Boost Your Real Estate Website's Visibility with SEO Strategies

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Why SEO is Important for Real Estate Websites
• Top SEO Tips for Real Estate Websites
  • Tip 1: Claim Your Google My Business Listing
  • Tip 2: Use Zillow to Rank Higher on Google
  • Tip 3: Make Full Use of Your Website's Blog and Create City Specific Content
  • Tip 4: Guest Posting on Real Estate Blogs
  • Tip 5: Implement Real Estate Schema Markups
• Conclusion

Introduction

Hey guys, Timmy here from Link Building HQ! Today we're going to talk about SEO for real estate. We'll cover why real estate websites need to focus on SEO and give you our top tips on how you can boost your rankings and visibility across the web. Ready? Let's dive in!

Why SEO is Important for Real Estate Websites

Just like everything else, searches for homes and properties online have been increasing year after year. According to research, 44 percent of all property buyers start by looking for properties online. That's almost half the market, and that number is only going to increase. If you're not visible online, you're missing out big time.

Secondly, effective SEO should be part of your overall digital marketing strategy. Having a compelling website, making sure you're visible in local searches, and getting yourself listed in major real estate platforms is the way to go. A solid online presence establishes credibility for your business. If potential clients can't find you online, they may have second thoughts about doing business with you.

Now that we understand the importance of SEO for real estate websites, let's move on to our top SEO tips!

Top SEO Tips for Real Estate Websites

Tip 1: Claim Your Google My Business Listing

A Google My Business (GMB) listing helps you massively when it comes to local searches. If someone is searching for your business by name or simply searching for realtors in their city, a GMB listing helps you pop up for those searches. Claiming your Google My Business listing is one of the first steps in ensuring you appear on the knowledge panel on Google SERPs, on Google's three-pack, and Google Maps.

How can you claim a Google My Business listing? Just head over to Google My Business (we've put the link in the description below) and create your business profile. This allows you to list your business details on Google, including your business name, business address, and business phone number. We call these three things Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP). It's very important that your NAP is consistent across all digital channels such as your website and social media pages and accounts. After your Google My Business listing has been verified, you can also create citation accounts on Facebook, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Foursquare, and other places. This ensures that when a user searches for real estate agencies or listings on these platforms instead of Google, you still appear in their results.

Pro Tip: You can save a bunch of time using a tool like Yext, which sends out your listings to major directories and data aggregators. This way, you don't have to create separate listings on every other website.

Tip 2: Use Zillow to Rank Higher on Google

For your real estate website to rank well on Google, it's important to have a solid Zillow profile. Zillow is a market leader when it comes to online real estate. In 2018, they received 7.1 billion annual visits on their websites and apps. That's a massive audience. By creating a profile on Zillow and adding your properties to their website, you're maximizing your visibility. With Zillow having such a huge market share, there's a good chance this is where your clients will first find you. Be sure to add all the details of your business in the "About Me" tab of your Zillow profile. Sprinkle your target keywords in the description and add links to your website to gain authority.

Tip 3: Make Full Use of Your Website's Blog and Create City Specific Content

Creating highly informative, city-specific content can really help you with your marketing funnel. Users who plan on moving to a new city and finding a place to stay often seek out information about that city. By providing useful content that talks about city landmarks and attractions, the local economy, jobs and top employers, schools and neighborhoods, restaurants and shopping, transportation, and things to do, you can guide users along the sales funnel. The more useful information you provide to people in the research stage, the more likely they are to trust you and come back to you when they're ready to make a decision.

Some cities will be easier to create content about, depending on their search volume and competition. If you're not sure what to write about, take a cue from websites like Zumper that have done a great job targeting users planning to relocate to Chicago. They created a blog that tells you everything you need to know about relocating to Chicago, including the cost of living, neighborhoods, and transportation. As you scroll down, you'll find internal links that take you to Zumper's apartment search in Chicago page. This gradual guiding of users along the sales funnel is an amazing strategy that you can implement as well.

Tip 4: Guest Posting on Real Estate Blogs

Guest blogging is a tried and true method for effective link building. Identify reputable publishers within the real estate industry and reach out to them to see if they're looking for someone to contribute great content. Most publishers are hungry for quality content since there's only so much their in-house team can create. Guest blogs can be a great way to get backlinks that point back to your site. If your content is really good, you'll be able to publish it on some of the biggest names in your niche and get backlinks from authoritative websites. Just make sure you're earning organic backlinks from relevant publishers in your niche.

Not sure where to start? You can reach out to websites like Inman, Realtor.com, or Redfin to get your guest article published. You can also search on Google using keywords like "real estate guest posting opportunities" to find other platforms that accept guest contributions.

Tip 5: Implement Real Estate Schema Markups

Schema markups refer to little snippets of code that tell Google how to display your page information on SERPs. By using schema markup for local businesses, you'll help Google's crawlers know exactly what kind of business you are, what your hours are, your Google reviews, and more. Studies have shown that pages that use schema markup get a 20 to 25 percent higher click-through rate in search. As a realtor, you need to implement schema specifically in two areas of your website: your business listing and the list of properties themselves.

Take Trulia as an example. They make great use of the product schema markup to list their properties and fields such as the property's address, price, and currency. If you want to know exactly how to create and implement schema markup, we have a video that guides you through the process.

Conclusion

By following all the tips mentioned in this article, we're sure that your real estate website will see a major bump in rankings and visibility. Remember to claim your Google My Business listing, use Zillow to rank higher on Google, make full use of your website's blog to create city-specific content, guest post on real estate blogs, and implement real estate schema markups. These strategies, when put into action, will help you establish a strong online presence and attract more potential clients to your real estate business. Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more amazing SEO content!