Real Estate SEO

Real-estate SEO services

Amidst qualifying countless leads, booking appointments for property viewing, and marketing the launch of new schemes, you’re probably piled up with one task after another in your real estate business.

We get it. The real estate industry is competitive.

But to survive, doing the basics of marketing isn’t enough. You need to have as much of a strong standing online as you have offline.

And for online marketing, you first need to start with real-estate SEO.

What are Real-estate SEO Services?

Real estate SEO services are those that optimise the online presence of a real-estate firm to attract traffic through organic search results. Real estate SEO services aim at highlighting your content online, increasing your online authority, and fetching better rankings to increase revenue and sales.

The strategies can include drafting compelling content, practising hygiene SEO, optimising local SEO, adding listings on real estate websites, and adding optimised images and videos to engage users and improve chances of conversions. Most real estate firms outsource these activities to real estate agencies to ensure expertise and success in their SEO campaigns.

Why Does the Real-estate Company Need SEO?

97% of house buyers go to the Internet to start their research and 99% of the people in the age bracket of 25 to 36 search properties online. Be it organic search or finding properties through real estate listings, search engines are where people are landing. Naturally, most businesses realise the potential of online marketing.

And with a record number of realtors and real-estate agencies amping up their marketing, they’re gaining significant online traction. Research suggests that real estate agents that invest in SEO have double or triple sales every month than those that don’t.

Besides, having help of real estate SEO agency services are essential despite your business’s profitability. Because apart from the basics, SEO also helps with a lot of other areas. As a real estate firm, it helps you navigate the online protocols about housing regulations and compliance with policies for digital advertisements.

Availing of expert real-estate SEO services can also pave the way for a more long-term relationship with your prospective buyers. So whether you’re a real estate agent or an agency, or a developer, you know that search engines are the place to be.

Reduce Dependency on Paid Channels: Real estate marketing involves a lot of paid advertising. Be it radios, newspapers, sponsorships and so on. And while they’re important for brand awareness, you can reduce the costs and dependency on these channels through organic SEO. Real estate SEO services probably consume less than half the costs of the rest of the marketing channels and still manage to give a reasonable ROI and click-through rate after a few months.

Traffic and Conversions: Remember the 97% that we talked about? It means you have a large target audience. And with a large target audience, you have intense competition. By practising regular on-page and off-page SEO, you can attract the right set of audiences that may be interested in your latest projects.

You can bank on locally focused keywords like “new housing projects in Brisbane” or “apartments for rent in Melbourne Central Area”, etc. If you manage to rank on the first page, you can expect an inflow of traffic and subsequent conversions.

Brand Awareness: Understand that search engines are the primary way your potential customers may find you online. If done right, SEO can turn into a great tool for brand awareness. You can do that by creating valuable content, focusing on the queries of homebuyers, having the right backlinking strategy, integrating social media presence and improving your overall visibility.

Tips to Improve Real-estate SEO

1. Conduct Keyword Research

Keywords research is at the core of developing a solid content marketing strategy and is one of the key ranking factors on Google. Think from a buyer’s perspective. What would they search for if they want to buy the properties you’re selling? Think of what your competitors are ranking on. Even if you find the top keywords, do you have the potential to rank on them considering the high competition?

For example, the phrase “apartment for rent” is an extremely competitive keyword. However, if you look at a long-tail keyword like ‘apartment for rent in Brisbane Queensland’, you have a better chance of ranking higher and also providing the answer to the searcher’s query. You can also target informative keywords like “things to consider before buying an office space” if it has considerable traffic and have your blogs and other content strategies to bank on these keywords.

To look at the search volume and keyword competition, you can use SEO tools like Google Analytics and Semrush. The best strategy would be to hire a real estate SEO agency and knows how to best navigate these tools and increase the chances of success.

2. Be Active on Social Media

While social media may not directly impact your ranking, it does help in building brand awareness that supports SEO and organic traffic. A verified social account also helps you build authority and trust. For an industry where frauds are very common, it comes as a major advantage to establish a genuine identity online.

While building a presence on social media, it’s better to choose platforms that work better than others instead of giving equal focus to all. You can check platforms like Instagram and Pinterest to share blog content, videos, and other important information such as statistics and project updates.

