According to research from NAR Realtor, 98% of people use the internet to search for a new home. However, the same study shows that only 12% of real estate agents are likely to have a blog.
This data shows that real estate agents are leaving a treasure trove of lead generation untapped.
Along with strategies like paid ads, local SEO, and social media, maintaining a blog is one of the pillars of building targeted website traffic.
And targeted traffic is one of the biggest sources of lead generation around today. The reason for this is targeted traffic yields extremely high-quality leads that are ripe for conversion.
Therefore, if you are not implementing targeted real estate traffic generation, you are missing out on one of the most important sources leads available in real estate.
Fortunately, building targeted website traffic is not hard if you know the underlying principles. Want to know what these are? Keep reading, as we break down the key components of a successful targeted traffic generation strategy.
What Is Targeted Traffic?
First things first, what is targeted traffic? Targeted traffic is website visitors who already need your product, service, or information.
In sales terms, targeted traffic to a website is similar to a qualified lead.
This means that the visitor isn't a random person who happens upon your site. Instead, they are actively searching for something that your website offers. The reason why this is called “targeted traffic” is because it is traffic that consists of the website's target audience.
In other words, targeted traffic consists directly of your ideal customer.
Why Building Targeted Website Traffic So Important
As you can see, targeted traffic, like qualified leads, is prime for conversion. This is because these site visitors are out to research a buying decision.
In the case of real estate, receiving targeted traffic means that your website will be seeing visits from people that are actively searching for real estate, and who are leading up towards a buying decision.
If you give any thought to this at all, it's clear that these are the site visitors you want. It doesn't help if you are getting traffic from people who aren't even interested in real estate, or who don't want to buy in your area.
Instead, you want the majority of your site visitors to be searching for properties that you offer, in areas that you cover.
Fortunately, you don't need to take a course in search engine marketing for real estate agents to understand the tenants behind attracting targeted traffic. Now that you know why targeted traffic is so important, let's take a look at how to get it.
How to Attract Organic Targeted Traffic
There are five main avenues for generating targeted traffic. These are paid traffic, social traffic, referral traffic, direct traffic, and, organic traffic.
Organic traffic means traffic that comes to your site through search engines. It is usually attracted through website content and SEO.
To attract targeted organic traffic, there are a few specific real estate agent SEO and content strategies that you need to implement. Let's take a look at what these are.
Implement Local SEO
Local SEO focuses on targeting local searches to attract business. If you have ever googled “Xyz near me” you have done a local search.
According to Google's Consumer Insights, “near me” searches have skyrocketed by over 900% in the last few years. What's more, local searches now account for 46% of all internet traffic.
The takeaway is that people are using the web to find local businesses and services.
To position your site to take advantage of local real estate search you need to optimize it accordingly. Here are some of the most effective ways to implement this on a real estate website.
Build Location Specific Pages
To niche down and show Google that your services are relevant to specific localities, you will need to build location-specific pages.
Ideally, you should aim to create one page for each neighborhood in which you have listings. This will give you an edge over a real estate page that caters to multiple locations, as Google will see yours as more relevant.
If, for example, someone types in “apartment for sale Manhattan”, and you have a page that is specific to real estate in Manhattan, Google will most likely favor your page over one that caters to the whole of New York City.
To be effective, neighborhood-specific pages should show your listings, categorized into “new” and “sold”.
In addition, you should also include demographics and other information that visitors may find helpful. This includes:
- The average income of residents
- Average age
- Schools
- The crime rate
- FAQ's about the area
To optimize your FAQ section for search, you will need to conduct some keyword research. Through this, you will be able to find out the most frequently asked questions at a neighborhood level.
Hot tip: Besides being great for SEO, FAQs also provide superb blog content ideas. If you see a question that has a high search volume, you can capitalize on this and create a blog post on the topic.
Another great realtor SEO tip is to include local news items on your neighborhood-specific pages.
Blog
As mentioned at the start of this guide, a mere 12% of realtor sites have a blog section. This is a big mistake.
Blogs have the power to dramatically boost SEO and organically draw in clients. By producing high-quality content that serves your audience, you will also be able to establish yourself as an authority in your niche.
Here are some general content ideas to get you going:
- Information on buying a home (tips and tricks, guides, must-knows, etc)
- Home maintenance tips
- Video content of neighborhoods
Take note that in order to generate targeted local traffic, you will need to include location-specific keywords. In addition, you also want to work in keywords for real estate agents, such as “realtor”, “real estate agent”, “find a realtor” etc.
If this sounds like a lot of work, keep in mind that sites with a blog have, on average, 434% more indexed pages. Indexed pages have been crawled by Google and listed as appropriate for search.
Investing in Paid Traffic
Besides organic traffic, the other part of the local real estate search game is paid traffic.
Paid traffic can grow your reach and target potential clients that have not been caught up in your organic search net.
However, to maximize your marketing budget, it is essential that you invest in the right paid traffic. Enter hyper-local PPC.
