Real estate SEO comprises various practices and processes that aim to improve your real estate website's online visibility, boosting its position on search engine result pages (SERPs). Ranking higher makes it easier for potential prospects to find your site and their dream home.
Our optimization experts share insights on the importance of search engine optimization for real estate and the key strategies that will help you attract potential buyers.
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The Importance of Real Estate SEO Marketing
Real estate digital marketing can be overwhelming if you run paid ads and manage your social platforms and listings on third-party sites. Still, 96% of all buyers use the internet when searching for a new home to purchase. This means that if you don’t have a strong online presence, you will miss out on potential clients.
The real estate industry is powered by meaningful local relationships. This is a bit trickier online because there are more competitors. Fortunately, effective SEO for real estate ensures your website appears at the top of local and regional searches, and you can carve out a highly favorable position in the digital landscape.
It’s important to note that search engine optimization is a long-term strategy that might mean a complete overhaul of your website and content strategy. But rest assured that it will keep bringing you potential clients long after the most complicated changes have been implemented.
Real Estate SEO Types
Ask any seasoned SEO professional, and they will tell you that optimization for real estate will usually cover four main areas:
- On-page SEO: Optimizing your website and content for search engines and visitors (title tags, images, posts, URLs. etc.).
- Off-page SEO: Tactics aiming to help you increase your rankings via other means, such as guest posting, social media marketing, or link building.
- Local SEO: The process of strengthening your relevance in local searches, like creating content with local relevance and optimizing your Google Business Profile.
- Technical SEO: Optimizing the technical aspects of your site that impact user experience and rankings, like mobile responsiveness and page loading speeds.
5 Real Estate SEO Strategies
In this section, we’ll go through several tips that will put your website on the digital map, ensuring more traffic, leads, and, ultimately, happy homeowners.
- Improve website structure
- Target the right keywords
- Focus on high-value content creation
- Emphasize local SEO
- Leverage social media
1. Improve Website Structure
Good real estate website design, fast-loading pages, and intuitive navigation can make a big difference for Google’s search engine crawlers and potential clients accessing your site. It’s worth remembering that one of the main issues of real estate SEO is related to loading speed.
Most real estate sites are heavy on images, and the large HQ pictures may take a while to load, damaging its user experience (UX). Luckily, you can use image-compressing and optimizing tools to reduce file sizes without compromising quality.
Here are a few more tips to optimize your website and improve UX:
- Get an HTTPS certification for improved site security
- Fix broken links and delete duplicate content
- Create a correct schema markup
- Submit your sitemap to search engines
- Create a logical structure that makes indexing easy
Browse our list of the best real estate website designs of 2024 for inspiration.
2. Target the Right Keywords
Keyword research entails finding and analyzing terms and phrases your target audience uses to conduct real estate-related searches. Knowing which keywords potential clients use and implementing them into your SEO strategy can help you gain a competitive edge and appear as the most knowledgeable source on a given key topic.
The easiest keywords to target are highly specific phrases with lower keyword difficulty, also known as long-tail keywords. Phrases like “affordable homes in Miami for first-time buyers” target very specific search intent by highly motivated leads who are closer to making a purchase decision.
Once you’ve identified the right keywords, use them naturally in different parts of your website (webpage titles and meta descriptions, listing pages, blogs, etc.) to help people find what they’re looking for.
3. Focus on Quality Content
Turn your site into an authoritative and comprehensive real estate information resource with SEO-focused content. Publishing regular, high-quality content can help you engage your audience and convert them into clients. Content marketing — just like SEO in general — takes time, but the long-term benefits make it worthwhile.
For newcomers to content marketing, starting a blog would make the most sense. Research the most relevant topics in your industry, use your previously curated keywords list to choose topics your target audience would be interested in, and start posting articles.
Each of your real estate blog posts should have the following:
- Appropriate length: The keywords should flow naturally, and blogs should deliver the most value and information possible. In-depth guides may be up to 2,000 words or more, while updates on market trends or community highlights can be 800 to 1,000.
- Heading structures: Headings and subheadings boost readability. You can also use them to include more keyword phrases and answer different but related search queries.
- Title tags and meta descriptions: These HTML elements summarize the content of your pages and blog posts, telling search engines what to display in SERPs.
- Alternative text: Alt text should be used on photos and graphics to give search engine crawlers more context. This is also important for accessibility.
- Internal links: These connect blog posts with other important pages on your website, helping users and search engines with navigation.
