In the real estate industry, Google remains to be the go-to resource for homeowners before they even look for real estate agents to help them find their dream property.
According to a study conducted by an online digital marketing agency, the top three results for any organic search on the platform get 75% of all the total clicks for that particular topic. Surprisingly, sponsored ads found at the top of Google search results pages fare less than organic searches.
For real estate, ranking on Google can therefore mean a potentially consistent and steady stream of traffic that could result in getting more leads especially those in top-ranking websites.
When your real estate website ranks poorly, it is expected that your competitors that perform better get to benefit from it, which could mean poor lead and client-generation performance resulting in poor sales.
Google can be a complicated tool to master and manipulate, with most agencies spending countless hours and money to understand how it technically works and use it for their clients, several tips can be done to help you get started and benefit from Google’s capabilities- without having to spend a lot for SEO services and tactics.
Add service areas in Google My Business
Presumably most if not all real estate agents have their business profiles established in Google My Business (GMB). If not, then you should create one as it can help your business get recognised in Google for free.
Work your way through GMB by going into your profile and navigate to the “Info” page then add up to 20 service locations – the maximum allowed by Google- for your real estate business.
But while you are only allowed up to 20 locations, you can expand your existing locations to cover other surrounding areas.
The more you specify your service areas your GMB becomes more accurate and give you an extra edge in ranking for prospective clients located far from your main physical address.
Your business service zone is also reflected in local search results and Google Maps.
Encourage your audience to submit reviews
The main reason for this is that Google recognises your relevance, reliability, and presence when people provide their reviews of your business on the platform.
Reviews are also a part of the decision-making process since it gives people the confidence to subscribe to your products and services.
But take note though that as you get reviews, make sure that you respond to them. While you’re at it, you may also consider updating your pages with fresh content and solicited opinions to establish your business’ online prominence, credibility, and trustworthiness.
While it is not explicitly explained how reviews impact your Google rankings due to the secretive algorithms used by Google, it plays a vital role in developing your brand as one that responds and cares for people. Make sure to always make your name visible in all your responses as it promotes a human element for your brand.
Incorporate coverage areas and suburb profiles in your website
Since it is a given that Google recognises hyper-local and fresh content, it rewards businesses with better rankings especially those who are consistently publishing compelling and fresh content onto their websites.
By regularly updating your suburb profiles and adding service areas in GMB, this sends a signal to Google that you are an expert in your field and area.
With Google’s bots crawling through your website, it picks up the content and stores it in their servers, which can increasingly enhance your rankings in your specified service areas and let Google show your brand when someone searches for real estate keywords on the platform.
Take note, however, that a simple blurb will not cut it, instead make your suburb profiles more detailed and informative such as providing multiple references about the area, listings and property data, and your real estate business.
You can take your rankings up a notch by hiring web developers to help you with the more technical aspects of the Google search engine by optimising your web pages, incorporating meta titles, title tags, and SEO strategies.