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A study from the National Association of Realtors found that nearly 53% of all buyers start their search for a home online today. If you’re like most real estate professionals, that may leave you wondering how to get traffic to your website so you can ensure the properties you’ve listed see more potential buyers. 

For many, driving traffic comes down to one key step - SEO. While there are many other factors in the digital marketing mix you may want to consider, SEO should be at the top of your list. 

What Is Real Estate SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is how to ensure the search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) see your site, can easily crawl it, and offer it a higher rank than others in your vertical. If you can accomplish this and do it well, you may end up in that highly coveted first-page position after a search query is entered in relation to your services or products. 

Given that many users are more likely to click on first-page results, SEO is one of the best free ways to drive traffic to your website. 

Making SEO Work for Your Real Estate Website

If you’re serious about optimizing your site to increase traffic, get more conversions and see your goals met, there are three key factors you’ll want to consider. 

The first is what’s happening on the pages of your site itself. This is often referred to as on-page SEO. The second is what happens off the site, typically called off-page SEO. The final type is what happens behind the scenes of your site, and that’s usually called technical SEO. 

On-Page SEO: 

The work you do on the internal pages of your site is absolutely essential, from service pages to your blog and listing pages. SEO helps improve what search engines crawl on your site and how users find what they need from you. As Google crawls your site, it will look for relevancy, quality of information, and if it answers user queries appropriately.  

If you’re working to enhance your rankings, you’ll want to focus on a number of aspects within on-page SEO. One of the first is keyword research. 

While this isn’t the most important factor in on-page SEO, it’s where many people spend their efforts. There are a few things to know about keywords. The first is that there are two types - short keywords and long-tail keywords. 

Short keywords are harder to rank for, particularly if you’re in a fairly competitive real estate market. You likely don’t want to fight this battle, unless it is your bottom line goal because long-tail keywords tend to rank better anyway. 

Some examples of short keywords might be “real estate” or “condos for sale.” Long-tail keywords consider how users search, including verbiage. For example, your strong long-tail keyword might be “how to sell your house fast with a realtor” or “Condo Realtor in West Palm Beach, Fl.,” rather than shorter, harder to rank for keywords that tend to be broad.  

They can also be locally focused. For example, let’s say you do quite a bit of work in one neighborhood. You might go with one of those shorter keywords and combine it with that neighborhood’s or city’s name. The result could be “benefits of selling a home with a realtor in Hilton Park.” Your best bet is to use a mix of both short keywords and longtail options that work for your particular area. 

It’s important to note, however, that keywords are just one variable at play when working on your on-page SEO. 

Content creation (blogs, social, Google My Business, etc.) and optimization also matter. This not only includes your new real estate listings, but it will also include important touchpoints like your contact page, blogs, and any pages you add to your site. 

Each page should be strategically considered with your target audience in mind, as well as the fluidity in which you incorporate your keywords. Keyword stuffing is a common problem, it’s important to keep them sparse and unforced. Write for people first, keep the keywords in your pocket for when it feels right. Keyword stuffing did work once upon a time, but today - it may negatively affect your ranking. 

Off-Page SEO: 

You want to be the Real Estate Authority in your field - that’s where off-page SEO enters the picture. It strengthens your site’s influence. To do this well, you’ll need to build your site’s reputation, and you can do that in a few different ways. The most important of those is to build backlinks to your site. 

The more links that point directly to your site from other reputable sources, the more likely search engines like Google are to think your site is an authority and push your ranking up. 

Links aren’t the only focus here. Instead, you’ll want to do other things that help to build your off-page SEO campaign. 

Content marketing is a good place to start. Sending out press releases, guest blogs, and social media posts can all help with your content marketing strategy. Focusing on the reviews customers submit through directories like Angie’s List matters as well when you’re building a reliable reputation, especially on your Google My Business Listing. 

Technical SEO: 

This is what you don’t see on the page or off the page. Despite that fact, it actually helps improve your site’s structure and builds a reliable user experience search engines will notice. Technical SEO is when you’ll focus on a few different tasks. One of them is how friendly your site is to mobile users. 

More people than ever are using smartphones to look at real estate, and if your site doesn’t display well online, you could have real issues. Turning your site into a responsive design that looks great on any screen is the best way to make certain it looks good online. That’s not the only aspect of technical SEO, though. Instead, site speed matters too. 

How quickly, or slowly, your pages load actually affects your ranking along with core web vitals. Simple steps like minimizing picture size and reducing redirects can make that happen more quickly. Technical SEO also consists of addressing your site’s architecture. This is where you make sure that navigation around your site is nothing short of intuitive. 

The Power of Hiring a Professional

SEO is a fairly complex, yet essential, piece of the digital marketing puzzle. If you’re considering optimizing your site, or you want to get more from your optimization plan, we can help.

Contact our Real Estate experts today for a consultation.