Complete Real Estate Marketing Guide for 2020

It is consistently ranked as one of the most competitive markets in the service sector. High prices across the nation, growing demand, and solid career advancement opportunities make this market particularly attractive for new brokers.

Either an independent contractor or an agency, you want to grow your business, and real estate marketing agency plays a huge role in attracting new leads.

According to a 2018 study* done by the National Associaton of Realtors (NAR), 87 percent of home buyers purchase their property through an agent.

These are some of the topics we will discuss in this article:

• Creative Marketing Resources for Real Estate
• Marketing Strategies to Apply in Real Estate
• Real Estate Branding
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) for Real Estate
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Real Estate

 

The market is immense – there’s no denying that. But how can you take advantage of this opportunity and really grow your business? Let’s have a look:

How does Real Estate Marketing Work?

Like any other type of marketing, it is essentially a strategy to make your service known to your potential clients and to attract new leads. Putting your offers in front of potential clients is an important part of the picture, but it’s not merely enough.

It should not be confused with real estate advertising. A complete marketing plan includes both advertising, branding, building trust, awareness, but also working with precise concepts like market research, competitive analysis, budgets, and metrics.

It is all about creating a professional image for your business. This means that your potential customers should see you as a professional, someone who understands and can assist them in finding the best deal.

A good marketing plan will help your business be visible, look professional and be an important partner for your potential clients. This translates into more leads, more clients and more sales for your business.

Marketing Strategies for Real Estate Agents

Here are the most important elements of a successful strategy:

Identify your goals and objectives – set realistic, attainable objectives for your plan by examining past performance, market size, and future growth patterns. Use hard numbers to predict your revenue and profits. Make an estimate on the number of clients you expect to have in the next year, the sales volume, the average listing price and numbers of deals closed. If not sure, reach out to other realtors or look for examples in your area.

General marketing goals – determine your marketing goals – Do you want more clients? Do you want to increase brand awareness? Do you want to close an X number of deals in the future? Come up with a plan for each of these questions.

Create your target buyer – this fictional buyer should be the person you have in mind for your marketing plan. In other words, your target buyer is your target audience. Make sure you know who this buyer is when you build your website, social media profiles, design your ads, make videos and promote your offers. Think about specifics like age, location, income, education, family size, interests and hobbies and so on.

Similar to the target buyer, you should create your target seller!

Know your area and community – this is crucial in the market. Your marketing plan should be designed for your specific area or niche. Use geographic, demographic and social data to better understand your community. If you understand the makeup of your market and how it’s expected to change, you’ll communicate better with your audience. A good resource for more information and real estate marketing tools is www.city-data.com.

You can find more in-depth details for marketing strategies for real estate agents here.

Marketing Tips for Real Estate Agents

Let’s take a look at some real estate marketing ideas that really work:

• Offer free – valuations to get more seller leads

• Live stream your – business day to day activity on social media – people are naturally curious and would love to see how local real estate agents actually work

• Host regular events – a good idea is to host a monthly happy hour open bar, where you invite your clients and their families for a casual get-together. It’s a great way to market yourself organically and get new leads

• Create infographics – take useful data and make it attractive and easy to read for your potential clients

• Use other social – media platforms, like Snapchat and Pinterest – there are a lot of potential clients here

• Create a video series – video marketing is big in this sector – harness its true potential with a video series. A good example is a weekly or monthly “Ask a realtor” series. It’s great for exposure and brand awareness.
• Use influencers and community marketing – local bloggers or social media personalities can help you expand your business tremendously.

 

To give you more creative marketing ideas for real estate agents, you can find it here.

With more than 1.3 million real estate agents in the country, the market is getting more competitive than ever. This is especially true in the most sought after areas, where the market is growing every year.

CREATIVE MARKETING RESOURCES FOR REAL ESTATE AGENTS

In this segment we will talk about:

• How to Find Clients as a Real Estate Agent?
• Useful  Marketing Websites for Real Estate Agents
• Best Real Estate Agent Ads
• How much do Real Estate Agents spend on Marketing?

 

In this highly lucrative market, every realtor tries to gain the upper hand and grow their business. Focusing on creative marketing, as the experts like to call it, will make your business stand out in this highly competitive industry. This chapter will guide you through the basics of creative marketing ideas for real estate agents.

