Do you know as per National Association of Realtor’s research close to 90% of buyers who are in the process of buying a home or looking to rent searches on Google? Ahh ! The figure is pretty amazing.
And you would also be amazed to know the fact that 86% buyers trust real estate website due to more accurate information to buy or rent a house.
Consider a scenario where you are real estate investor. You also own a website from where you want to sell your properties; in that case, you just cannot overlook to optimize your real estate website on Google to get real estate leads.
In this guide, we have figured out the list of real estate SEO tips that will help you to gain more traffic to your website and finally will help you in real estate lead generation. Real estate SEO is the process of optimizing a real estate business website for Google search engines and improve the search traffic and get real estate leads without cold calling.
Given below are important eleven tips to improve SEO of your Real Estate website to get leads:
1. Identifying Real Estate SEO Keywords:
Because competition is very high for the biggest target keywords in the industry your most important keyword research should be for long-tail terms which have lower competition.
By developing a solid long-tail keyword strategy and then implementing it successfully, your website will have high conversion rate and help increase number of sales over time. How will you select the real estate SEO Keywords? Take a look at the keyword research process.
These are a keyword intent which people search to find the business like you or to buy homes.
a. Realtor near [Place name: can be city/town]
b. Best real estate agent in [Location name]
c. Buy house [locality name]
d. House for sale near [place name]
e. [city name] apartment for sale
f. [city name] house for sale
g. [city name] house for sale
h. Buy bungalow in [place name]
i. 3 BHKs flats for sale near [place name]
j. Properties for sale near [place name]
Here are some lists of examples of a keyword if a person is looking to buy a home in Kormangala Bangalore.
- House for rent in Koramangala
- House for Sale in Koramangala
- Properties for rent in Koramangala
- Koramangala flats
- 1bhk house for sale in Koramangala
- 2bhk for rent in Koramangala
This is how you will first have to make a keyword discovery and identify what are the keywords people will use to find a business like you.
2. Blend Real Estate SEO and User Experience Together
When you are listing your property on the website, make sure that the property opens in a separate page and is favorable for user experience. i.e when a user lands on that property listing page that visitor can get all the necessary information which he/she is looking for, which will trigger him/her to make a decision.
There is a crucial connection between SEO and user experience. Seo is a process by which you optimize your website so that Google feels that your website is appropriate and relevant for user search queries and rank on its 1st page.
Now consider a scenario where you have ranked on the 1st page in Google but the user is not happy in spending time on the landing page resulting to a high bounce rate.
This gives the signal to Google that your property listing page is not good from user experience and failing to meet the demand of the user. Thus even after getting ranked on the 1st page of Google, there is a high chance for a sudden ranking drop after some days.
Always remember that if the user is happy, then you would able to sustain in a good position on Google SERP. Very recently Google has bought it Rank brain algorithm which is considered as ranking factor.
This artificial intelligence can help to determine the user experience on the website and accordingly pass the information to Google. http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-rankbrain
Now the question comes what should you include in property listing page so that it improves user experience and SEO strategy. Include the followings:
A. Contact form
B. Property price
C. EMI options
D. Property details
E. Features ( no of bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, exterior features.)
F. Similar homes available in nearby area
G. Local map
H. Images
I. 360 degree Videos
J. Nearby amenities (School, airport, hospitals, railway station, Grocery stores, restaurant, gas stations)
K. Feedback from neighbors residing in the area on what they feel about the locality.
L. Per sq feet price
M. Worship areas
3. Keywords placement in the web page
After you have identified the keywords then you have to place the keyword in certain areas of web pages to get the most benefit from Real estate SEO optimization. The key areas would include.
A. Title tag
B. Meta description
C. Alt tag
D. Image file name
E. Url (url structure must contain property name, location name, and keyword)
F. Breadcrumb
G. Content
H. Indexable SEO sitemap
This is how you can frame the title tag for your real estate page:
Example 1: [House/Apartment/Bunglow] for Sale In [Place Name] [City Name] [Brand Name]
Example 2: Buy [Type of Apartment/House/Bunglow] in [Place Name] [City Name] [Brand Name]
4. Provide photos and videos and optimize them
Upload images that are:
- High Quality
- Uniform in size
- Uniform in position
- Quick to load
- Complete with descriptions, alt tags, dimensions and titles
You can also give a 360-degree video tour of the inside of their prospective new homes to homebuyers.
