When it comes to buying or renting a property, more and more people are turning to the internet. Property searches online have jumped three-fold in the last three years alone. More than half of buyers who were surveyed by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said that they found the house they wanted to buy online. The internet has become the first stop for buyers of all ages in the process of purchasing a home.
Therefore it comes as no surprise that real estate firms are putting more effort into their online presence. Websites, online advertisements, and social media account can all generate valuable leads for a business. In marketing, leads are potential buyers or customers of your brand. With more than half of the global population roaming the internet, the challenge today is how to attract the right people to come to your website and choose your business over all other options.
In traditional advertising, advertisers seek placements on busy street corners, highways, or places with high pedestrian traffic. The goal is to get as much exposure to as many people as possible. When advertising digitally, however, what matters is not how many people see your brand but how you can get your brand get noticed by a specific set of potential customers.
When it comes to getting noticed online, one of the best tools you can use is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO uses keywords to bring your site to the top of the list of results when someone searches for specific words. Without going into too much detail, Google and other search engines use keywords to look for sites that contain them. The more unique the keywords are, the more likely you are to appear on the search results.
Because there are millions of sites on the internet, you want to make sure that your business makes it to the first page of the search results. The higher up you are on the list of results, the more likely for people to visit your page. Increasing your page visits and views is the first step in generating quality leads.
If you or your digital marketing agency are running a website for your real estate firm, your marketing focus should be to make sure customers find you. If people can’t find you, they won’t be able to buy your products. Improving your ranking in search results involves continuous effort as there are Here are several search engine optimization tips you can try to boost your online visibility:
1. Identify unique keywords
If you Google the phrase “real estate,” you will get at least four billion search results. The order of the results that the search engine displays will vary based on your location and the algorithm that the engine uses. Using locations in your keywords can also improve the quality of your leads, especially when dealing with real estate because people who search for real estate are location-specific. Incorporating your city or state in the keywords aims to get you to the top of the results within your business area. “Real estate st Louis” is more specific and can increase your ranking on the results page. “Loft apartments st Louis,” or “first-time buyer st Louis,” narrows the search field down further, increasing your chances of getting noticed.
2. Optimize your website
Slow loading times can downgrade your ranking. Even if you get noticed on a list of results, a site that takes too long to load can also turn off visitors and make them abandon your page to move on to the next result. Upgrade to a dedicated hosting server or a cloud hosting platform and improve your page loading times to under ten seconds.
3. Fill your site with relevant content
When you have identified the keywords that are unique to your business, you can fill your site with helpful articles and interesting write-ups about your brand. You can give advice to millennial homebuyers, provide tips on how to apply for mortgages, or write a step-by-step guide on refinancing. The topic possibilities are endless, so long as they contain the right keywords that will get your site higher up the rankings so you can drive traffic to your site.
4. Tag your media
Aside from written content, you can also attach keywords to you your photos and video content. Make sure that the filenames of the media on your site contain keywords or have enough descriptions to make them unique. Search engines will pick up on these texts within your page and include them in the algorithm to compute your exposure.
4. Link other websites and pages
You can use outbound links to cite sources for data in your blog content. Linking sites with similar or related material can increase the quality of your content and the credibility of your site. You can also draw in your customer’s interest by linking to other thought pieces and related topics on your site. The longer your viewer spends on your page, the higher your chances of converting them into your customers.
6. Update your website regularly
You should audit your site frequently to fix broken links, to make sure your photos and videos are optimized and to check the readability and format of your content. You can also update your site by uploading new content regularly to your website to keep it exciting and relevant. Search engines’ algorithms will take into consideration the age of your content and display pages with newer material. If your website becomes stale or has no new activity, it can move further down the ranking and into obscurity.
The Bottom Line
These are just some of the ways you can boost your exposure through SEO. If you are not particularly tech-savvy, you can consult an experienced digital marketing agency that can help you format your site and ensure it has the right elements to make it search-engine friendly. They can also streamline your content and help you keep it relevant to your target audience. Whatever improvements you choose, your strategy inevitably needs to incorporate SEO tactics as it is undeniably the best way to get noticed online.
Do you need help with boosting your online visibility? We are a digital marketing agency based in St. Louis that specializes in SEO services and social media management. We can help you get the online exposure that your business needs. Call us today for more information.