How to Find Clients as a Real Estate Agent?

Getting clients is the lifeblood of every business, and real estate is no exception. Generating enough leads for your business will guarantee success, increase your reputation and help grow your business in the future.

So what do you have to do in order to get more clients? Let’s have a look at some tips:

• Build your online presence – virtually all clients use the internet to hunt for properties, so you have to be present on virtually every platform. Real estate branding is your first focus by establishing your website – make sure it is up to date, has your contact information and looks professional. Next, focus on your social media presence. Are you easy to find on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin? Make sure you update these profiles frequently and interact with your potential clients. If you maintain an active and professional online presence, your customers will find you.
• Use webinars – webinars act like an open house for your business. It’s like having a live appointment with your clients and prospects, where you can answer questions in real time. If you are using a specialized webinar app, you can run multiple webinars at the same time, so your reach will be larger.
• Create attractive photos and videos – this industry is a visual business – your clients want to see what a property looks like before visiting it. Working with a photographer or a videographer is an excellent idea.
• Get involved in the local community – this is a great idea if you work locally. Join community groups, charitable causes, conferences, events, and local meetings. Interact with people, join debates and get yourself known. In time, people will notice you and, hopefully, become your clients.

Useful Marketing Websites for Real Estate Agents

Zillow Premier Agent 

https://premieragent.zillow.com/products/advertising/

Zillow Premier Agent is the top lead generator website for agents in the country. With more than 160 million visitors every month, Zillow is the place to be if you are a realtor.

Joining Zillow Premier Agent is simple and will let you submit exclusive listings. This increases the chance of getting the full commission of a sale, regardless of your location or experience.

While Zillow is free for homebuyers, sellers and offers free basic services for realtors, Zillow Premier Agent is priced at $20 to $60 per lead, depending on the average home price in your ZIP code, the competition, and other factors.

Placester

https://placester.com/

Placester is an IDX website builder and integrator tailored for agents. If you find WordPress to difficult or complex for your needs, Placester is designed to help you create and manage your website.

It provides a sleek website solution, complete with IDX integration, a built-in CRM, drip email functions, advanced property search, excellent customer support and agent management tools. The service is priced at $99 per month.

Freshchat

https://support.freshchat.com/support/home

Freshchat uses modern artificial intelligence to gain leads for your business via live chat. It combines human interaction with AI to collect information from your website’s visitors.

It determines which leads are more likely to buy based on several factors. Freshchat starts at $15 per month.

Best Real Estate Agent Ads

You probably noticed that ads in this industry often sound cheesy or awkward – it’s no wonder they are rarely effective! To stand out, your ads must use a beautiful image, a catchy tagline, a short intro and a brief call to action. As in all marketing, brevity is king.

It shows you are professional and it’s attractive for the viewer. Here are a few real estate agent ads examples:

Coldwell Banker Schmidt

In these examples, the realtor, Coldwell Banker Schmidt, went directly to the core of what people want when they are looking for a new home. They want a place to grow and prosper.

The ads are perfect for the Midwestern market and they are easy for anyone to identify with. They show what real estate agent services should be about.

Compass

Named “Guiding you home”, the ad from Compass acts as a disruptive force in the sea of boring ads. Its sleek design, minimalist details and layout, gorgeous photography and brief copy sets it apart and attracts the viewer.

How much do Real Estate Agents spend on Marketing?

Real estate is more than simply advertising your clients’ properties and hoping to get a call from a prospective client. In order to grow your business and expand your reach, you will have to work out a complete marketing plan.

You should be focusing on building awareness, creating and maintaining an online presence, establishing your reputation and generating leads.

Once you establish your goals, you should look at your marketing budget. Let’s take a look at what you can expect for each type of budget:

• up to $2,000 per year – this won’t get you much, but you’ll at least be able to afford a photographer, a copywriter and a small website
• up to $5,000 per year – this will get you all the above, plus several videos, a few hours of a digital marketer’s time for your strategy and a social media course to get the basics
• up to $10,000 per year – all the above, plus a professionally built website, complete with support, a paid advertising campaign, a real estate agent marketing plan template to work with, social media ads and campaigns
• up to $20,000 per year – all the above, plus a videographer to work with, copywriters, sponsored content on social media, email marketing, and digital marketing consulting
• up to $80,000 per year – with this budget, you can outsource all your marketing to a professional digital marketing agency. Usually, these companies are focused on providing effective marketing strategies for real estate agents and will create a complete bespoke marketing plan. Plus, they will keep you updated according to a specific schedule agreed by both parties.
  
