How To Optimize For Near Me Searches In Real Estate “Near me” keywords are one of the most searched for keywords in Google. And in the real estate industry, it’s no different.
However, many business owners including real estate professionals make 1 deadly mistake that kills the user experience and even your Real Estate SEO.
This article covers how to optimize for near me searches and avoiding the mistake that others make (more on this later).
Optimizing For Near Me Searches: Avoiding The Main Mistake
Here’s what many business owners do: They fill their GMB and website content up with “near me.”
The issue is that “near me” is a search operator, so it’s not treated like a keyword.
MEANING: There is 0 benefit to putting near me in your GMB listing or on your content.
It will make your website sound pretty strange and hurt the user experience.
How To Optimize For Near Me Searches
Now that we have the main mistake out of the way, we wanted to walk you through optimizing for near me searches.
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Understand How It Works
Keywords that include “near me” simply uses the proximity between businesses and the searcher as a heavier ranking factor.
How does Google know how far your business is from the searcher?
- It will ask the searcher for their location.
- Hopefully, you will have it in your GMB and on your website’s content.
So, no, we don’t optimize for near me searches by putting “near me” into our content. Instead, we make sure to put our location into our website and GMB.
Google will do the rest.
It’s also worth noting that while proximity is a ranking factor – it’s not the only one – the algorithm still uses others as well.
So, part of how to optimize for “near me” searches is optimizing your GMB and website for regular local searches.
2. List Your GMB and Optimize It
If you haven’t yet claimed your GMB, then make sure to do so. For this, you can just go to the Google my business manager and verify it.
Once you’ve done that, you need to optimize your GMB.
This includes:
- Filling out the opening hours
- Adding your address
- Adding your contact information
- Adding images of your business
Crucial: Ensure to fill out the contact information, as this is where you’ll generate many of your leads.
We also have a full tutorial on how to optimize your GMB in our previous blog post.
Ask Previous Clients To Leave Reviews
Reviews are a ranking factor when it comes to your GMB, so they are for “near me” searches as well.
So, it’s essential to ask your previous clients to leave a review.
We recommend that you create an automated follow-up for this using your email autoresponder – as this will help streamline the process.
Note: The review signal comes from the GMB and Facebook, Yelp, and other platforms. So, don’t ignore the other platforms!
What If You Have Multiple Addresses?
If you operate from several locations, you can add multiple location groups via the Google My Business manager.
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Add Schema Markup
Schema markup is information that is shown to users before they click on your website. This info is pulled from your website, and if they want more info – they can click on the result.
Ultimately it increases your click-through rate (CTR).
As a real estate investor, there isn’t as much Schema to add to your websites.
However, there is:
- Home page schema
Home page schema is helpful because it can help you get a knowledge graph later on. In addition, this is a great way to establish trust and authority with your prospects.
- FAQ Schema
FAQ schema is also excellent and for quite a sneaky reason: It helps you get more space on the SERP, meaning your customers are much more likely to click on your listing.
- Article Schema (for blog posts)
If you are using blog posts as part of your content strategy, you can also use the article schema, which looks like this:
(insert screenshots)
This will get a higher CTR for those blog posts and give you more opportunities to get prospects to your website.
4. Build Geographical Anchor Text
Warning: Anchor text is something where you want to be a little bit careful. Over-optimized anchor texts are one of the most common reasons websites get penalties.
However, they are also very effective when you want to rank for local terms, i.e., near-me searches.
Example: If you want to rank for “near me” searches in New York, then backlinks that say “sell your house in new york” will be pretty effective.
Again, the key here is to be careful and have a nice mix of natural anchor texts. For example, you can also have some that say click here or your brand name.
5. Create Pages For Each Location You Operate In
If your business operates in several locations, you must create pages that show Google that you offer your services in every city.
For example, instead of just having one “Sell my house” page, you could have:
“Sell my house + New York”
“Sell my house + Jersey City”
“Sell my house + Newark”
This will show both Google and your visitors that you are operating in these cities. Therefore, you’re much more likely to rank there.
6. Ensure Your Website is Mobile-friendly
Around 56% of total searches are coming from mobile, and for local markets, that percentage is even higher.
So, make sure that your website does look good on several devices, operating systems, and other factors.
Because if your user experience is terrible, your rankings will eventually drop too.
7. Create local-specific blog posts
Here’s another excellent tip that will help you build local authority: Create geo-specific blog posts.
- This shows Google that you’re an authority in this area, not just a pop-up real estate company creating landing pages for different regions.
- It provides value to your website visitors, which may help conversions in the future.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to How To Optimize For Near Me Searches For Real Estate That’s it! We hope you have enjoyed this article on how to optimize for near me searches. Remember not to put near me in your content, but instead keep your location information consistent across all your assets.