How to Do SEO for the Real Estate Industry?

30 October 2019

The real estate market is becoming one of the most competitive industries in the world. Developers rival with each other and the whole decision-making process is extremely long. Therefore, you need to consider how to encourage a potential client to contact. And guess what - effective SEO can be very helpful during this process.

Industry SEO

Kasia Śliwa

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Suburban, new investments more and more often compete with apartments from the secondary market. Developers are looking for new infrastructural and architectural solutions to meet the expectations of their clients. The real estate industry is a competitive sector with numerous legal regulations that involve a complex decision-making process of the prospective buyers. Although signing the contract is the most important point, the first contact and impression is also extremely crucial. A properly optimized website is a must if you want to be perceived as trustworthy and reliable, therefore you should consider investing in SEO.

The characteristics of the real estate industry

The real estate market belongs to the most rapidly developing ones. There are more and more new development investments. When it comes to types of real estate, according to Morizon.pl, the demand in 2018 was as follows:

apartments - 51.26%,
houses - 35.85%,
plots of land - 8.64%,
commercial buildings - 4.25%

Every year there are even more real estate investments. But what makes this sector so attractive for investors? The answer is simple - macroeconomic stability.

Conversion rate

Number of conversions (meaning the number of desirable activities performed by the visitors to the site) is divided by the number of visits to the website, and then multiplied by 100%.

Nowadays people are searching for houses online more than ever before. In 2016 as many as 86% of real estate buyers found websites to be the most useful and reliable source of information. Therefore, it’s extremely important to maintain steady traffic to your site, however, even that won’t be beneficial unless you take care of proper conversion rate. There are various objectives of conversion. Users shouldn’t only get acquainted with the content on your website, you should also encourage them to contact you. Consequently, for the real estate industry, conversion means contacting an agent, no matter whether by email, phone, questionnaire or by visiting the real estate agency office.

SEO for the real estate industry - how to improve traffic to the website of a real estate agency?

Local SEO

Suitable local keywords

Many real estate agents operate in several cities or regions, so once you've launched your website, focus on local SEO and the main city where you run your business. If you operate in several cities, create separate subpages for each place and optimize them for relevant keywords. Optimize your website for suitable local keywords such as: - [City] real estate - [City] real estate agent - Houses for sale [City] - Apartments for sale [City] Such phrases should appear on all of your subpages. Remember to incorporate local keywords in the titles of individual subpages so that the content is more useful for your potential clients. The more you orientate the website, the better. It’s important to try to intercept the local traffic - then you increase your chances of improving traffic to your site and offering more competitive conditions.

Optimize your local website for Google My Business

It’s important that local business are displayed maximally on the third position in Google Maps. When potential clients are looking for a local business, they put emphasis on the maps, including Google My Business websites. It’s natural that users will automatically focus on search results with snapshots, reviews, ratings and Google Maps tips.

Take care of the quality of your reviews

According to statistical data, about 90% of customers read reviews before contacting the company for the first time, and as much as 72% take action only when a business can can boast with positive reviews. Apart from helping you to gain the trust of your potential clients, positive feedback and reviews are also an important ranking factor.

The importance of reviews is increasing year by year. In 2015, they accounted only for 10.8% of the effectiveness of the SEO process, however, this is what the situation looks right now: [caption id="attachment_16669" align="aligncenter" width="750"]

Source: MOZ[/caption]

External linking

External links are responsible for redirecting visitors from other websites to your site. When it comes to the real estate industry, it’s important to have your links on highly ranked industry websites or industry related blogs. This way, you can build your brand image, show your expertise in the field and increase your domain authority. Where is it best to publish external links?

catalogues
industry related blogs
industry related websites
social media platforms

SEO

Unique product descriptions

A unique and valuable description is a must of every subpage. However, very often people duplicate content by pasting it from the websites of producers or their own subpages with different categories. Such a practice can be very harmful for the SEO process - apart from stealing someone else’s content, you risk that Google robots will quickly recognize your duplicate content and decrease your chances of being displayed high in the search results. This is why your descriptions should be detailed and one of a kind. They need to contain all the necessary information about the real estate and incorporate keywords in a natural way. The recommended description length on a subpage with your offerts is about 250-500 words.

Title and meta description

A title is simply the name of the website that is displayed in the search results. If you want to optimize it, remember that it should be about 50-60 characters long. It also needs to contain one, the most important keyword and a unique title. Place your company’s name at the end to improve your brand recognition.

Meta description is the description displayed right under the title. It has about 160 characters and contains the most important details about the investment. First and foremost, it should sound natural - it’s responsible for attracting users’ attention. Don’t forget to include a keyword in your meta description.

Headings

The hierarchy of headings is a must in the SEO process. You’ve six types of headings - from H1 to H6 - at your disposal. Remember to follow the basic principles of formatting your content, headings and paragraphs.

The H1 heading is the most important and it should be used only once on a particular subpage, as an article or page title. Next, there is the h2 heading appropriate for a category or subheading name.

Case study

IbudHaus system is one of our clients which operates in the real estate industry. This example perfectly proves how influential a proper SEO process can be and how it can increase your revenues. Our scope of activities focused primarily on the selection of appropriate keywords, external linking, optimization of subpages and exceptional content. Taking appropriate steps enabled us to improve organic traffic to the site:

Conclusion

When doing SEO for websites of companies operating in the real estate industry, you should put emphasis on aspects such as:

conversion rate,
local SEO - suitable local keywords, optimizing the Google My Business listing, the quality of the reviews;
external linking;
website optimization - unique product descriptions, title and meta description, headings.

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How to Do SEO for the Real Estate Industry?