SEO For Real Estate Investors
SEO for real estate investors will allow you to position yourself in front of people looking to sell their homes quickly, for cash.
A well-planned search engine optimization campaign can help you become the “go-to” company in the areas where you are most interested in finding motivated sellers.
In turn, this will generate the type of motivated seller leads that enable you to grow your real estate investment business exponentially.
What is Real Estate Investor Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization, or SEO, refers to the process of improving a website’s level of authority to improve its ranking in local or organic searches.
As a real estate investor, it is important that your brand can be found online when people search for specific keywords.
An effective SEO strategy uses various methods to improve the level of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a website. Together, these three measuring standards will determine how well a certain webpage is ranked.
If a page is seen as very authoritative, then it is more likely to show up earlier in the Google search results.
At Stellar SEO, we understand the importance of SEO for real estate investors. We know how to connect you with motivated sellers in your local market who are looking to sell a house fast.
A user-friendly real estate investor website can help you surpass your competition online when combined with search engine optimization.
How Does SEO Help Real Estate Investors Rank Higher In Search Engines?
Real estate investors need SEO because it will dictate how easily your website can be found for your target keyword (s). Ranking high for specific keywords will drive traffic to your site, generating more leads.
Research shows that the percentage of clicks on a website drops dramatically after the first page of results, with the top three getting the bulk of the traffic most of the time.
That means that the further down the page your website falls, the less likely it is to see a lot of traffic. This means fewer potential customers are finding your website via organic searches.
SEO for real estate investors can be a game-changer. Not only will it increase your chance of being found by potential clients, it will also make sure your website is set up to convert them once they do find and visit your site.
If you are serious about growing your online presence, then implementing an SEO plan should be a priority.
What Should an Effective Real Estate Investor SEO Campaign Include?
Your real estate investment business needs an effective strategy that will improve your online presence for SEO keywords that are relevant to what you do.
SEO is an ongoing process and it is impossible to guarantee results, but with the right plan, it is highly effective and produces a solid ROI.
A poorly planned campaign will just end up being a waste of money for a business owner, so working with a company like Stellar SEO ensures that you are using your budget and resources in the most effective and efficient manner possible.
Here are some typical steps you will from those offering seo for real estate investors.
Intake Meeting and Onboarding
It all starts with getting to know your business first. Getting to know your target audience and niche is also critical to forming the right strategy.
Where do you want to target potential sellers geographically? What kind of communication will be required in the implementation of a real estate investor SEO plan? These questions and more will get everyone started in the right direction.
Technical Audit
This is a key step in the process as it will reveal how optimized your real estate website currently is. Here are a few of the checks you might expect:
- Is the structure easy for search engine bots to crawl and index?
- Are there meta descriptions for each page that will assist Google, Bing, and other search engines as they determine a site’s trustworthiness?
- Can a mobile device have the same quality of experience on your site as a desktop computer? Does any part of your website have low page speed that could hurt the chances of higher rankings, and what is the overall site speed?
A website audit will help determine what changes need to be made.
Content Audit
A check of your real estate website’s current content will also help guide the SEO strategy moving forward, ultimately connecting you with more motivated sellers.
- Is there quality content that answers the questions your target audience is asking?
- Is there a blog or landing page optimized for your best keywords?
- Does it appear keyword research has been done when planning pages?
- Do you have content that could rank highly for long-tail keywords that your business can specifically answer?
- Will the content convert traffic into leads?
Having a content plan will significantly boost your real estate SEO efforts and increase your chance of being found online.
GMB Audit (Now Called GBP)
When it comes to local SEO and increasing your online presence within a geographic location, Google My Business becomes extremely important. This feature of Google allows businesses to show up in searches performed in specific locations.
For a real estate investor, that means showing up as a top priority result in the community that you serve. Real estate investing is an industry that is highly dependent on geographic location, so make the most of your GMB.
SEO Competitor Analysis
Every marketing campaign has to take competition into account. After all, to achieve page-one rankings, your brand will have to beat out other real estate investors.
Keyword research can help determine what your competitors are ranking for and then create content to address those weak points.
Or, conversely, it can reveal where your competitors are missing out on potential leads and allow you to take advantage of the gap.
SEO Backlink Analysis
Backlinks are extremely important for a website’s SEO. The level of domain authority that your website has is significantly affected by the backlink profile, meaning other websites that link back to your own.
Low-quality backlinks, or not enough, will show search engines that your web pages are not very authoritative, leading to lower rankings. This makes real estate link building a vital part of your overall strategy.
Real Estate SEO Strategy Creation
Once we have performed these audits and have a good sense of your current status, we will start to build a strategy for improvement.
The goal, of course, is to implement all these methods to grow your online presence through higher search rankings.
Your real estate investor marketing plan will be tailored to your situation, goals, and needs.
On-Page Optimization
Now that we know where the weaknesses are in your website, we can get started with on-page SEO.
- Does your website’s content need an overhaul?
- Are the internal links between pages working as they should? Is there a clear internal linking framework in place?
- Is your title tag optimized for a specific keyword? Is more keyword research needed? Did the previous optimization efforts find keywords with a reasonable search volume?
- Is there a meta description that allows your page to be properly summarized in search results?
- Are your images optimized?
There are many things to consider when doing on-page SEO for real estate investors, the above points are just scratching the surface.
