You'll have a much harder time marketing your real estate listings if you don't take advantage of local SEO.
Every year in the U.S., more than 5 million homes are sold.
If you're a real estate agent, vying for the attention of potential home buyers can seem like a daunting task.
There are ways to make sure that your listings show up at the top of the search engine when prospective buyers are looking, however.
Let's take a look at what you need to know to boost your local SEO for house listings.
Start With a Responsive Website
Your website is the hub of your real estate business. If you're trying to improve local SEO for your real estate listings, you'll want to make sure your website is up to snuff.
This means that making your website highly functional and responsive should come first before anything else.
Research Your Keywords
A part of any local SEO plan is going to be keyword research. You're going to want to know the search terms that will take potential clients to your listings and website. Once you've found the keywords that will lead them to you, you'll want to place them strategically into your listings.
There are a lot of tools out there with which to do keyword research. They can help you find out how many people have been searching for relevant terms to your listings and real estate business.
Optimize Your Listings
The trick with using keywords in your listings is not to overdo it. Keyword stuffing can negatively affect your ranking, and it can also make your listing description come off as unnatural and unappealing.
Be thoughtful about using keywords when you're writing your listing description. What are the selling features of the property, and for what are most people looking? It's incredible how re-wording something ever so slightly can convey the same meaning but bring in way more traffic and attention.
Use Local Keywords
You probably know better than anyone the terms people use to describe the area in which you reside. Do some keyword research beyond just the city name, including regional names and neighborhood names. When people want to buy a house in your area, you want to make sure they get directed to your listings.
Include the Address in Your Header and Tags
Including your listing and tags' address will ensure that search engines bring up your listing when people search for homes in your area. You'll want to make sure the street address, city, and zip code are a part of your listing.
Promote Your Listings on Your Website and Social Media
You can't rely on just search engines to do the work for you. You're going to want to market the heck out of your listings by promoting them.
On your website, create a section that displays your most recent properties. You'll want this section to be accessible from the homepage.
Keep an updated blog on your website to show off new properties. If you're too, sales-y people will lose interest but include listings mixed in with other helpful blog posts.
Social media is also a great way to promote your real estate listings. Post links on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms you use to let the people in your network know about the houses you're selling.
Be careful doing this too often, as users can find it irritating to feel like their being inundated with real estate listings. Instead, post one or two properties a week, max.
Optimize Your Images
The photos of a house listing are worth a thousand words of description. People are inherently visual creatures, and you'll want to make sure you have the highest quality photos out there.
If your photos aren't professional and gorgeous, you're going to get a lot fewer phone calls. Search engines can't process visual content, however, so you'll need to optimize the pictures yourself.
The way to do this is through the file name and alt description. Use your main keywords so that your images help boost your local SEO.
Consider Hiring a Professional
Optimizing your website and listings can feel like a full-time job. If you want to focus on the things you're best at, you might consider hiring a professional digital marketing agency. They're pros at boosting your search ranking, marketing your content, and bringing in more leads, clients, and buyers.
When you want your leads to rank higher on search engines, you'll want your entire business to be ranking higher. Having a broader and more significant web presence will ensure that potential buyers are being brought to your listings more often in the long run.
When you're considering hiring a professional, you'll want to look around for a company that specializes in local SEO. One of the benefits of being a local, place-based business is that you aren't competing with the entire internet for rankings. With the right strategies, you can find yourself ranking at the top of search engines in no time.
Use Local SEO to Ensure Your Listings Are Seen
When you're selling homes for clients, you want to do everything in your power to make sure that their house sells as fast as possible for as much as possible. Realistically, though, this will be hard to accomplish if potential buyers aren't finding your listings.
With local SEO tactics, you can boost both your listings and your business. You'll find more clients, and you'll sell more houses!
At The Website Marketing Pro, we can help make internet marketing work for you. If you want your real estate business to grow, contact us today!
Need more local marketing tips? Check out our entire Guide to Local Marketing for Real Estate Professionals
