Real estate businesses can benefit from the following local SEO tips.
To begin your Local SEO journey and enhance your online presence for potential customers in your vicinity, let’s explore a few valuable Local SEO tactics.
1. Enhance the efficiency of the Google business profile. 2. Maximize the performance of the Google business profile. 3. Improve the Google business profile for optimal results. 4. Optimize the Google business profile to enhance its effectiveness.
The Google Business Profile is the ultimate tool for gaining visibility within the local community and generating potential customers. As the frontrunner among search engines, Google employs its own algorithm to determine the search engine result page (SERP) rankings.
By utilizing Google Business Profile, you essentially develop the business profile for your real estate company, including all relevant business information, specifying the business’s location, and enhancing it with your content to inform Google about your operation centered around a particular area.
Google has become a smart search engine that prioritizes businesses in close proximity to a user when they search for real estate services. This enhances your chances of being noticed by the local audience.
Regularly publish content on your Google business profile.
Consistently making posts on Google Business Profile helps enhance the knowledge graph panel on Google Search and Google Maps.
Consequently, if a user searches for relevant keywords, there is a higher chance of your company being displayed in the search results. Additionally, actively engaging with and responding to your audience’s GMB queries and reviews motivates them to take action, such as contacting your business or browsing your website.
3. Enhancing online citations to achieve optimal results.
To enhance your position in local search engine results, utilizing local directories can be a highly effective strategy. Establishing an online profile for your real estate company on these directories is crucial. Engage in the search for advantageous online real estate directories and ensure your profile and citations are comprehensive. Several online directories are valuable for developing your local visibility such as:
- Google My Business
- Bing
- Yahoo
- Yelp
- Realtor
- Yellow Pages
- Trulia
- Zillow
4. Keywords that are specific to a particular area.
In order to boost your search engine ranking, it is essential to conduct thorough research on the relevant keywords specific to your locality and create a content strategy centered around those keywords. Identifying hyperlocal keywords can additionally assist in refining your target audience. Utilizing various tools can also aid you in the process of keyword research.
Putting emphasis on content that is specific to the local area.
Developing local content for your website that centers around your locality is the favored approach in local SEO. Incorporate your company’s location in the header, footer, Contact page, and any other relevant areas where it appears organic.
In the same vein, optimizing blog and website content for your local audience through the use of local keywords typically aids in achieving higher rankings for those specific terms. Nevertheless, it is important to steer clear of excessive keyword usage as search engines classify this method as spam, which ultimately leads to a decrease in the quality of your content despite its initial high standards.
Real estate agencies can effectively generate high-intent leads through local SEO, making it a valuable marketing strategy. By following the tips provided in the preceding article, you can gain an advantage in implementing your local SEO strategies. To acquire a comprehensive understanding of Local SEO, our article on this subject is a recommended resource.
6. Start with an SEO audit
Conducting an SEO audit allows identification of high-performing pages and areas that require improvement. Despite the time-consuming nature of an audit, it serves as a progress benchmark and provides crucial insights for developing a roadmap.
- Does your site rank locally?
- Are you getting any organic traffic?
- Are you generating leads or converting clients?
If the answer to any of these questions is negative, there is a justification behind it. Employing the SEO audit can assist you in unraveling the cause. It is imperative to concentrate on the following key areas.
- Site Structure: XML sitemap, robots.txt, redirects.
- Page Structure: Titles, meta descriptions, heading tags, alt tags, URLs.
- Content: Structure, keyword and link placement, visual elements, duplicates, redirects, and canonical tags.
- Links: Outbound and inbound links, interlinking with other pages on your site, broken links.
- Usability: Accessibility, mobile-friendliness, site speed.
Using Google Analytics, analyze which pages require the most focus, and identify and rectify any issues through the Google Search Console. By enhancing all aspects within these five domains, an augmentation in your organic traffic should be noticeable.
In addition, the tools available include the Mobile-Friendly Test tool and PageSpeed Insights tool.
7. Optimize for mobile devices
Your website must function seamlessly on smartphones and tablets in order to satisfy Google and effectively engage with potential customers, considering that mobile devices account for over half (52%) of worldwide internet traffic.
The crucial areas to concentrate on in terms of mobile optimization are:
- Responsive design
- Page speed
- Hosting speed
- Homepage
- Site navigation
- Site search
- Forms
- Conversions
- Usability
Having a responsive design is crucial for usability as it allows your site to adapt to any screen size. Maintaining a fast page speed is vital as visitors are likely to go back to the search results if they have to wait too long, in search of a more user-friendly site.
It is generally advisable to make things as simple as possible.
If a user has to navigate through a lot to achieve their goal, their likelihood of following through to the end decreases. The Mobile-Friendly Test tool can assist you in assessing if your current site meets the requirements and provide a list of issues that require your attention.
In order to increase efficiency, compress your code and enhance your images. Employ an emulator to observe the appearance of your content on various devices.