Many times a home buyer often wants to see the street view and surrounding exterior of your property. To meet this demand of home buyer you as a property owner can show the exterior videos without spending extra money. Read this detailed guide how this street view app would help you to solve the purpose: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7011737?hl=en&ref_topic=6275604&vid=0-337627167407-1495792730236
5. List Your Property On Google Map:
Google my business allows you to enlist your property on Google Maps. To enlist your property on Google Maps you have followed these list of steps
A. Create Google account
B. Log on to https://www.google.com/business/
C. Click add business and fill up the all the credentials – Name of the Apartment, phone no, address, category, description about your property and photos
After you are done with filling the details you have to wait for 14 days to get a postal verification pin code from Google. When you get the pin-code log on to Google my business page and verify the business.
Once your property is listed you have to implement the following steps.
1. Schema generation
2. Embedding schema in the web page where you have listed your property.
3. Geo tag the images with the help of this tool. http://www.geoimgr.com/en/tool (Click no and then proceed). Upload photos >> Put the apartment address in the search box >> tag the photo.
You should embed a Google Map on your website.
Maps help Google locate your business and also helps it confirm that your website is genuine.
6. Collect Reviews To Get Real Estate Leads Without Cold Calling
A great time to ask for a testimonial is right after you hand over the keys to a home buyer. Record the video. You can also ask the customers to give a review on your Google + business page.
Take a look how Siddha Group Reality in Kolkata have collected the reviews on their Google plus business page. The reviews increase the chances of conversion and credibility of your business.
7. Write blog post on homes you want to sell
Regular blogging is an effective SEO strategy for your real estate website. Given below are some of the related topics that you can blog on:
- You can jot a list of all the possible questions that a buyer can have and give the answers to them in your blog.
- Compile a list of the valued properties in your area.
- Blog about events that take place in your area.
- Commuting services in your area.
- Write about the nightlife and entertainment options available near to your area to boost local content creation.
8. Use social media
Use Pinterest to give perfect images of the houses that you are selling. You can create boards and pins for neighborhoods that you want to focus on.
Use Twitter to share local content around the area where you need to sell your home with local hash tags. Also search on twitter to find local folks who are tweeting about local event, you simply have to retweet along with them follow and engage. Who know you may also get real estate leads from you tweeting activity.
By using these social media sites you can share your content in a visually appealing way and that will help you to get to get real estate leads with out spending too much on offline advertisement.
9. Make Your Website Mobile Friendly
Your website needs to be mobile-friendly. Home buyers use their mobiles to check real estate sites while at home, at work, while waiting in line, at restaurants etc.
You should make sure your website is mobile-friendly and get it loaded within 3 secs.
Home buyers visit real estate websites to mainly due to following reasons:
10. Get listed on directories to Get Real Estate Leads Online
Try to get your business website listed in the right real estate directory, if you want to sell your developmental projects in India. Here are some common directories
A. www.99acres.com
B. www.magicbricks.com
C. www.housing.com
D. www.makaan.com
E. www.indiaproperty.com
F. www.propertywala.com
11. Content Marketing for Real Estate Business
Adopt a content marketing strategy to create brand awareness, engage your audiences through your content and try to create a space for yourself among real estate leaders.
In the real estate industry, the need for creating high quality and compelling content for clients is bigger than ever in content marketing.
Try to come up with creative content marketing tactics to stay in the minds of your consumers.
Given below are some content marketing ideas that you can use to get real estate leads:
- You can use info-graphics for your content as visuals provide better aid in communication. Visuals with eye-catching graphics and informative content create quite an impression in the minds of readers.
- Write stories as part of your content marketing strategy. Stories help you to emotionally connect with your consumers.
- Shoot and edit videos and then upload them to YouTube, you can also utilize Facebook live to shoot a video in the area where you want to sell the property. You can also consider having your own YouTube real estate channel.
- Write an eBook as they require hardly any investment from the consumer. In the eBook, you can offer your expert knowledge about something in the industry that people want to know.
We hope this real estate SEO guide comes to be useful to you. If you are still staggering to come on the first page of Google to rank with appropriate keywords then contact M&M Web Solution for real estate SEO services. We will be happy to help you with proven real estate lead generation ideas so that you get real estate leads without cold calling.
You can connect with Mohammad Mohsin on LinkedIn