Additionally, include visuals on your site wherever you can. Landing pages and articles with video content and images are more likely to enrich the user experience. Also, focus on giving your audience high-quality information. Keep up with the latest trends and use first-hand experience to establish yourself as a niche expert and earn people’s trust.
In fact, according to data, 83% of homebuyers prefer to look at property photos online. High-quality images are necessary to engage visitors and convey that your brand is professional. In contrast, poor-quality images can lower interest, lead to site abandonment, or reduce the perceived value of a property.
All in all, post regularly to get your content in front of people who are interested in real estate. Regular posting coupled with valuable information and insights can help you land backlinks from higher-authority sites that can further boost your rankings, building your own site authority in the process.
4. Invest in Local SEO
Local SEO helps you show up in relevant searches within your area. Whether you're a local or regional real estate brand, you can effectively leverage local search to attract more qualified leads to your listings.
The first thing you should do to improve your local SEO is to register and optimize your Google Business Profile. This will get you listed on Google, which is crucial in dominating the local rankings and improving your visibility on the search engine.
Complete all necessary sections — such as address, contact information, services, and more — to help Google get a better understanding of what your business is about. Additionally, setting up your business profile puts your business on Google Maps, which is another essential local SEO step.
Then, optimize your content for relevant local keywords. For instance, if you’re a real estate brand located in Miami, Florida, use keywords such as “real estate agent in Miami,” “real estate agent in Miami, Florida,” or “real estate agent in Miami-Dade County.”
To make the most out of these area-specific keywords, you can implement them into website content about local topics, such as Florida real estate news, homeowner trends, or local tips (e.g., an article on hurricane insurance).
5. Embrace Social Media
Social media marketing should be an essential part of your digital marketing strategy as a real estate agent. Even back in 2021, Facebook was the most popular social platform for real estate agents, with nearly 90% of them using it, while 50% used LinkedIn and Instagram.
How can you leverage social media for SEO? First, engage in conversations about your local real estate industry on social media. Sharing your expertise can help you with raising awareness. Being active on these platforms can pique the curiosity of your potential clients, so you can increase engagement and close more deals.
Social media management has come a long way from simply being a means to raise awareness. Social platforms have become fully-fledged funnels on their own, so neglecting them can create huge gaps in your digital marketing strategy.
Real Estate SEO Tactics To Avoid
Implementing the wrong SEO tactics can actually get your website penalized. It is important to avoid the following approaches in your strategy:
- Stuffing keywords, which means excessively repeating your target phrases in real estate blog posts or landing pages.
- Duplicating one article and just replacing location keywords or other geo-relevant elements.
- Redirecting visitors to different URLs than the ones they originally clicked on.
- Paying for backlinks instead of earning them.
- Using purposefully hidden text, i.e., text in the page background, placed behind images or a screen for keyword stuffing.
Our advice is to stick to ethical SEO tactics to avoid damaging your brand’s reputation and your current and future positions in SERPs.
Real Estate SEO Takeaways
While buying and selling real estate will always involve offline interactions, SEO can do an excellent job of driving the right online connections that eventually lead to a purchase or sale. It enhances your web presence and builds the authority and credibility that reflect the quality of your services. Additionally, SEO helps differentiate your brand from competitors and attracts qualified leads who are ready to work with you.
However, you should remember that SEO is a time-intensive strategy that requires continuous attention. As such, your best option is to partner with a reputable agency that will take care of ongoing optimizations while you focus on what matters the most — your clients.
Real Estate SEO FAQs
1. Does investing in SEO mean redesigning your website?
Not in all cases. It will highly depend on the current state of your website. If it’s an outdated platform, then, chances are, designers will need to reorganize your pages, change layouts, improve UX and UI, and ensure mobile responsiveness.
However, if your website is relatively new, only smaller adjustments may be needed to optimize vital areas like your content, keywords, local SEO, and other crucial elements.
2. Is investing in VR essential for my real estate brand?
Adding VR functionality to your site can help you create more engaging and immersive client experiences and make your listings more appealing. However, if your target audience research suggests that VR won’t necessarily benefit your listings, it’s best to hold off on investing in it for now.
3. Does implementing SEO mean a complete overhaul of my current digital strategy?
Implementing SEO typically doesn’t require a complete overhaul of your digital strategy, as most strategies complement or build upon SEO to maximize its impact. However, if your content marketing strategy is lacking or your website is outdated, getting started with SEO may take longer as you might have to create new content and update your website design.
