If you’re running an estate agent business, you might think that you don’t need to worry about SEO. Isn’t that just for marketing people? Well, unfortunately, you’d be wrong about that. Every business needs to think about its SEO, because that’s how you’ll make yourself visible to search engines (and thus to potential customers). Estate agents are no different, so if you haven’t thought about your SEO methods recently, they might be in need of a revamp. Here are 12 methods for boosting SEO for estate agents.
1. Keyword research
Undertaking keyword research is one of the most vital elements of SEO for estate agents. By understanding what kind of keywords your clients will search for, you can know how to pitch your website’s content and structure in order to appeal to those clients. For example, if you know clients search for “how to sell a house”, then you can incorporate that keyword into the content you create, thus increasing your chances of being found on Google.
2. Good content creation
As an estate agent, you shouldn’t just be building a website; you should also be posting blog content in order to appeal to customers beyond your initial sales pitch. The more helpful and useful content you create, the more customers will think of you as an authoritative entity in your field, and the more likely you’ll be to attract more customers as a result. Content could revolve around a beginner’s guide to selling a house, for instance, or common problems that arise when doing so.
3. Images
You need to work on your images when you’re thinking about SEO for estate agents. All of the images on your site should be properly proportioned and formatted for Google, and they should all contain proper metadata as well. When you upload an image, it should be optimised for speed, too, which means it should be as small a file size as possible. Its title and alt text also need to be filled out and SEO-appropriate. If you struggle with this, don’t be afraid to check out guides online!
4. Broken links
Broken links are one of the most damaging things that can happen to your site. If you want to optimise your operation and focus on SEO for estate agents, then you can’t afford to have any broken links. Essentially, these are just dead pages on your site. If Google finds dead pages, it will crawl your site much more slowly, which can be lethal in terms of ranking highly. Be sure to comb your site for dead pages; there are tools online that can help you.
5. Responsive design
One of the most important elements regarding SEO for estate agents is ensuring that your site espouses responsive design principles. This means that the site will load for mobile customers as well as desktop users and will look great for everyone. Many website creation tools will have this aspect built in, so you shouldn’t need to worry too much about it, but do make sure that your site looks great on mobile as well as on laptops or desktop PCs.
6. A contact page
Obviously, as an estate agent, you’re going to have a “contact us” page on your website, where customers can find your information (if you don’t have one of these, then you definitely need to set one up ASAP). Your contact page can also be optimised for SEO, though; make it clear, easy to understand, and comprehensive, so Google knows that you’re a legitimate company and you’re not just trying to scam people. Provide an email address, a physical address, and social media details. Speaking of which…
If your content gets shared on social media, Google will have a better understanding that you’re a company in earnest. That’s why it’s important to maintain a social media presence on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and even TikTok if you think you can create content for it. Users can share your content that way, but they can also communicate with you in an easier and more direct way than using your website’s contact form.
8. Video content
Did you know that 78% of marketing pros say that video content helped with their sales strategy? That number should tell you something, namely that incorporating video content into your strategy is pretty much a must. Creating videos introducing people to your business, telling them what you do, and answering some of their basic questions could go a very long way indeed, and with the quality of modern smartphone cameras, it’s not even that hard!
9. Concise content
Your content should be concise, to-the-point, and informative. You shouldn’t be writing blog posts that are lengthy and difficult to follow, because customers won’t want to use your business if they think you’re either trying to lead them astray or just not skilled enough to communicate your point quickly. Make sure the content you’re writing is not only geared towards your audience, but also precisely as long or as short as it needs to be.
10. Page load
As any website owner will tell you, page load is a holy statistic when it comes to SEO. If your page takes a long time to load, Google will rank you lower, so you need to make sure that your page loads near-instantaneously when customers arrive on it. How can you do that? Well, optimising content in the ways we’ve already discussed – keeping images to a minimum, for example, and focusing on concise content rather than lengthy screeds – will definitely help.
11. Local SEO
As an estate agent, your business is likely to be focused on the local level. That means it’s important to get local SEO right. Your local SEO practices are somewhat different to organic SEO; you’ll need to make sure you’re hitting more local keywords (although knowing what people in your area are searching for is more important than, say, “[city name] estate agent”). Make sure you’re not neglecting Google’s Map Pack area as well as the search engines below it.
12. Reviews
Reviews are a huge part of estate agent SEO practices. Asking customers to review you (hopefully positively) is a good habit to get into; the more reviews you have, the more visible you will be to search engines, and the better you should perform on Google. Make sure that every time a customer concludes business with you, they’re asked to provide a review. Don’t be pushy, but do be firm; it’s okay to ask them to rate you, especially if they’ve had a good experience!