  

MARKETING STRATEGIES TO APPLY IN REAL ESTATE.

This industry is fiercely competitive. With more than 1.3 million realtors in the country (according to recent data published by the National Association of Realtors – NAR), the competition is heating up even more and getting leads is getting more difficult than ever.

Marketing Strategies for Real Estate Agents Quicklinks:

• What are the Best Real Estate Agents Marketing Tools
• Unique Real Estate Marketing Ideas
• Effective Real Estate Agent Advertising
• How to do Marketing for New Real Estate Agents

 

To set yourself apart from the pack you’ll have to be an expert in both online and offline marketing strategies for real estate agents. While agents are still key in this industry, more and more buyers are increasingly looking online before talking to the experts.

A study by the NAR showed that 92 percent of buyers do their house hunting online before contacting an agent. So, if you are not online, active and engaging, you are missing out on a lot of new business.

What are the Best Marketing Tools for Real Estate Agents?

Real estate marketing tools provide agents everything to help them generate more leads, get more exposure and manage their clients.

Here are some of the best tools every realtor should use:

Zillow Premier Agent – Zillow has more than 160 million monthly visitors – this makes Zillow Premier Agent one of the most powerful lead generation tools in the industry. The tool allows you to submit new listings on the platform, add your contact information and other recommendations. With Zillow Premier Agent, your name will appear exclusively on your listing, so you’ll have a better chance of getting the full commission. For an additional fee, you can advertise on the listings of other agents.

BoxBrownie.com – Great photos or videos are everything in this industry. BoxBrownie.com works with some of the best real estate agent marketing companies in the industry and offers multiple tools to help realtors. The app has powerful image editing and enhancement features, and with more than 40 designers on staff, has very quick turnaround times.

CityBlast – Social media is an amazingly powerful tool for connecting to your potential clients and finding new prospects. CityBlasts connects to your major social media profiles and helps you find content, create content and interact with your fans.

Real Geeks – A good CRM tool is ideal to track, organize and manage existing or new leads. With Real Geeks, you can optimize every call or email, engage with your clients, track their journey through your sales process and get notifications according to a preset schedule.

Unique Real Estate Marketing Ideas

The more competitive your local market, the more creative you’ll have to be with your marketing strategies for real estate agents.

Here are some ideas to help you out:

• Create a video tour (or series) of your neighborhood – Explore everyday life in your neighborhood for your potential clients. Architecture, culture, cuisine, events or unique attractions – you can include anything you find interesting in the area. Add comments from local residents, their opinions, small bits of information and sprinkle it all with a little humor.
• Use drone photos or videos – Don’t be afraid to use new technology for your listings, especially if the property allows it. Drone photos or videos can better highlight the depth of the space, the outdoor area, and the landscape, so your clients will get more from your presentation.
• Be personable – If you have the personality, show it! Be fun, approachable and friendly – your customers will notice you and will see you as more than a business partner. Try to create an introductory video, a house tour or a video testimonial where customers can “meet you” for the first time.

 

You can find more in-depth creative marketing ideas for real estate agents here.

Effective Real Estate Agent Advertising

Getting your listing in front of the right people can be tough. There are heaps of listings out there and your offer has to stand out, regardless of the price, features or location.

Here’s a short list of ideas to help you advertise your listing:

• Social media live tour – Facebook live videos are amazingly popular nowadays. Why? Because they work, people love them and want more of them. They are a great sales tool because they create a sense of urgency. Start by taking a short tour of the neighborhood and then focus on the house.
  
• Messenger advertising – this strategy works great if you know how to target your ads in front of a large audience.
• Open house events – Event response ads, such as open house events, are fabulous ways to attract a new potential client to your listings. Make sure you schedule them at least 2 weeks ahead, so customers have enough time to answer to your request.
• Use influencers – Influencers are seen as opinion leaders. These people have a huge, loyal following and are seen as a trustworthy resource. If they share your ads or contact information, you’ll get a massive boost in your visibility.
• Host a contest – Set up a contest that gives your followers something of value for their homes, gift cards, memberships or guides.
  