Tap on Facebook for sales opportunities. But remember to follow the social media rule for a higher reach such as using geo-targeted hashtags to attract the local traffic, sharing content on social media, encouraging engagement, and replying to comments for inquiries.

3. Create Video Content

Real estate is all about visuals. Just images don’t do justice to depicting the property in the best manner possible. Before booking an appointment, the potential buyer needs to get an estimated visual and video content is the best way to do that. You can either produce 3D model animation walk-through videos or sample views of apartments but any form of video content that helps the buyers get an insight into your offerings.

To do it consistently, you can launch a YouTube channel and upload videos regularly on those channels. You can also turn to other social media handles. Most platforms offer the option of live streaming where you can attract a larger audience. You can also share and upload your videos to your website and place it where it works best for visitor engagement. Just make sure to embed them to optimise the page speed of your WordPress website.

4. Publish Industry Relevant Blogs

Publishing blogs is one of the major ways you can attract traffic on relevant keywords. But more than that, it is also a way for you to tell your prospects that you’re an industry expert and know what you’re talking about.

In the real estate industry, you have the potential to tap into generic topics such as “how to choose the right home,” “how to manage finances for buying a home,” “Tips to consider before finalising a realtor” or even informative articles that talk about your property neighbourhood such as walkability, cost of living, facilities, distance from the central area, top restaurants nearby, etc.

However, thorough keyword research is needed if you want to attract traffic to blog articles. You can then bring on experts to publish on your sites, have a reliable backlinking strategy, and even write thought leadership articles yourself to establish topical authority on Google.

Even case studies with successful sales previously can work as an appointment booster. Your aim is to make your site a go-to destination for anyone wishing to understand the real estate outlook in your area. You can always outsource this work to a real estate SEO agency so that you can focus on your core marketing areas.

5. Add your locations and profile on Google

For any small businesses or individuals that rely on geographically specific traffic, optimising your Google Business Profile is important. It helps realtors get calls from relevant prospects and saves the effort to qualify the leads later on. Regardless of whether you’re a realtor or a developer, chances are, you have multiple listings and multiple properties scattered across a city or even a state.

For someone doing in-depth research about buying a potential home, it’s important to give them the location overview of where the property is located, how far it is from their current workplace to the nearest school, the nearest bus stop, the airport, etc.

The only way for visitors to find out is if your locations are added on Google Maps. The more places you list your site with accurate contact details, names and addresses, the better. This also involves building your brand’s profile on Google and keeping it up-to-date. This is a vital part of leveraging local SEO for real estate businesses such as yours.

Get help from a real estate SEO agency if you want to maintain consistency. Add relevant photos, customer reviews, videos, and ratings for each location. It can do wonders for your local SEO and also increases your chances of ranking better on listing websites.

6. Focus on High-Quality Media

High-quality images are what will seal the deal for most who genuinely want to book an appointment. This means placing extra effort into releasing high-quality media files to ensure the visitor can view the property the way they want. Also, ensure your images are optimised. While you upload any images to your websites or blogs, fill out the fields such as alt text, caption, title, and keyword-included description that explains the picture.

7. Add your Listings on Directory Websites

Chances are only a few of your prospects will directly visit your website. Local citation and real estate directories are the places they’ll commence their research. Prospects will look at multiple properties on directories, narrow down options based on location, rent, and size, and finally click on the option they think is most feasible for them. While building your profile on Google, you also need to list your websites and properties on sites like domain.au or realtor.com to enhance your visibility and improve real estate SEO.

8. Make Sure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly

Finally, even when you do everything right, your real-estate SEO activities are incomplete without mobile optimisation. Considering that more than half the global internet traffic comes from mobile devices, ensuring an excellent visitor experience on mobile is as critical as the web. Some of the areas you need to focus on while making your site mobile friendly ensuring a responsive design that fits any device screen, usability, site search, site navigation, page speed, etc.

Also, ensure your CTAs are emphasised enough on mobile too to facilitate easy contact or appointment booking. Making your site mobile-friendly forms a part of optimising your site for technical SEO. It includes elements like ensuring your real-estate site is getting indexed and crawled by Google. It is viable to get help from a professional real-estate SEO agency that can help you optimise your site for mobile and do much more.