In today’s digital market, 70% of your potential customers check a website before even getting in touch with you, or one of your competitors. And, as a result, it’s clear to see that if your site isn’t ranking in Google, you’re putting yourself at a significant disadvantage.
If you look back 10 years in real estate, the opposite was the case, as all the information potential leads needed was contained within your real estate office. If people wanted information on your services, they had no choice but to ask friends or family or call you and find out for themselves.
In 2018, however, Google means that very few people need to leave the comfort of their sofa to get the answers they need, and research has shown that 10 million Australians use the search engine every month to answer popular questions including:
- How to sell a property fast
- Legal steps to selling a house
- How much does selling a house cost?
- How can I advertise my property without an agent?
It’s these types of questions involving people simply looking for answers that make up around 80% of Google’s total searches. That means that less than 20% of searches your website could show up for will be from people ready to make a buying decision.
So, as a result, you’d think there would be thousands of agents publishing content to help potential leads find answers to these questions. Sadly, Google doesn’t see it that way. Depending on where you live within Australia, your search engine results pages are likely to be dominated by property portals, not agencies or real estate businesses.
However, the best people to be answering hands-on questions about the real estate industry are you. You eat, sleep and breathe real estate on a daily basis. You’ve got years of experience backing your answers. But Google doesn’t know this – unless you display your knowledge online.
How Can You Compete with Online Property Portals?
When it comes monthly advertising budget, the truth is you probably can’t, but we’re not talking about advertising. We’re talking about organic ranking on Google. And if you can handle it effectively, it can be incredibly cost-effective, as 95% of Australian consumers skip the ads at the top of search engine results pages anyway.
There are thousands of factors that Google takes into account when deciding whether or not to rank your website, but searcher proximity is the most important today. This means that if a searcher is 30km from a property portal site location but only 5km from you, you stand a good chance of ranking.
Both Facebook and Google have made it incredibly clear that their rankings are based around forging connections between searchers and local businesses, so this is your chance to stand out. Do your keyword research and start building a library of blog content around the popular questions your audience are looking for answers to. It’s a long-term strategy, but the effort you put in will be visible in your ROI.