  

“How to” Marketing for New Real Estate Agents

Having a killer online presence is the #1 thing you’ll have to do as a new real estate agent. Here are the basics:

• Your website – This is a way to start real estate branding awareness online. This is the first thing you need to get right. A website is your main online real estate property in your portfolio, and it has to showcase your business professionally. Use WordPress, find a good theme and include a short bio, about us page, contact information and focus on creating content.
• Social media – Learn about the most popular social media platforms and make sure you are there: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter. Facebook is ideal for friends, acquaintances and interacting with clients, Linkedin is business-oriented and Twitter is ideal for microblogging.
• Get on most important real estate platforms – Zillow, Trulia, Homesnap, Redfin and many others should be your first options.

• Create an advertising budget – As soon as you get everything set, you can think about your advertising budget. To help you with this, you can contact any of the real estate agent marketing companies in your area, which can help you with the best marketing packages for real estate agents.

 

Consumers today know what they want, know how to look for information and want to feel a genuine human connection when deciding on their next purchase. In short, the new consumer is market-savvy. The customer wants to buy from businesses or people they know, understand, like and trust. They want the full P2P (person to person) experience.

REAL ESTATE BRANDING IN DEPTH

Real Estate Branding Quicklinks:

• How to build a real estate brand
• What are real estate branding ideas that work
• How to choose real estate brand names
• Best real estate branding examples

 

Buyers value brands and here is where real estate branding comes into the picture. They value quality, integrity, knowledge and strong, efficient communication. In this industry, this means that you, as a realtor, must demonstrate integrity and knowledge, put effective communication practices in place, provide consistent quality services and have a unified, coherent public image.

How to build a real estate brand?

Building a powerful brand is about being forward-thinking. Real estate branding is long-term, it evolves continuously and it adapts to industry trends, but its main focus is consistency.

However, as the number and variety of mediums to manage have grown, planning your branding strategy has become increasingly difficult.

Start building your brand by putting some of these ideas into practice:

• Create a complete online presence – this includes creating your own website, your social media profiles on the major platforms (including a profile on a video platform), your personal account on real estate platforms. Work on creating content for these online platforms, as this is the main way you will interact with prospects and clients.
  
• Create a real estate branding design – think about the colors, the logo, your email signature, the layout for your photos, your outdoor signs and anything that may make you stand out.
• Create marketing materials – focus on both online and offline marketing materials, how your adds will look, how your copy will read and so on.
• Be consistent – branding is an on-going process. It never stops and you have to be focused on being consistent every day. Your website and social media profiles must always be updated, pay attention to how your listings look, how you interact with people and how you answer to their queries.

What are some real estate branding ideas that work?

Commercial real estate branding is all about bringing value, being informative and provide inspiration to your future prospects and existing clients.

 

Publishing photos and videos are very important, but may not be enough if you want to really boost your brand and dominate your industry. Here are some ideas that will help you reach your branding goals:

• Tell a story – photos are amazing ways to showcase a property, but what if you can actually help your clients see themselves living there? What if you tell a story about the neighborhood, the unique amenities and features of the community? Or if you talk about the lifestyle or business opportunities this area can provide? Try to paint the complete picture: ask the residents, conduct interviews, produce a feature on restaurants, stores or schools. Help your prospects truly understand the community and see what makes them tick.
  
• Be knowledgeable – this will give you a head-start when talking with a potential client. It helps build trust and makes you look professional. If you have the answers to all the possible questions, you can better understand what your clients are looking for. Plus, you will be able to steer away from the “too salesy” approach that so many realtors focus on. You will be seen as someone who provides real value and answers, as opposed to someone who only wants to make the sale and get the commission.
• Build the dream team – your agents should be part of your branding efforts and you should have them contribute to your brand. Engage with them and try to come up with new ideas, have brainstorming sessions and include them in the content creation process. Create presentation videos with your team, discussions, Q&As or live videos.
• Invest in video – video is huge in marketing and branding, and you should use it for its amazing benefits. Use video to make yourself look more professional, but also agreeable and friendly. Live videos, series and behind the scene videos are great ways to create a more personable, but professional brand.

 

To add the ideas above, you may want to check our other post about creative marketing ideas for real estate agents to come up with a wide-range plan for your brand.

