Real estate is a tough market. 1000’s of new realtors emerge every day, creating more competition and making it harder for you stand out. If that isn’t enough, huge sites like Zillow and Redfin get all of the love from Google. When they’re not getting the love, other big brokerage sites are taking up the 1st page spots.
Make no mistake.
If you’re trying to rank on Google, there’s only one place to be: the first page. Anything after that you’re lucky if you get a few visitors a day.
After reading this guide you probably won’t be able to overtake a site like Zillow. The big G gives them too much preference. Lucky for you, there are some people, qualified people, that skip over Zillow.
No matter how much you try to automate it, real estate is still a business of people and customer service. Customers that want to buy or sell their house want to deal with an agent that will go to work for them and try to get them the best deal.
Zillow, while it takes up most of the traffic, it can redirect that traffic to only so many agents at a time per area. Therefore, it is still worth it for you to rank right after the other major real estate aggregator sites. Truth be told, that’s those are the only positions you can compete for in real estate.
If you see value in ranking on the first page right behind the main aggregators then this guide is for you.
Key Components for Ranking Your Real Estate Website
There are three important factors you need to understand if you want to rank your website.
- Keyword selection
- On Site optimzation
- off site optimization
Targeting the right keywords for your realtor website
Going after the right keywords is important when it comes to ranking any site in any industry. The broader the keyword, the more likely it will have higher competition and the less likely you’ll rank on page 1. To take it a step further, even if you do rank on page 1, it may not be as relevant.
Let’s say for example that you try to rank for the keyword “real estate”. In the US, that’s over 3 million searches. It would be great to get that much traffic.
Let’s take a look at the competition:
You’re competing against realestate.com.au, wikipedia, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and MarketWatch.
Good luck with that.
Moreover, if you look at the results, you see that Google’s interpretation is all over the place. While some of the links refer to getting a real estate agent, or buying or selling real estate, others refer to the real estate industry or some real estate tycoon.
Assuming you do make the first page, what good is to a real estate agent in Texas that someone in California is typing in real estate to learn about how to invest. Absolutely.
(NOTE: Want to save time and hire a real estate seo expert? Click here to schedule a free SEO audit.)
Choose Buyer and Seller Real Estate Keywords
A long tailed keyword usually has a definition that is associated with the number of words in the phrase. However it simply is a keyword that by itself doesn’t have as much search volume. It just so happens that most of the time, the two conditions go together.
The great thing about long tail keywords is that they show more intent by the searcher. Now, let’s not confuse intent with buyer intent. Most searches can be broken down into two types:
- Informational
- Commercial
Information keyword intent can be something like “How is the school district in Austin Texas”. This is a person curious about Austin TX, possibly because they want to move there. However they aren’t quite ready to buy a house in Austin Tx.
Do you know who is?
Someone that types, “houses for sale in austin texas”. That is commercial intent. Those are the types of keywords that you want to rank for.
Target Suburbs Instead of Major Cities
Some cities are way more competitive than others. Even the example of targeting “houses for sale in austin texas” can be harder to rank. The reason is that more people know about this seo tactic. People with bigger websites and large marketing budgets.
So what’s the workaround.
Get even more long tail. Target suburbs in the city and combine that with the commercial intent phrases. These are the most common types of phrase combinations that work for real estate:
- suburb + “realtor”
- suburb + “real estate”
- suburb + “houses for sale”
- suburb + “condos for sale”
- suburb + “sell my home”
etc.
You can do the same for rent, move the words around, but that’s the gist of the keywords that you should be trying to rank for initially. Eventually you’ll want to rank for informational content as well, but as a business to maximize your ROI in SEO, you’ll want to rank for the commercial intent terms first.
Optimizing Your Real Estate Pages for Right Keywords
Ok, so you have your keywords. What’s next? On page optimization.
On Page Optimization of Real Estate Site
On page optimization is a fancy way of saying that you want to have the right mix of keywords in the page that you’re targeting. Key elements on the page to pay attention to are:
- URL
- Meta title tag
- Meta description
- H1 tag
- Content
How to Add and Mix Up Your Keywords
URL – You’ll want to add the keyword that you’re targeting in the page address that you’re targeting. For example:
http://realestatesite.com/austin-homes-for-sale.