Using a detailed, research-based approach, we will help ensure that your web pages are optimized to perform well and be technically proficient.
GMB Optimization
Showing up in local searches is huge for real estate investors. Search queries will often display geographically relevant web pages, and having an optimized GMB profile can elevate your website in this type of result.
When it comes to optimizing your GMB listing, a complete profile, accurate address, correct category selection, and reviews are just a few of the main factors. Beyond that, you can dive into more advanced optimizations as well.
Content Strategy and Creation
Content is king in the SEO world. Whether you are hoping to rank for certain real estate investor keywords by creating new blog content or hope to address questions with your homepage, strong content is a necessity for your real estate business.
Building out a content plan can lead to more organic traffic.
Keyword research will help guide this content plan to ensure that you are ranking for the right terms, whether that means short-tail or long-tail SEO keywords.
Real estate investors can greatly benefit from consistently fresh content as it is an industry that is constantly shifting with fluctuating markets and changing trends.
Link and Citation Building
Link building will directly affect the authority of your real estate investment website, and a strong backlink profile that combines quantity with quality will be the priority.
We can help you earn links from other authoritative websites to demonstrate your expertise and trustworthiness to both search engines and internet browsers.
Additionally, citation building is important because it is a direct reference to your business on another webpage.
A citation will include the name of your business, a phone number, and an address so that people can contact you directly. Local citations are especially beneficial for map pack rankings.
Tracking and Reporting
SEO for real estate investors is should include a way to measure the effectiveness of the process. We will lay out KPIs that are relevant to demonstrate what changes are working and which areas need improvement. This enables you to spend your resources on the most fruitful avenues for your business.
- Are Google searches resulting in more clicks to your page?
- Do some pages have a much higher conversion rate than others? Is this because of volume, content, or the target keyword sending traffic?
- Which paid ads have been effective at generating motivated seller leads? Can we leverage this on the SEO side as well?
SEO for real estate investors can encompass many strategies, so knowing ahead of time how to track and report the success of each method will help guide the campaign going forward.
What Are Some Common SEO Mistakes for Real Estate Investors To Avoid?
As stated before, there are effective methods for improving your search engine results page positioning and there are ineffective ones.
You need to make the best decision for your business to ensure a successful growth campaign that improves your online presence and generates motivated seller leads.
If you choose to move forward without the partnership of real estate SEO experts, then you will have to be wary of certain mistakes that will waste your time and money.
Here are some tips on what NOT to do.
Focusing on the Wrong Locations
Your target audience may be located in one specific geography, or they could be spread out among multiple areas. Understanding where the bulk of your clientele is physically located is important when deciding on your real estate SEO strategy, especially as it relates to local searches.
Spending your resources in the wrong places will dilute the effectiveness of the campaign, causing you to miss out on motivated seller leads.
Real estate is extremely location-dependent as an industry, so focusing your efforts on the ideal locations is key. As an investor, this is especially important if you only buy in select zip codes or cities.
Lack of Unique Landing Pages
Landing pages are important for your clickthrough rates from various marketing channels, be it organic searches, social media ads, or emails.
Real estate websites that have all of their traffic directed to the same few pages may see their search rankings suffer, as there is a smaller library of relevant content on their site for visitors to see – and a lower number of pages for Google to consider and possibly rank.
Search engines like to see that your website is full of relevant landing pages that answer specific user queries. If you are short on content now, add a landing page or blog post for each of your most important keyword clusters.
Lack of Local SEO Content
Producing regular content is important, especially for improving local SEO. A weekly blog post is a great way to produce more targeted content while keeping your website fresh in the eyes of Google.
When creating content for your local market, it is OK to cover geo-relevant topics that are not directly related to buying homes. You can also include topics that a motivated seller might search for when considering selling their home to an investor.
Ignoring Your GMB Listing
Your Google My Business profile is so important in terms of SEO for real estate. An optimized listing will increase the likelihood of getting local organic traffic from the right audience.
If you are not listed in GMB, you will miss out on the opportunity to show up on page one in the map pack results, which generates a lot of clicks and calls for local businesses.
Skipping Location-Based Landing Pages
If you have dedicated landing pages for different towns or geographical areas that you serve, it will demonstrate your involvement in the community and your commitment to serving local clients, which can lead to more conversions.
Avoiding Link Building
If you are hoping to rank highly for both short-tail and long-tail keywords, then link building needs to be a part of your real estate marketing plan.
High-quality links will increase the authority of your site, moving you up the search results for keywords that attract the right kind of website visitors.
These keyword phrases are critical to demonstrating your expertise as well since popping up for terms like “sell my house fast” or “cash offer” keywords will put you in front of motivated sellers.
Focusing Only on the Appearance of Your Real Estate Website
Real estate investor websites are numerous, and plenty of them look professional. While it is important to have a nice website, it is far more critical that you have a clear strategy in place for driving traffic to it.
SEO for real estate investors, along with many other inbound marketing channels can provide traffic that converts – SEO traffic just tends to convert about 5 times more often than traffic from other channels.
Looking for Help with Your Real Estate SEO Plan?
Stellar SEO has teams of search engine optimization experts that understand the best practices of SEO for real estate investors.
Our team will work to get your brand to develop a custom SEO strategy that will help you meet and exceed your goals.
If you do decide to go it alone, be sure to keep the tips we shared here today in mind to make the process as painless as possible.