How to choose real estate brand names?

Choosing the right name for your business is one of the most important elements in your real estate branding strategy. It’s the forefront of your business, the first thing your prospects come into contact with. It should represent you as a brand, be professional and easily marketable.

 

Here’s a quick guide on how to choose the best name for your business:

• your name or not your name? – for most realtors, using a variation of their name for their business works fine. For example, “John Adams Realtors” or “Brian Johnson Team” is excellent if you work with a small team and your business is working locally. There are some drawbacks, however. If you choose this type of name, you are the business, so if you decide on selling it, or hiring someone else to run it, you may encounter challenges. An alternative is naming your business neutrally, such as “Success Team” or “The Inspired Realtors”, which can overcome these potential issues.
• Avoid string of numbers and letters – don’t choose names like “123Realtors” or “999ABCRealtors”. It will just show you are unprofessional and superficial.
• Local names – only use local names if you want to work in a specific geographical area. If you want to expand in the future, this might be a challenge, so pay attention to this detail.
• Keywords – including related keywords is a good idea, but it may look unprofessional if you go overboard. Try to use only one keyword (e.g. The Boutique, The Experts and so on)

 

After choosing your brand name, you need to come up with marketing strategies for your business.

Best Real Estate Branding Examples

Raj Qsar – The Boutique Group

Raj Qsar is one of the leaders of video marketing in the industry. Often dubbed as the King of Real Estate Video, their videos have become a trademark of their agency and are consistently ranked high in Southern California.

Hawaii Life

Matt Beall’s agency is a branding success mainly thanks to the aptly named video series “Hawaii Life”, where he frequently presents the lifestyle, attractions and features of the area.

The Jills

Miami-based Jill Hertzberg and Jill Eber have capitalized immensely on their similar first names and built an excellent brand for their company. Working in one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, the dynamic duo is instantly recognizable as a professional, yet friendly team of agents.  

HOW DOES REAL ESTATE SEM WORK?

Is Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Important for My Real Estate Agency?

Starting with the basic concept of Search Engine Marketing or SEM or Google AdWords, it simply means paid advertising/marketing of your real estate agency via paid advertisements to be placed online on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing or social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare.

If you plan on using Google Adwords or other SEM channels for your real estate agency it is important to know three things:

1. Real Estate is Super Competitive for SEM
2. Real Estate SEM is Expensive (Have a Stomach…)
3. You Need an Integrated Real Estate Digital Marketing Strategy

By using SEM (Paid Media) on various search engines and social media advertising you will cast more “lines” out to a wider internet audience that not only is interested in your real estate agency services and listings but also looking to buy real estate now or in the near future.

This mode of digital marketing will help increase your real estate website’s ranking by showing up on the paid results, usually near the top or side for keywords that your customers may type in the search engine.

Difference Between SEO and SEM

Sometimes SEO gets confused with SEM but to learn more about what the difference is, here is a great SEO vs SEM Guide from Hubspot.

Real estate digital marketing is relatively a broad term, as it covers multiple areas and techniques of real estate digital marketing and many online tactics. It includes but is by no means limited to banner ads, article marketing, social bookmarking, press release syndication, link building, email marketing, pay per click (PPC) advertising paid internet advertising, paid listings, real estate augmented reality, weekly blog postings and many other ways to generate traffic.

Always remember that organic SEO is one of the best ways to generate free earned web traffic to your real estate website that also converts at a higher rate. It is also one of the most expensive, competitive, and overall gut wrenching niches in the digital marketing world.

You are at the mercy of the Google Gods but the reward definitely outweighs the risks.

For launching and successfully running a SEM / AdWords campaign for your real estate agency, you need to understand that it is a paid media cost that goes to Google / Search Engines with up to a 15% agency fee to SMDigital Partners for SEM management services rendered.

It is important to work with a reputable digital marketing agency which uses techniques that can generate the best results, in order to get the maximum ROI but also continues to look for new ways to generate more revenues for their clients through performance marketing or per lead basis.

That’s why here at SMDigital Partners, we don’t mind putting a little skin in the game through performance marketing by setting up complete digital marketing sales funnel. When we start generating sales for your real estate agency, we all share in the success.

