The internet is a ubiquitous tool that we all use every day, sometimes several times a day. We use it for entertainment, to get our news, to communicate with friends and family members, and to do all sorts of business. From buying things on Amazon to selling things on eBay and everything in between, the internet makes the world go ‘round – and that’s not changing anytime soon. Real estate professionals know this intimately. Without a good online presence, a real estate agent is going to have a hard time sourcing new leads and converting them into clients. With that said learning Real Estate SEO may not be a bad idea.
It's because of this need that agents spend so much time and energy on creating their own websites. But for that site to be effective, you need to ensure people can find it when they search the internet. Therefore, you need to learn SEO. But how long does it take to learn real estate SEO? What even is it and why is it important? Let’s answer all those questions right here and right now.
SEO is short for search engine optimization. SEO is a collection of best practices that web designers follow to ensure a website ranks high when someone uses Google or another search engine to find what they’re looking for. If your site doesn’t have good SEO, you’re going to get less traffic to your website.
SEO works by ensuring that your website contains content that search engines find attractive. There are dozens of different factors that go into this, but perhaps the most crucial aspect of good SEO is to ensure your site is using relevant keywords that are a close match to what users are typing into search engines.
If you want your real estate website to attract lots of visitors that you can use for lead generation, your site needs good real estate SEO. This causes your site to rank higher in search engine results, and that means creating content that will attract attention. With 44 percent of home buyers using Google to begin their home search, you can’t afford to miss out.
The goal of your SEO efforts for your real estate site is to get as close to the top of the search rankings as possible for your chosen keywords. This is a monumental task; only around 5.7 percent of all newly-published pages will get into Google’s top 10 search results within a year, let alone grab that coveted top spot – a spot that gets you more than 36 percent of total clicks, which is absolutely huge.
Meanwhile, the benefits of having high-ranking listings are incredible. Zillow ranks for something like 11 million keywords, which results in nearly 44 million organic visitors every month. That’s a lot of eyeballs on a lot of property listings. We’re not saying you’ll be able to achieve that level of success for your small-scale real estate site, but the potential is there, so let’s talk about what makes for great real estate SEO.
Experts from real estate SEO services agree that your site needs the best content you can provide to attract attention. One of the most effective types of content comes in the form of regular blogging. Sharing interesting tips about the real estate industry, exciting developments in the community you serve, and glimpses into the life of a real estate professional are all great ways to attract that attention.
One way that Google judges the value of your page is by determining how many backlinks you have, or links from other people’s content to your own. It’s clear that longer is better when it comes to your content, as an analysis of more than 900 million blog posts found that long-form content was 77.2 percent more likely to attract backlinks than shorter content.
Perhaps the most crucial step to take for building great real estate SEO is to not try to wing it. If you don’t have the requisite knowledge on things like content creation, keyword research, or site design, you can always give yourself a crash course on the subject if you have the time. But most real estate professionals are already busy enough as it is, which is why enlisting the aid of a real estate SEO company to fine-tune your site is often a much better idea.
Learning the basics of search engine optimization doesn’t take that long at all. It’s easy to grasp the concept of why having your website optimized for search engines is important since optimized sites rank higher in searches and attract more visitor traffic. It’s also not exactly difficult to understand what your site needs to have in order to build good real estate SEO.
The thing that takes time, however, is implementation. Theoretical knowledge is great, but when you have to apply that knowledge and use effective SEO techniques in practice is where the process can slow down. It can take weeks or even months of study and trial-and-error before you’ll get enough practical experience in real estate SEO – time that might have been better spent anywhere else. That’s it’s always a good idea to invest in the help of a trusted real estate SEO services provider, as “winging it” is tough.
Today, everything gets done over the internet, and that includes house hunting. Having your own real estate site is an absolute must if you want to attract new leads to your business. This means that you have to leverage the best real estate SEO you can to maximize your site traffic. Learning effective real estate SEO techniques can take quite a long time, so feel free to turn to the experts for help!