Does hearing things like “content marketing” and “search engine optimization” make your eyes glaze over? You’re not alone – many real estate professionals find digital marketing to be a confusing landscape. However, mastering real estate SEO, in particular, is crucial for driving qualified leads and growing your business in today’s market.
Why is SEO so important for realtors?
| The answers are in the numbers. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), a whopping 97% of buyers used the Internet as part of their home search process recently. With the vast majority of homebuyers starting their journeys online, having a strong web presence that ranks highly on search engines like Google can make all the difference. |  |
| 51%51% of home buyers found their home through the internet in 2021 | 95%of estate agents believe that having a strong online presence is important for their business | 97%of home buyers used the internet as part of their home search process in 2021 | 99%of millennial home buyers searched for homes online during their home buying process in 2021 |
The benefits of great real estate SEO go beyond just attracting more buyers, though. An optimized website and content strategy will also increase your brand’s visibility. It reduces your dependency on paid advertising channels that can quickly become expensive. And perhaps most appealingly, SEO works around the clock, generating leads for your business 24/7 while you sleep.
In fact, research shows that SEO provides the highest return on investment of any online marketing channel. That’s because, there’s a 60% chance that when someone searches for a real estate property on the internet, they’ll check out only the top three results.
Therefore, it pays to be in the top spot on search engines.
Feeling ready to dive into SEO?
Let’s begin with the first step – conducting a comprehensive audit of where you’re at currently.
Step #1: Conduct a Comprehensive SEO Audit
Think of your initial SEO audit as hitting the “pause” button and taking a good look under the hood of your web presence. It may seem like a lot of work upfront, but developing a clear-eyed assessment from day one will pay major dividends in refining your strategy.
The main areas you’ll want to examine during an SEO audit are:
1. Content Audit
Are you publishing high-quality, original content on a consistent basis? The articles, videos, and other media on your website play a huge role in your search rankings. Assess whether your existing pieces are well-written, free of errors, and providing value to your target audience.
| Real Estate Content Facts | |
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| Real estate websites with a blog receive 55% more traffic than those without a blog. | Real estate listings with high-quality photos receive 45% more inquiries than those with poor-quality photos |
You’ll also want to look at whether you’re integrating relevant keywords naturally and how your internal linking structure is set up between pillar pages and supporting content.
2. Technical SEO Audit
Crawlability, site speed, and mobile-friendliness are just some of the core technical elements that popular search engines like Google take into account when judging your website’s quality. During a technical audit, you’ll put your site through its paces with a variety of tools to identify any problems, errors, or areas for optimization.
Something as simple as bloated image sizes delaying load times can indirectly hurt your SEO if it leads to poor user experiences.
3. Local SEO Audit
For real estate-based businesses, having an optimized Google Business Profile and a strong local SEO foundation is non-negotiable. A local audit examines how your NAP (name, address, phone number) data is being displayed across different citation sources and directories online.
 | NAP consistency could change your online performance by 16%. |
It also looks at whether you’re taking advantage of opportunities to optimize location pages and neighborhood-specific content.
4. On-Page SEO Audit
This zooms in on the individual elements of your website that communicate to search engines what your pages are about.
An on-page audit reviews your titles, heading tags, meta descriptions, image alt text, internal linking structure, and more to ensure you’re following SEO best practices for maximum visibility.
5. Off-Page SEO Audit
While on-page optimization is crucial, search engines also look at off-page signals when judging a website’s credibility and authority.
An off-page audit examines your current social media engagement levels, the quality, and quantity of websites linking back to you (backlinks), as well as any unlinked brand mentions you may be getting across the web.
6. Competitor Analysis
A key part of any marketing strategy is understanding your competitive landscape and what others in your market are doing for SEO.
During an audit, you’ll analyze your top-ranking competitors to reverse-engineer their successful tactics and identify potential opportunities to capitalize on gaps in their approaches.
| Conducting a mini SEO audit Across content, technical, local, on-page, and off-page factors takes significant time and expertise. If you’d rather have real estate SEO professionals do it for you Request a $299 SEO audit for free! Mail us at: [email protected] Or simply click here  |
Undergoing this auditing process may seem daunting, but it establishes a clear-eyed baseline to work from. Once you have a set of data-driven insights, you can move forward with refining your strategy in an informed, impactful way.
Step #2: Optimize Your Keyword Research for Local Markets
No real estate SEO strategy would be complete without thorough, localized keyword research. These search terms represent the actual words and phrases your prospective clients use when looking for homes and realtors online.
1. Find Keywords with Buyer Intent
When diving into keyword research, focus on finding terms that capture buyer intent. Head terms like “homes for sale” may have high search volumes, but they’re quite broad. The users entering those keywords could be at any stage of their homebuying journey.
2. Identify Long-tail, Location-based Opportunities
Ideally, you want to uncover long-tail, location-specific terms that weed out window shoppers and attract the right, purchase-ready buyers.
For example: “Homes for sale in Malibu under $1.5M with ocean views“
This type of specific, high-intent query is precisely what you’re aiming for. Searchers who use such detailed phrases know exactly what they want and are more likely to convert when they find the right listing or agent website.