For more info please call 954-606-5980. *Minimum engagement of $10k & above per month*

Digital Agency for Realtors and Real Estate Agencies

Importance of Digital Marketing

For learning the importance of real estate digital marketing, it is imperative to understand the difference between real estate SEO and real estate SEM, as most realtors believe, the later is less important than the former.

Basically, SEM is a tool of real estate digital marketing which aims at “promotion” of your agencies listings and web pages. It helps to aid in getting better ranking and more attention through paid advertising. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is an important area which lays the foundation for a complete and cohesive real estate digital marketing strategy.

SEM allows you to reap benefits at a faster pace and different methods can be chosen for keeping the campaign at an affordable level and create an overall customized strategy for your real estate agency. This technique also allows the website to quickly gain ranking on the search engines, though for a short period, but the results are guaranteed if the SEM campaign is carried out right.

Digital Advertising Channels For Your Real Estate Agency

Paid Media or Google AdWords

SEM comprising of sponsored or paid ad listings provides fast visibility on popular search engines. You can set up an ad in less than 20 minutes and be up and running. It’s one thing to set it up and one thing to set up a campaign that delivers the sales results your real estate agency needs to stay competitive in 2020!

This method is sometimes called Pay Per Click or PPC advertising. The paid listings are usually those links that appear at the top or bottom of the search engine results’ page. These links are the paid listings for which the search engines charges a small fee every time they are clicked by a visitor, also known as “Cost Per Click” (CPC). Normally there is a 15% SMDigital Partners fee for SEM management.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the best ways to create a marketing funnel online. Repetition and retention is very important when it comes to marketing real estate online. Email Marketing is the icing on the cake as it collects a PPC lead and sends an email newsletter at predetermined times featuring your real estate information.

It also attracts potential referrals by sending them valuable information regarding the services they might need for their real estate dealings in a concise and eye-catching manner. It allows the clients to get in touch with your real estate agency without having to research on the internet. Think of it as a monthly newsletter that arrives neatly into your email inbox.

Lead Tracking

Lead tracking allows your real estate agency to have a bigger and stronger sense of transparency for the leads that you are getting from your SEM campaign. It is important to note that this is usually a separate cost as SMDigital Partners has to build the infrastructure for Call Tracking and Lead Generation Tracking.

Our custom “AMS” system provides both long and short-term benefits to your real estate agency by giving you 24/7 access to your prospects information, whilst assisting you in optimizing and managing the sales process from start to end.

High-Quality Photography

If you are a real estate agent you know the frustrations of using “sub-par” photographs of your real estate listing. These days Google is factoring in the quality of your images as well as the number of pictures online as a ranking factor.

High-resolution photographs will help you sell more real estate because it helps to show your real estate listing in the best “light” possible. Another cool way to educate your potential home buyers is through the use of drone photography. Using a drone will help capture your home in a different way through aerial photography or video.

Local SEO

These days everyone has a mobile device. The majority of mobile searchers are looking for local services and are ready to purchase if given the opportunity too.

SMDigital Partners has a division that specializes in local marketing for businesses looking to get better visibility online at an affordable price called SEOLocal Results. If you don’t have the time or skills for performing SEO / SEM / Local SEO for your real estate agency, then it is better to hire the digital experts at SMDigital Partners, a leading real estate digital marketing agency.

Since one of our core business specialties is in the real estate market, SMDP has the expertise and comprehensive knowledge, that helps you to run your Search Engine Marketing campaign more efficiently that will generate better results for your real estate agency in 2020.

Real Estate Digital Agency

Since 2003, SMDigital has helped hundreds of different sizes businesses and corporations reach their sales revenue through the use of digital marketing. In 2010, SMDigital Partners launched a cutting edge real estate digital marketing division that works with real estate agencies, realtors, and developers in helping them reach their sales goals through digital marketing.

SMDP has quietly helped to sell over $200 million dollars in luxury real estate in the Florida market. If your real estate agency would like to take the next level and start seeing a return on your advertising dollars, please call Lenny @ 561.404.9787 for more information. We know real estate and we will help you sell more of it in 2020!

The real estate industry is fiercely competitive, both offline and online. The market is there, that’s a fact – there are millions of people trying to buy or sell a property at any given moment.

HOW DOES REAL ESTATE SEO WORK?

