There has been a transformational change in the real estate industry in recent years due to the impact of digital technology and the changing expectations of homebuyers. It is evident that the marketing plans and strategies of real estate agencies, too, must respond accordingly.
According to studies, as much as 86% of potential homebuyers consider online real estate resources as the most important source of information. As many as 44% of them kick off their home search by going online.
The changing habits of homebuyers mean that now you must have a vibrant presence online so that when a homebuyer does go online to search for attractive properties, your website should be among the most visible on his search results page.
With the competition intense, this will only happen if you have taken the trouble to optimize your website for improved online visibility.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, as it is commonly referred to, is the method of tweaking the on-page and off-page elements of your website so that it achieves a better search engine ranking for target keywords.
The importance of SEO is highlighted when you consider that 95% of all web traffic generated is from organic search. The lower your rank, the more you lose out on the number of clicks and, ultimately, conversions to the competition.
The benefit of creating a strong SEO strategy after creating quality content is that it is going to improve the traffic of the website. When you are publishing content with keywords and content, apart from increasing the topic, you also attract the correct audience.
This is going to increase your chance of getting more clients. When you have the right conversation points where it needs to be, you turn traffic into revenue.
Moreover, quality SEO content will establish your business as a go-to reliable source of knowledge. This builds trust and authority with your audience. Every time a customer reads your content, they gain something from it. Your content should add value to it.
When a customer gains insights from a site, it is likely that they are going to interact with the site in a positive way. This, in turn, increases brand awareness. Better brand awareness always increases the conversion rate.
There is another benefit of a good SEO strategy and that is it offers a kind of brand protection. You know how your brand is represented online, and you can have good control over it.
A good example of how SEO can protect the brand is if you are in any kind of affiliating program. These programs are a tested way of increasing revenue. However, you have to be careful and not let these affiliates take over the traffic off of the keywords. This is because you do not have a lot of control over how affiliates would represent the brand.
While there are hundreds of factors taken into account by Google search for ranking of websites, some of the most vital ones that should find a place in your SEO strategy are. If you are having trouble budgeting for these courses to improve your business, there are options available. Title loans can help cover the costs and upgrade your SEO strategies.
With more than half of the current online traffic already being generated by users on mobile devices, real estate agencies must also be ready with a mobile-friendly website to cater to the needs of homebuyers conducting online searches from their mobile phones and tabs.
The inclination of users to conduct online searches has been recognized by Google with its mobile-first technology that places a premium on mobile-friendly websites. This means that if you have not optimized your website for mobiles, your competition is very likely to have beaten you hollow in generating traffic and sales leads.
The other demand by all mobile users is that the site must load very fast otherwise they will abandon it and visit some other site. According to forbes.com, when the loading time increases from one second to three seconds, conversions fall by as much as 50%.
Studies reveal that as many as 53% of home buyers start their search for a property on the internet, typically on a search engine. It is also established that 55% of the people conducting searches restrict their clicks to only the top three ranked sites so if you are not among the top three, the chances of attracting traffic decrease dramatically.
If you are not even among the first 10, you might as well not be on the web. One of the most important elements that contribute to high rank is keywords; however, as will be evident, all keywords are not equal, and how effective the keywords are in driving your SEO depends on both their relevance and the volume of competition for the keyword from other sites.
Using online analytics tools will help in optimizing your website by discovering the best keywords in your industry that have a low enough competition that ensure a high rank in searches.
When most of the actual home buying is happening in the proximity of your business location, it makes more sense to pump in your SEO effort into getting better local search rankings, which means getting included in Google’s local search 3-pack.
Some of the actions you can take are ensuring that your contact details like name, address, phone number, or NAP data are accurate and consistent across all customer touchpoints like your website, listings in Google My Business, local directories, social media accounts, etc.
Identify all local directories and Yellow Pages and ensure that your business has a listing on them with accurate NAP data. Customer reviews are extremely important for local SEO. That is why you should always solicit reviews from your customers; make it a point not to leave out the ones that may not be positive. Otherwise, people will start doubting the authenticity of the reviews.
Make sure that you include as much as possible of local content so that you emerge as the expert in the real estate business in every neighborhood you operate in. Make liberal use of maps.
Include neighborhood profiles and data so that potential customers can get to know the locality better. Implement the local business schema implemented by your website developer. This would provide search engines with better local information about your business.
Apart from the website, you can also raise your online visibility among your target audience by investing in content marketing vehicles like blogs, social media, and 360-degree guides.
Instead of restricting your content to the website, you should try to become an authority in real estate issues by authoring detailed guides and how-to pieces for first-time homebuyers as well as experienced customers.
Use social media to create an impact with high-quality photos and videos that not only showcase the properties you are selling but also customer testimonials and interviews of industry experts on a variety of issues. Get a comprehensive database in place of potential customers and reach out to them using email, text messages, and DMs regularly.
As a smart realtor, you will not only want to reach out to potential homebuyers. You would want them to contact you when they have any requirements. This, in today’s context, means that you should have very high visibility online across all the channels that customers frequent.
As long as you focus on being discovered easily and then on addressing the customers’ requirements promptly and in a friendly manner, you can be sure that your sales will shoot through the roof.
There is no doubt that SEO is one of the most advanced and time-tested digital marketing strategies. Many businesses are now looking to set up their own in-house digital teams with help from SEO experts.
If you as a business would like to create your own digital marketing team, you need your marketers to take help from the best seo training courses. This will help them understand the finer points of SEO and make your business benefit from the same.
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A self-proclaimed Swiftian, Instagram-holic, and blogger, Subhasree eats, breathes, and sleeps pop culture. When she is not imagining dates with Iron Man on Stark Tower (yes, she has the biggest crush on RDJ, which she won’t admit), she can be seen tweeting about the latest trends. Always the first one to break viral news, Subhasree is addicted to social media, and leaves out no opportunity of blogging about the same. She is our go-to source for the latest algorithm updates and our resident editor.
