estate market – the top one is ‘Mobile’ & the second one is ‘Desktop’.
5 -Take Advantage of Photos and Videos
Photos and video are key tools for engagement on all websites, but this is particularly true regarding real estate websites, especially in the We Buy Houses & Cash For House markets.
Motivated house sellers love seeing photos or videos of the person buying their property. They generally want an idea of who they are dealing with before they ring or fill in a form.
Real estate is the biggest ‘asset’ anyone has.
You must remember this! It is vitally important – you aren’t buying someone’s 2nd hand car or a child’s trampoline! – this is someone’s home.
How you present yourself and deal with the owners must reflect that.
Photos and videos allow you to introduce yourself and your business to potential sellers so that they know they are dealing with a real, trustworthy & honest person/company.
6 – User Reviews and Testimonials
Reviews and testimonials from sellers you have worked with in the past can go a long way toward promoting your business.
This is a game-changer in the real estate arena.
Both of these elements help people trust your business more and bring them closer to getting in contact & potentially being a customer/client.
In all aspects of life, reviews have a massive influence – the more money is spent, the more research & reviews are sought.
So again, if you are going to sell your home, your biggest asset, you aren’t just going to pick the 1st company you come across.
Most motivated sellers will typically evaluate user reviews of the companies they find from whatever sources are available – Google Reviews, Yelp, BBB.org, TrustPilot, Facebook, etc.
They want to see what others say, having been through the process.
So, always encourage clients to leave honest feedback about your company.
Always try to get a testimonial when you purchase a home from a motivated house seller – even if you give them a ‘bonus’ or incentive so they go through with it – the power of genuine testimonials (especially videos) cannot be underestimated.
Again, get it right and get enough – this can be a game-changer for you & your business.
7 – Use Social Media
Real estate, like most businesses, is all about relationships, and social media is one of the best ways to start relationships and strengthen relationships with existing clients.
Any record you build on social media showcasing your expertise can go a long way toward boosting the image of your business in the eyes of potential clients.
It is also another potential source of reviews & testimonials.
A real estate company with an active social media presence can interact with potential clients where they are every day – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
The interactions can be instant (e.g. Facebook Messenger), which can be the 1st step to gaining a new client. If someone asks a question & gets a reply quickly, then the relationship is underway.
Today’s society is generally very impatient and wants instant answers – if you can respond quickly & get a dialogue going, you can be ahead of your competition from the outset.
Real Estate SEO – Final Thoughts
SEO is a good starting point if you want motivated seller leads for your real estate business.
SEO will help you dominate local search on the web, which is where most people’s research starts for most things.
These 7 real estate SEO guidelines discussed in this article will help you set off in the right direction.
Suppose you don’t know how to properly implement any or all of the SEO strategies discussed here. In that case, working with a reputable professional offering excellent real estate SEO services is advisable….a real estate SEO company…
……& guess where this is going!
Yep, if you need help implementing SEO for your real estate/we buy houses/motivated seller business, please get in touch – if we are a good fit, hopefully, we can work together.
