Why You Need Real Estate SEO in Today’s Competitive Real Estate Market
Why have we prepared this guide into why you need real estate SEO?
Research from the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) shows that 44% of home buyers will conduct an online property search as their first step in buying a house. An additional 13% will search online for information about the home buying process as their first step.
Compare this to 17% whose first step is to contact a real estate agent. This means that roughly 57% of all home buyers will search for homes or information online before they reach out to a Realtor to represent them. The research also doesn’t specify how many of those 17% who contact an agent first searched for their agent online. We’re willing to bet it’s a healthy majority.
Real Estate SEO is Vital When Growing Your Online Presence
Why are we sharing this data? The point is that most home buyer and sellers will start with some sort of online search before hiring a real estate agent. They use search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. They utilize social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. They search online business directories and review sites like Yelp, Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com to find the top agents in their areas.
None of this is surprising in today’s digital age. We all depend on the Internet for just about everything from shopping to schooling. Why wouldn’t people use it for buying or selling real estate?
The Power of Real Estate SEO
Now the question remains. How do you as a real estate agent get in front of these online consumers? The answer is real estate SEO (search engine optimization). An aggressive and effective SEO plan is a must-have in today’s ultra-competitive real estate industry. There are many agents and brokerages out there. A powerful combination of brand marketing and targeted SEO will enable you to stand out from the crowd while attracting more visitors to your website, blog, social media pages and real estate directory listings.
Your business directory listings and property listings on the MLS must be optimized for your market. Your website content needs to be thoughtfully crafted with keywords, tags, titles, backlinks and other SEO features. You should have fresh, targeted content added regularly through a real estate blog and engaging, relevant social media posts that drive traffic to your site. You’ll want to utilize direct response landing pages and super-targeted ad placements.
The Benefits of Real Estate SEO
It takes all of these elements—and more—to create a powerful real estate SEO strategy. When done well, this optimization will increase the amount of site visitors you get on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Real estate SEO will help you move up in the Google rankings for specific keywords, phrases and questions being searched in Google. Last but not least, it will help you convert more of those site visitors into clients. Good SEO can get more people on your website. Great real estate SEO actually turns those visits into quality real estate leads!
If you want to get a general idea of where your SEO stands right now, conduct a few quick Google searches:
- Homes for sale in ______
- Real estate agent in ______
- _____ real estate
(Fill in the blanks with your specific city/state, neighborhood or general market area.)
Hire a Real Estate SEO Specialist
Another important thing to remember is that your SEO has to be optimized for your real estate business, and more specifically, your local market. Broad SEO strategies like using the keyword “real estate” on your website a lot will not get you very far. The same goes for hiring a general SEO specialist to improve your campaign. They will certainly increase traffic, but will they get you the right kind of traffic? Hire a real estate SEO specialist to truly get you the most bang for your buck. Home buyers and sellers hire you because you are a local real estate specialist. Why wouldn’t you want to hire a real estate specialist for your SEO?
Let Us Take Care of Your Real Estate SEO
Digital Bullet Agency is a leading real estate SEO specialist. We work with many real estate agents looking to maximize their site traffic and lead generation. To learn more about our services and SEO packages, contact us today.