SEO in real estate. TOP 9 Tips on How to Develop an SEO Strategy

The demand for real estate is growing every year. The sphere belongs to a highly competitive niche. There are a lot of real estate sites, so you need to look for effective ways to promote. An SEO strategy helps you increase organic traffic, define your target audience, and find those users who are interested in buying a home.

 

What is Real Estate SEO?

 

The advantage of SEO in the real estate niche is that it never rests. The quality of the optimization carried out generates potential customers 24/7, without the need to call, buy advertising. The first step when thinking about buying an apartment is to enter a query into a search engine. 44% of clients start their property search online.

SEO for real estate is a way to optimize content for search engines on a website, social media platforms, and mobile apps. Today, an important goal is a comprehensive user experience that helps meet the needs of the target audience.

Real estate SEO is a long-term strategy. The tool can be seen as a way to achieve business goals now and in the future. SEO for real estate is the organic display of a website in Google search results.

Many companies compete for the small amount of “organic real estate” that remains in the SERPs. SEO for such sites, realtors, and agencies is highly competitive. It is not enough to simply create a website and publish content. It is necessary to develop the right SEO strategy in order for a real estate site to rank in Google.

 

Why do you need an SEO strategy for a real estate website?

 

As more realtors invest in SEO, an online presence is critical to business success. Reasons why you need to start creating an SEO strategy.

1. Increase traffic and revenue

Attracting more target audience and users who may be potential customers. This is an opportunity to convert traffic into income.

2. Increase brand awareness

High-quality SEO content turns a business into a source of knowledge, which inspires trust among the audience. If the user reads the content and benefits, then they interact positively with the brand. This increases awareness, increases the conversion rate.

3. Improve brand protection

SEO is a form of brand protection that controls how a brand is presented online. For example, participating in an affiliate program is a proven way to increase income.

 

Real estate SEO as a lead generation engine

 

Good SEO for a real estate website is not a stand-alone, but rather an integral part of your marketing strategy and sales funnel. SEO creates entry points for new leads that enter the funnel, directing users to conversion buttons on the site.

As with any lead generation strategy, tailoring content to the needs of a specific target audience will increase success. For example, users who want to buy or rent real estate have different wants and needs than users who want to sell real estate. To attract both target audiences, it is imperative to adapt your SEO strategy to provide a service to buyers and sellers.

TOP 9 Tips for Developing a Real Estate SEO Strategy

 

We have put together a list of “working” SEO tips in a highly competitive niche as a complete real estate website ranking process.

Technical and SEO site audit

In the process, you need to pay attention to 5 main areas:

• Site structure: XML sitemap, robots.txt, redirects.
• Page structure: titles, meta descriptions, title tags, alt tags, URLs.
• Content: Content, keyword and link placement, visuals, duplicates, redirects, and canonical tags.
• Links: outgoing and incoming links, linking to other pages of the site, broken links.
• Usability: accessibility, mobile-friendliness, site speed.

You also need to conduct a full technical audit of the site. To start a successful real estate SEO program, you need to have an idea of ​​how technically optimized the site is.

Local SEO

Local real estate SEO plays an important role in closing deals. If the site is not found for real estate queries that users often enter when searching for housing in your area or region, this significantly reduces the chances of success for the business.

Nearly half of buyers start their property search directly through an online search. For this percentage, it is important that the site is optimized for nearby areas and other conditions that indicate local relevance to Google.

The first step in creating local SEO is to create and approve a business profile with Google. This is the transfer of information to Google about the promoted brand. It is important that the data matches the Google Business Profile account and other references on the Internet, social networks.

You should specify:

• The exact location on the map;
• Opening hours;
• Phone number;
• Description;
• Photo;
• Primary and secondary categories (real estate, commercial property, etc.).

The profile must be 100% complete with up-to-date information. A systematic approach ensures the best search and ranking of a real estate site.

Keyword Research

You need to find out what keywords potential customers enter when they start looking for a home. The next step is to establish which of these keywords are available based on search volume and competition for each keyword. You can use additional services to identify high-frequency keywords for which competitors rank.

Long-tail keywords are specific phrases that do not have a large search volume. They are more niche and less competitive. Therefore, finding a long-tail keyword that is relevant to your audience will make it easier to dominate the rankings.

 

Meta titles and descriptions

 

Meta titles and meta descriptions are easy to update. This is an important aspect of SEO for a real estate website. The meta title for each page should include the main keywords for better rankings.

 

Quality content

 

Quality content is the priority in SEO. You should focus on writing content that potential clients will find useful when searching for accommodation, and the keyword will help you stay on the topic. Valuable content answers the search query and provides the information they can’t find.

 

Video content

 

You should invest in creating and optimizing video content as a factor in your SEO strategy. This can help you stand out from your competitors. You can launch and optimize a YouTube channel. Fill with video content, including video and virtual tours, live broadcasts, interviews with local business owners. Topics can be open house videos, live Q&A, home buying tips (e.g. Top 10 Homes for Families).

• To optimize video content, you should:
• Upload videos and share links to the site and pages on social networks.
• Live stream on Facebook and YouTube to expand your audience.
• Optimize video content for local search.
• Add geo-targeted keywords to titles, descriptions, and hashtags.
• Enable subtitles and transcript.
• Add a transcript to the description, then it will be easier for search engines to crawl and index the content.
• Include links to social media profiles, the site, and any related listings in the description.

Blog

 

Having a blog on a real estate site gives you additional opportunities to target relevant keywords.

You can publish:

1. Information articles.
2. Posts on the topic cost of living, social society, schools, cafes, and restaurants in the territorial region.
3. The pros and cons of the area, the prospects for the availability of housing.

It is important to dilute texts on real estate with visual content using pictures, infographics.

 

 

SEO competitor analysis

You need to conduct a competitor analysis to determine the ranking in search engines, who are the leaders in the niche. Analysis of competitors in the real estate industry allows you to understand what works for them and what does not. You need to pay attention to questions such as:

• what content they publish;
• how they structure pages and sites.

The study of victories and mistakes will be the starting point for building your own strategy.

Featured Snippets

To stay at the top of the search results, you need to create featured snippets (rich snippets). This is an extended blog in the Google search results, which contains an additional description of the site. The search engine reads the information and shows it immediately in the search results, without the need to go to the site.

Rich snippets in SEO effect:

• Increase in traffic;
• Attracting interested users;
• Increasing the position in the search ranking;
• conversion rate.

Social media

 

Social media will not directly affect the search engine ranking of a real estate site but is an important part of a digital marketing strategy.

Advantages:

• Interaction with the target audience through different channels.
• An opportunity to consolidate credibility, trust, and awareness.
• Drive more traffic to the site.
• Increase the number of conversions.

 

Summary

The real estate industry is a highly competitive niche where you need to know the main SEO factors that affect organic promotion. Since users immediately turn to Internet search when thinking about buying an apartment or house, an SEO strategy is an important point. SEO in the real estate industry includes a large number of stages, with the implementation and optimization of which the site will rank better.

To effectively promote a real estate website using SEO, it is imperative to optimize local SEO, fill it with useful content with keywords and video content, do competitor analysis, and use social networks as an additional channel. An integrated SEO approach ensures a high position in the rankings and a daily stream of organic traffic.