Useful real estate keyword research tools include:
- Google’s Keyword Planner
- Paid tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush
- Good old-fashioned analysis of the “searches related to…” section on Google
| Unsure which keywords present the biggest opportunities in your area? Our keyword research wizards will uncover the highest-value keywords for you. Book a consultation today! Mail us at: [email protected] Or simply click here |
Step #3: Perform On-Page Optimization
Once you have your target keywords identified, it’s time to optimize the actual content and elements on your website to align with those terms and give you a fighting chance at higher rankings. Effective real estate SEO requires a mix of technical upgrades and content polishing through on-page work.
1. Optimize for Page Speeds
It doesn’t matter how great your content is – if pages take forever to load, searchers will hit the back button before they can even see it. That’s why, Google variables like mobile page speed are a must.
To avoid speed loss, look into performance boosters like browser caching, content delivery networks, image compression, and code minification. You can use tools like PageSpeed Insights to diagnose specific speed issues on your site.
2. Perform Technical Optimizations
What kind of technical optimizations should real estate websites cover? For starters, implementing schema markup can give you an edge. This structured data helps search engines understand and properly categorize the real estate-specific content and listings on your pages.
You’ll also want to audit your site’s URL structure and navigation to ensure it’s as clean and crawlable as possible for search bots. Don’t forget to double-check that your robots.txt file isn’t blocking access to any areas you want indexed either.
3. Optimize Your Content
At the foundational level, make sure you have high-quality, valuable written content/media that keeps readers engaged. Naturally, work on your target keywords while maintaining a natural content flow.
When posting new listings, pages, or blog articles, carefully craft title tags and compelling meta descriptions that will entice searchers to click through from results pages. Write descriptive alt text to help your visuals get found through Google Images search.
Build out your internal linking structure with contextual links between pillar content and supporting articles/pages. And perhaps most importantly, develop location pages and localized content around your core markets/areas of focus.
4. Optimizing for Local Search
Start local search optimization by creating a NAP consistency. Ensure your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent across all online directories and listings.
Acquire links from local websites, directories, and organizations to improve your local search visibility. Create dedicated pages for the cities, neighborhoods, and communities you serve, highlighting local amenities and market insights.
| Feeling overwhelmed by all the SEO factors you need to master as a realtor? Our team lives and breathes real estate SEO. Sign up for a free strategy session to see how we can drive more organic leads your way. Mail us at: [email protected] Or simply click here |
Step #4: Adopt Off-Page SEO Strategies
Off-page SEO refers to the tactics and activities you can implement outside of your website to improve your search engine rankings and visibility. These strategies focus on building authority, credibility, and relationships that can positively impact your website’s performance in search results. Here are some key off-page SEO strategies for real estate businesses:
1. Launch link-building campaigns
Contribute high-quality articles to relevant real estate blogs and websites, including a contextual link back to your website. Another great link-building tactic is to create valuable resources (e.g., home buyer’s guides, and mortgage calculators) that other websites will link to.
Participate in local business associations, chambers of commerce, and community organizations to acquire links from their websites.
| Link building is incredibly time-consuming yet crucial for SEO. We can take care of your off-page SEO efforts with our custom outreach-based link-building service. Book a complimentary consultation call to learn more! Mail us at: [email protected] Or simply click here |
2. Use social media marketing
Build an engaged local following by sharing local real estate news, listings, and insights to connect with potential buyers and sellers in your area. Promote your listings and website content across social media platforms to drive traffic and engagement.
You can also collaborate with local influencers, bloggers, and community leaders to reach new audiences and gain social proof.
3. Optimize for Local SEO
Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile with accurate information, high-quality photos, and positive reviews. Ensure your business is listed on popular local directories like Yelp, Zillow, and Realtor.com.
Encourage satisfied clients to leave positive reviews on your Google Business Profile and other platforms, and promptly respond to any negative reviews.
Avoid These Common SEO Mistakes
Even if you follow all the SEO best practices in this guide, it’s just as important to know what pitfalls and risky tactics to steer clear of. Avoid these common SEO no-no’s at all costs:
- Keyword Stuffing: While optimizing your content for relevant keywords is crucial, keyword stuffing is a huge red flag. Google sees right through this. Always prioritize providing an excellent user experience and seamlessly integrating keywords within the normal content flow.
- Sneaky Redirect Tactics: Some overly aggressive SEO companies may try to employ redirect techniques to funnel all your traffic to a single webpage, typically a call-tracking or lead-capture URL. While this may provide some short-term data, Google will punish you for cloaking the final destination.
- Buying Links or Linking Schemes: Some take dangerous shortcuts like purchasing spammy links. Google considers these linking schemes and they can lead to manual actions against your site. Only pursue high-quality, editorial links through ethical white hat tactics.
- Spinning, Scraping, or Duplicating Content: This is a huge no-no that falls under Google’s definition of duplicating content which they filter out. Always create fresh, original content, even for listings. Describe properties in your own words.
- Stuff in the Mud Hats or Anything Blackhat: As a general rule of thumb, steer clear from any shady techniques that fall under Google’s definitions of “black hat” SEO. This encompasses pretty much any deceptive or manipulative tactic aimed at trying to game the system rather than following webmaster guidelines for improving your site. The risks simply aren’t worth it.
Parting Notes
While SEO requires a significant investment of time, effort, and resources, the benefits of a well-executed strategy can be far-reaching and long-lasting for your real estate business. By optimizing your website, building a strong online presence, and earning the trust and authority of search engines, you can position yourself as a leader in your local market and attract a steady stream of qualified leads and clients from organic search.