The real estate industry is a competitive one, with over two million active real estate agents in the U.S.

With so many realtors, it can be challenging to get your name out there and bring in new leads.

That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in handy. With effective realtor SEO strategies, you can localize your online marketing efforts and deliver a steady stream of new leads.

How do you optimize your web presence and get more leads?

That’s the subject of this post as we’re revealing seven real estate SEO strategies you can implement to rank high on Google and bring steady visitors to your website.

1. Begin with an SEO Audit

An effective SEO strategy begins with an SEO audit. You must assess the current state of your website and identify issues that may be preventing a high Google ranking.

Specifically, it’s necessary to audit your site for local search. You need to know if your site is ranking locally and getting organic traffic. If your site is falling short in this area, an SEO audit will help identify the reasons why.

SEO auditing is a complete topic on its own, but here’s a 30-minute SEO audit cheatsheet that can help. You can also hire a professional SEO company to do this job on your behalf.

2. List Your Business with Google

Getting your business in the Google three-pack will bring your website a continuous flow of local visitors.

The Google three-pack refers to Google My Business, Google Maps, and Google Plus. These services are primary sources for prospects to find you when they’re searching for local businesses.

Once your site is listed on these platforms, you’ll begin to appear in search results, which can include a map of your location and reviews. This automatically places your website above large sites like Trulia and Zillow, giving you a local advantage.

3. Optimize Site for Keywords

Keywords are how you get found on Google. In other words, when users type a keyword phrase in the search engines, your site will show – if it’s optimized for the target search terms.

Write down all the keywords you want to rank in Google for. Target keyword phrases focusing on real estate in your local area.

Once you have a list of keywords, optimize your current content and create new content around those keywords as well.

To optimize, you’ll need to make sure the keyword phrase is prevalent in these areas: URL, page title, body of content, image titles and image Alt tags.

As an example, if you have a website page focusing on the keyword phrase “San Antonio Real Estate,” this is how the SEO elements should appear.

• URL – www.yoursite.com/San-Antonio-Real-Estate
• Page Title – San Antonio Real Estate Listing by (Your Company Name)
• Body of Content – Include the keyword phrase approximately one to two percent throughout the article or page
• Image Titles – San_Antonio_Real_Estate.png
• Image Alt Tags – The Alternative tags are what displays when you place your mouse over a picture. Include your keyword phrase in your alt tags.

4. Start a Blog and Create Blog Posts

Start a blog if your site doesn’t already have one. A blog establishes an area on your site specifically for producing content designed to rank higher on Google.

You’ve already created a list of keywords for your website. Now pick three to five major keyword phrases you want to rank for. These should be keywords your ideal prospect would type into Google, such as “Real estate in (your city)” and “best realtor in (your city).”

Create specific articles for each of your main keywords. Once that is done, produce more content based on closely related keywords.

The more content you generate, the more signals you’re sending to Google about the subject your site should be ranked for.

5. Focus on Local Content

Did you know that Google has a separate search engine just for local results? When a user types in a search term that includes the name of a location, such as a city, state, or address, Google activates their local search engine to return the appropriate results.

This presents a huge opportunity for you to acquire loads of online traffic and leads to your website. Instead of competing with the world at large for a keyword phrase, you’re only competing with businesses and individuals in your area. If you’re SEO savvy, you can establish a significant advantage over your competition.

To that end, create as much local city-specific content as you can about your local area. Try to become the ultimate resource for information related to your city with blog posts about landmarks, restaurants, entertainment, sports teams, and shopping.

Provide information and statistics about the best neighborhoods, schools, crime rates, and income statistics.

Interviewing local businesses is a great way to get noticed in the community. Most times, these business owners will share your content on their social media pages. This sends strong social signals to Google while providing new leads for your business.

6. Guest Post on Real Estate Authority Sites

Guest posting is all about contributing with content to well-respected authority sites in your niche.

For example, you can write content for sites like Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, and NerdWallet. By doing so, you expose your business to a larger audience. Your guest posts also bring readers who enjoy your content to your website.

Just as importantly, you can increase your site’s authority metrics with Google with the links back to your website found in your guest posts. These backlinks are a major ranking factor. Even just a few authority backlinks can catapult your business to the top of Google for local searches.

7. Create Videos

The web is shifting from being text-based to video-based. Have you noticed more videos showing up in the Google search results? Not only that, YouTube is now the second most popular search engine, with over 30 million visits each day.

Your local leads are on YouTube, which means you should be there too. Create a channel and upload videos regularly. Also, upload these videos to your website and share them on your social media channels.

Open houses, local listings, and virtual tours are great ideas for video content. You can also do Q & A videos and live streams as well as neighborhood tours.

When you upload your content, optimize it for local search as much as possible. Include local search terms in your headlines, descriptions, and hashtags.

Realtor SEO: The Bottom Line

By implementing a few of these realtor SEO strategies, you can give yourself a significant online advantage over your competitors.

Dominate Google’s search results by optimizing your content for local search and geotargeting keyword phrases specific to your city.

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