More than ninety percent of property buyers start their housing search online through an organic search, according to the National Association of Realtors®. As a result, search engine optimization (SEO) and business marketing are now an essential part of growing your real estate career. Although content alone is no longer enough to score a spot on the coveted first page of search engine results, there are a few things Realtors® can do to improve their ranking. And for good reason; the vast majority of users don’t go past the first page of search results.
Keyword Research
Think local. Google tends to give priority to local businesses in search results. Since real estate is a local business this can work in your favor if you approach it creatively. It is often much easier to rank higher for many smaller cities and neighborhoods than for one keyword representing a large metro area like “Chicago homes for sale”, for example. So perform a thorough research to develop a list of unique long tail keywords for the communities and neighborhoods in your farm area. The trick is to choose those long tail keywords with low competition, but a high conversion rate. This can help rank you higher and increase organic traffic.
Write Informative Content
Once you have your keywords build content around them with your targeted neighborhood keyword in the URL. Each page of content should be unique and contain at least 500 words, at least one high quality image and a video. You will also want to have two links on each page. One link to your another city or neighborhood page, and the other should link to a trusted external resource such as a community, civic, government organization or your real estate firm website, for example. Content should be well-written and informative so you’re your website visitors will see you as a local resource authority and want to share it with others. This will help you attract high quality backlinks from other quality websites which will help boost your search engine ranking.
Mobile Friendly Website
Is your website mobile friendly? Google recently updated its algorithms giving priority to websites it considers to be mobile friendly. To test your website, visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ and enter your URL. If your website doesn’t pass the test, it will still be listed in search results, but mobile-friendly websites will often be listed first.
Claim your Google Plus Local Business Listing
If you linked your website with your Google Plus page and completed the MyBusiness profile, your website and Plus page will often appear on a map at the top of your local search results. Be sure to include as much information in your listing as possible and list the communities and neighborhoods that you serve too. This will help improve your search ranking from targeted visitors are looking to buy or sell properties in those areas.
photo credit: Jimmy Baikovicius via photopin (license)
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