Use Hyper-Local PPC
Pay-Per-Click advertising is an effective way to increase web traffic and gain brand exposure. However, as the name implies, you pay every time a person clicks on your ad.
If PPC advertising is bringing you non-targeted traffic, this means that you are essentially paying for visitors who have little to no interest in properties in your area.
To avoid this, you need to focus on hyper-local PPC advertising. Hyper-local PPC focuses on generating neighborhood-specific traffic.
To effectively implement hyper-local PPC, you will need to research real estate PPC keywords, choose a PPC provider, and then create one campaign per neighborhood that you cover.
To get started, take a look at our low-cost entry-level PPC program.
Nailing Social Traffic
The next component of a targeted traffic plan is social traffic. According to research, 47% of real estate agents report that social media provides the highest quality leads compared to any other traffic source.
However, to truly maximize the potential of social media for real estate, it is important that you optimize your strategy to focus on attracting targeted traffic.
Let's take a look at how to do this.
Targeted Organic Posts
To draw in targeted traffic from social media, you will need to create targeted posts. Besides sharing properties that you are listing in your target areas, you can also create posts sharing geo-specific information about these locations.
One way to do this is by reviewing local businesses, such as:
- Hair salons
- Restaurants
- Jewelry shops
- Massage and other therapists
- Specialty shops
Besides creating reviews, you can also look at posting about local events. These could include:
- Local high school plays and concerts
- Fundraising events
- Parades, celebrations, and town festivals
Thirdly, you can also share news events relevant to the neighborhood and future residents. This could be things like:
- Local legislative changes
- Rezoning Information
- New housing developments
These types of posts won't directly promote listings, but they will build traffic and ultimately generate leads.
Paid Posts
To supercharge your targeted social media strategy, realtors should also set aside a portion of their marketing budget for paid posts.
Paid posts are posts that you pay to have promoted on the platform. For best results, analyze your trending posts. The ones with the most engagement will be the ones you should boost.
Extend Your Reach With Referral Traffic
The fourth source of targeted traffic on our list is referral traffic.
Referral traffic is Google's term for traffic that came to your site through other websites or platforms rather than the Google search engine.
For example, if someone writes a blog post and links to your real estate blog, this is a referral link, and any visits that come through it is referral traffic.
Besides creating stellar content that people may link to organically—there are two main ways you can garner referral traffic. The first of these is content syndication.
Content Syndication
Content syndication is the practice of republishing content from your website onto another. For example, say you write an informative blog post about the real estate market in the Research Triangle. You then offer this post to Forbes, who then publishes it.
This is content syndication.
The benefit of this strategy is that you will receive backlinks from the site you syndicate to. What's more, these links may bring in referral traffic.
In the Research Triangle example, most of the referral traffic from that post would likely be targeted. This is for the simple reason that anybody who is not interested in the Research Triangle real estate market isn't likely to click through to your site.
Guest Blogging
Another strategy for building targeted website traffic is guest blogging.
In the case of guest blogging, instead of republishing content from your own site, you create new content. You can then offer this content, free of charge, to other higher-ranking sites in exchange for a link to your site that is placed within the content.
Drive Visits Through Direct Traffic
The fifth and final strategy for building targeted website traffic is through direct traffic sources.
Direct traffic is comprised of all visitors arriving on your site directly, without going through another site, such as a social media platform. For example, if someone types in “www.yourwebsite.com” this hit is direct traffic.
Email Marketing
It has been said that your email list is the key to the online marketing kingdom, and we aren't about to argue. Email lists are a valuable asset to any business, as they allow you an opportunity to communicate directly with your customers and leads.
If you implement savvy, non-invasive, and engaging email marketing, you can effectively increase your site's direct traffic. What's more, you can also make sure that this is targeted traffic.
Email marketing can be used to promote new blog posts that have been published, as well as occasional listings. To ensure that the traffic that comes from this is targeted, aiming to segment your email marketing campaign by neighborhood.
Traffic From Print Media
Although print media is not as popular as it once was, it can still be a valuable source of direct traffic.
Business cards, postcards, greeting cards, and flyers make great print media for real estate agents. Ensure that your website is displayed clearly on any print media that you produce and distribute.
Find Good Real Estate Website Creators
The final step to building targeted website traffic for realtors is to find a reputable website creation company that specializes in real estate. One example of this is AgentFire.
Even if you already have an established website, it is a good idea to have a team of professionals audits its content for SEO purposes. At the same time, you can engage the company to create location-specific pages and optimize your local SEO.
Start Building Targeted Website Traffic Today
Are you ready to start building targeted website traffic? Targeted traffic is one of the richest sources of leads, so we'll hazard a guess that you are eager to start implementing the above strategies.
If you don't have the time to DIY targeted traffic generation for your real estate website, take a look at our services. We specialize in local SEO, social media marketing, online advertising, lead generation, and more.
If you have any questions, please contact us.
Need more local marketing tips? Check out our entire Guide to Local Marketing for Real Estate Professionals
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