8. Add your site to google my business & other relevant directories
Local SEO places great importance on local citations, which involve listing your site in various locations with consistent information, including your name, address, and phone number. It is highly beneficial to expand your presence across multiple platforms, and beginning with Google My Business is recommended. Ensure that your profile remains up to date and endeavor to provide as much information as possible when completing it.
Boost your online presence by incorporating captivating visuals such as photos and videos, along with other pertinent content. This approach can enhance your visibility in Google’s local search results, improving the likelihood of outranking platforms like Zillow and Trulia. Nevertheless, remember to also register on those platforms to maximize your exposure.
You can also list your business on other directory websites.
- Realtor.com
- Yahoo Homes
- RedFin
- HomeSnap
- Neighborhood Scout
- Zoocasa
- Local.com
- Yelp
- Yellow Pages
- Manta
- Better Business Bureau
- Merchant Circle
- Angie’s List
- CitySearch
- Yellow Pages
- Whitepages
Take a moment to search quickly on the platforms you are considering using. It is possible that you already have a business profile on there that simply needs to be acknowledged.
Upon verification, you will gain increased authority in managing the information displayed therein. By enabling people to conduct extensive research on these platforms, you are not only enhancing your SEO efforts but also establishing additional avenues for sales that boost lead generation.
9. Get social
Although social media does not have a direct impact on your search engine rankings, it remains a crucial aspect of your digital marketing strategy as it assists in:
- Connect with your targeted audience.
- Increase exposure.
- Build authority, trust, and awareness.
- Drive more traffic to your website.
- Drive conversions.
Without social media accounts, real estate businesses will struggle to establish their presence online. Although it may be tempting to be present on all social media platforms, it is advisable to select a few platforms and focus on them in order to maintain high-quality content, rather than spreading oneself too thin and compromising content quality.
In addition to Facebook, take into account platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Utilize these social networks to distribute your blog content, videos, along with other crucial details like statistics, news, and additional resources. Employ Instagram and Pinterest for endorsing your website through captivating visual content.
Display the finest sales prospects on Facebook by incorporating location-specific hashtags, descriptions, and geo-targeted keywords into your social media content sharing.
10. Publish useful content on your blog
It is essential to prioritize the content you will include on your blog, as a small business with limited resources, in order to effectively target relevant keywords and avoid competing with large enterprises.
Your blog ought to consist of a blend of the following:
Informative articles
These are the posts that discuss your local area, such as:
- Walkability.
- Cost of living.
- Social life.
- Schools.
- Crime.
- Restaurants.
Provide unique perspectives while describing the advantages and disadvantages of the neighborhood.
Visual content
This may involve:
- Images.
- Video tours.
- Virtual tours.
- Live stream videos.
- Infographics.
Interviews with local business owners
Although conducting interviews with local business owners may be time-consuming, the effort will be rewarded as they offer a distinct insight into your neighborhood and showcase its attractiveness to prospective homebuyers.
Before posting and sharing the interviews, business owners should spend a few minutes optimizing the content for search engines. This will help increase your reach and raise awareness when these interviews are shared on social media platforms and websites.
Ensure that titles, headings, subheadings, meta descriptions, alt text, hashtags, and URLs incorporate the appropriate geographic keywords.
11. Create video content
Although content is the simplest to create, it is advisable to allocate resources for producing and optimizing video content, as it can aid in setting you apart from your competitors.
Take into consideration:
Starting and improving a YouTube channel.
- Consistently upload videos to that channel.
- Share or upload your videos to your website and social media pages.
- Run live streams on Facebook and YouTube to build a larger audience.
Looking for inspiration on content creation ideas?
Give it a shot:
- Open house videos.
- Listings videos (10 Best Homes for Families).
- Q&A live-streams.
- Q&A Videos.
- Virtual tours.
In order to maximize its potential, you have the opportunity to utilize the video content for various purposes on your social media platforms and blog. It is advisable to invest time in enhancing your video content for local search by integrating geo-targeted keywords into headlines, descriptions, and hashtags.
To ensure accessibility, it is recommended to incorporate subtitles and a transcript. By including the transcript in the description, it facilitates the task of search engines to crawl and index the content. Additionally, including links to your website, social media profiles, and related listings in the description is also beneficial.
12. Use structured data markup
Implementing structured data markup, also known as schema, enables Google and other search engines to gain a deeper understanding of the content presented on your webpage. In order for your website to showcase rich snippets in search results, it is essential to incorporate schema wherever applicable.
There are advantages that real estate businesses can gain from:
- RealEstateAgent
- Offer
- Product
- Place
- RentAction
- Residence
- PostalAddress
- SearchResultsPage
- WebPage
If you are uncertain about what to utilize or how to begin, consult an SEO expert as your choice will depend on your site structure. After implementing schema on your site, use the Structured Data Testing Tool to verify its accuracy.