How does real estate SEO work quicklinks:

• How Useful is SEO for Real Estate Website?
• What are Real Estate SEO Services?
• Why you need a Real Estate SEO Expert for your Business?
• How to Find a Reliable Real Estate SEO Company or Agency?

 

There are also tens of thousands of small to large companies working in the sector, so the competition is huge. Considering that the majority of house hunters start their search for properties online, real estate SEO is one of the core components of real estate marketing today.

How Useful is SEO for Real Estate Website?

More quality leads, no more unqualified prospects, no more meetings, fewer cold calls, and more revenue – these are the benefits of real estate SEO. So, what does SEO mean in real estate? How can you implement it and when can you see the results?

The real estate industry is ideal for SEO: it’s local, it’s online friendly and the people are looking for a specific, high ticket product. Plus, SEO never rests – it works long term, it brings you new leads constantly, without any footwork, ads or billboards. This means continuous growth for your real estate business.

According to a new study** cited by the National Association of Realtors, 44 percent of all buyers start their search online. That’s a massive amount when compared to data from 1981 when everyone searched local newspaper ads.

The internet has changed the real estate market profoundly. Everyone is online, both buyers and sellers, and that means SEO is a critical component of your marketing strategy.

The real estate industry is extremely locally dependent. People always search for homes in a specific location, so local SEO is one of the main areas you will have to invest in.

For instance, keywords must be locally identifiable, your content must be locally relevant and your backlinks should preferably come from local sources.

What are Real Estate SEO Services?

Creating an effective real estate SEO strategy requires several important components. Your real estate SEO consultant will guide you through the entire process, but here are some of the things you should know:

• choosing the keywords – use Google’s Keyword Planner to identify the best keywords for your area and type of property; the keywords’ popularity varies greatly depending on your location
• adapt your website for listings – use IDX integration to display various properties. These pages should be designed as mini-websites for each neighborhood or community. Include in-depth information about the area, such as schools, parks, popular attractions, and other features. Include your main and secondary keywords in the content – this is very important for search engine crawlers
• create new content – SEO is an ongoing effort, so you should constantly try to produce fresh content for your website and social media profiles
• distributing the content – focus on publishing the content on your website and social media profiles, as well as real estate directories
• tracking – data tracking will tell you crucial information about your real estate SEO stats, so you can adapt your strategy in real time
  
  

Why you need a Real Estate SEO Expert for your Business?

While basic SEO can be done in-house with satisfactory results, you should contact a real estate SEO expert if you want a full strategy for your business. An expert can:

• help you define the keywords – real estate websites are locally specific and an expert will advise on what keywords work better, have lower competition and are more suitable for the area. Also, you will get help on interactive mapping, geotargeting and other SEO specific elements.
• help you create content that converts – articles, blogs, photos, and videos – these are the types of content that people look for in this industry, and your real estate SEO consultant can help you create them. Also, creating content is not enough, an expert will also guide you on how to do content marketing.
• help you with an SEO audit – this will tell you how your website stands in terms of SEO. You will receive a report on your page structure, links, content, usability, and technical details.
• help you with on-site optimization – after you receive the report, the expert will create a plan to optimize your website. You’ll receive guidance on content optimization, structure and design optimization, redirects, site speed, SSL certificates, W3C validation, CTR and bounce rates, among many others.
• help you create a social media presence – social media is an amazing magnet for new traffic. Your main way to connect with your audience. Experts can help you create profiles, activate and populate them with content. They interact with your followers on multiple social media platforms. This will turn you into an important social media real estate personality.
  
  

How to Find a Reliable Real Estate SEO Company or Agency?

There are countless SEO agencies on the market. How do you know which one is the best for your real estate website? Let’s take a look:

• knowing your goals – before looking for an SEO agency, try to outline your goals and what you want. Do you want more sales, better brand awareness or more visibility? Do you want a complete overhaul of your website or just a small? One-time campaign for a specific event or launch?
• find reviews – try to find unbiased reviews for every SEO agency you find. Look for reviews on 3^rd party websites, review platforms or realtor communities. Also, look for testimonials or case studies on their websites. Good SEO companies always publish case studies so clients know what to expect.
• schedule a consultation – asking for a digital marketing consultation is the next step in your search. Try to schedule a phone call with multiple SEO agencies to discuss your project. Pay attention to their process, their attitude and their approach. Pick the one who seems more passionate about their work and wants to see good results.