You dont necessarily need the exact keyword. If you have one that’s similar, like austin-real-estate, that can work as well.
Meta Title Tag – This is the tag that tells Google what the title of the page should be in your google search. So if you search on google, it will be the part that’s highlighted in Blue. If the search result has your keyword, it will be highlighted and stand out.
Meta desription – This is important because it’s your chance to “sell your click” to the user. If you have any rebates, or specials, you have 160 characters of space where you can entice the browser to click on your search result instead of others. Other larger sites aren’t taking the time to optimize this, so you have an advantage here.
H1 Tag – H1 is a heading tag. It’s usually used for titles and makes the font larger. If you use WordPress on your site, it’s usually the title of your post.
Content – You want to use your keywords in your content but you don’t want to make it seem forced. To do so, you’re allowed to use LSI’s, the fancy seo word for synonyms.
If you’re not still not sure about using LSIs, here’s an example for “homes for sale”
- houses for sale
- townhouse for sale
- apartment for sale
- condo for sale
Write Good Content About the Neighborhood
Since you aren’t already targeting a neighborhood, it’s your job to sell it. You’ll want to talk about all of the things that people need or would want to know about the neighborhood. How safe is it, the home values, activities nearby, the school system, etc.
This serves two purposes:
It makes you look like an authority. No one wants to buy or sell a house with an agent who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
It gives you something to write about. The longer a post, the better Google will consider it. As long as the post is written well enough and has good information, Google will be more likely to give it some love.
(NOTE: Want to save time and hire a real estate seo expert? Click here to schedule a free SEO audit.)
Off Site Optimization of Your Realtor Site
It’s really important to have your site properly optimized for seo. If it isn’t it doesn’t matter the amount of links you send it, it won’t rank as well.
Having said that, links are still the most important factor in ranking your site. Sure, you can write tons of content and you will get rankings. Some keyword phrases have very little competition and will show up in the search engine results.
However, you aren’t a writer. You’re a real estate agent. Your job is to work on selling houses and to do so you need some traffic.
Add High Quality Backlinks To Your Site
Links to your site are a way of lending authority to your site. The more different sites link to your page, the more Google believes that you are an authority and they reward you as such with rankings.
Not all links are created equal. If a site is crappy and links to you site, it can cause more harm than good. Each site has metrics that help you determine whether it is spammy or not.
That’s outside the scope of this discussion, but there are sites that you can read in depth about that have more knowledge about the subject.
Anchor Text That Targets Your Keyword
Anchor text is the actual word that is linking your site. So if I have a link to wikipedia, in this instance my anchor text would be “wikipedia”. When creating anchor text, you’ll want to have a mix of anchor text that has your url, your brand, and the keywords that you are targeting.
If you use a target keyword too much, Google will look at it as unnatural and may very well penalize your site.
The best use of your target keyword anchor text is by using the the LSIs as was suggested for content.
Other Ways of Targeting Your Website
There are other ways of maximizing internet exposure to you realtor site. If you have a physical location, you should take advantage of Google Places and Citations. Citations is the process of being properly registered in all of the local directories. This show’s Google that you’re a real business. It also improves your odds of showing up in the NAP pack, which the listing of local businesses that show up in Google results.
Social Signals From Your Website
The way people interact on the internet continues to evolve. Google does favor your page if you have interaction with Social Media. Through social media, you can acquire more links and shares and thus make your site stronger in the eyes of Google. You need to make sure you have a property in every major social media network and web 2.0 property out there.
In Conclusion
Real estate seo isn’t rocket science. It is a methodical and systematic way of gaining traffic to your site and it’s not to be overlooked. The internet is where people are, and if they can’t find you then you won’t have as much business as you need or want.
You have to be patient to see results, easily 3 to 6 months. Some markets may take longer as they are extremely competitive. However, once you start gaining traction you’ll build a healthy pipeline of leads.
As they say in real estate, “location, location, location.”
(NOTE: Want to save time and hire a real estate seo expert? Click here to schedule a free SEO audit.)