As a realtor, enhancing your online visibility is a crucial step in attracting a healthy flow of leads to your website. Organic search remains the top source of online traffic for all websites, making an effective SEO strategy one of your best chances at fundamentally enhancing discoverability rankings.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) takes all the best parts of organic digital marketing and rolls them into one. With the support of multiple backlinks, adequate keywords, and a consistent upload rate of fresh, engaging content, you can ensure a steady stream of customers with high conversion potential.

But harnessing the powers of SEO isn’t always easy. Especially in the dense, highly competitive real estate sector.

Fortunately, there are a few techniques that successful realtors and real estate agencies can use to boost rankings and organically enhance online discoverability. Here are eight that you can use to help your real estate website reach its visibility and conversion goals.

#1 Use A Keyword Research Tool

One of the easiest ways to attract more traffic to your online platforms is to use the right keywords.

Keyword research tools like Moz or Semrush can help your business stay in the loop with the current search terms your audience is looking for. You need the right mix of short and long-tail keywords, and you must ensure you use the keywords that your specific target audience is searching for.

While adding short keywords like “Buy home” or “Houses for sale near X” is always good SEO practice, longer, more specific keywords can help you hone-in on a more targeted demographic. So, by using longer-form keyword phrases such as “smart homes for sale in my area” or “luxury single family homes in X”, you can improve your search engine rankings.

Remember that keywords with a high search volume (SV) are always worth incorporating, but keywords with a lower SV have less competition, so if they suit your target audience, they’re an excellent inclusion.

#2 Harness The Power of Local SEO

When it comes to real estate, the audiences you want to target the most are those living in your area. Real estate “farming” and local SEO go hand-in-hand as they target a local demographic. By focusing on local SEO, you can make your real estate business more visible in Google’s local search results.

You can do this in many ways, from creating a Google Business Profile that adds your business to Google Maps, to optimizing your web pages and meta data and updating the NAP citations on your website.

#3 Create Content in Line With E-E-A-T Guidelines

In 2014, Google introduced its E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) guidelines. In 2022, they added an extra E (E-E-A-T) for Experience. These guidelines are part of Google’s human ranking evaluation to determine if content is helpful and relevant, and realtors can capitalize on this.

Creating a blog that highlights your expertise and provides valuable information to buyers, sellers, investors, and anyone else who may be interested in real estate can boost your SEO. A blog is also ideal for regularly adding new content, further making you more discoverable online.

Get Linking

External linking and backlinks can give your website a major SEO boost. By linking to other credible websites, you can improve the authority of your website and make it more credible. External links also provide content which can improve your rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Backlinks are also very valuable, but you may need to do some networking as they require other trusted sites to add a link to your site on theirs. However, if you create valuable content, other sites will be quick to link to yours as they see you as an authority. So, it’s a win-win situation. 

Make Your Website More Mobile-Friendly

Consumers have no problem exiting a webpage that isn’t optimized for mobile, even if they are really interested in the product or service offered. Studies show that more than 60% of online searches in the US are from mobile devices, and property sites are no exception to this.

By making your realtor website more mobile-friendly, you can not only appeal to a greater audience, but you can also improve your search rankings. Google focuses on mobile-first indexing, so its crawlers prioritize the indexing of sites that are mobile-optimized first.

Register Your Domain on High-Performing Web Directories

A web directory is essentially an online catalog of websites. You can think of it as the digital Yellow Pages, except that the more popular and verifiable a domain is, the higher it will rank on the directory.

Aside from optimizing your website for SEO, the best way to ensure  your site makes it onto web directories in your area is to register it on them. When search engines see that you’re registered with reputable web directories, they will shuffle your content higher on the SERPs.

Encourage Engagement

User engagement is crucial for SEO as it’s one of the metrics that Google prioritizes. The longer users stay on your website, the better your ranking. Longer page views and a low bounce rate highlight the fact that your site meets search intent and that your content is beneficial.

Creating interactive content is an excellent way to engage your audience, and it’s also one of the best ways to generate real estate leads. The more time people spend on your site, the more inclined they are to provide personal information, request a callback or email, fill in a survey, or comment on your posts.

Monitor Your Search Engine Rankings Closely

The golden rule of any marketing strategy online is to measure its progress consistently. Different campaigns and strategies work for different websites, so make sure that whatever one you use is closely monitored by people who understand web analytics.

This is the best way to maximize the value of truly effective strategies and pull the brakes on those that aren’t producing good results. Use a high-ranking analytics tool to find out how well your SEO strategy is performing and make data-driven decisions that determine the way forward.

Get Noticed Online

SEO is a marketing strategy that equips your real estate business to embody all the trends, keywords, phrases, and features that people in your target demographic search for the most. When done right, it gets the eyes you want on your site.

But just like any strategy, your SEO needs frequent optimization. Use these tips to get ahead in the real estate business and ensure that you’re always easy to find online.

If you need help finding marketing solutions to improve your SEO, contact us.