SEO for Estate Agents
A google guide for SEO for estate agents, real estate and property businesses
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Trying to reach page one of Google? Tired of spending your entire marketing budget on paid google of facebook social ads? Are you sick of spending so much time trying to find clients with minimal success?
It might be time to optimise your content, website and listings. SEO (search engine optimisation) is not a process you can buy or cheat your way through, it takes a lot of craft and skill, which is why we’ve created this guide to explain what you need to prioritise and where.
SEO for estate agents is key to get your agency seen on the first page of Google. This is the new battleground for estate agents as every agent is now on the portals. Homeflow have some handy tips to help estate agents with their SEO to help their sites rank higher. Web traffic means more sale leads for your agency, so take a look at our SEO strategies below that will help you win more potential customers.
Now look at some of the details about SEO for estate agents and give you some tips to help your property website rank.
Search engine optimisation means you are taking into consideration engines such as Google (or other search engines) when building your brand. When someone searches for something online, the websites displayed aren’t there by random selection. Engine crawlers go through the internet in an attempt to match the user with the appropriate information.
That being said, it doesn’t mean bots are going to crawl through every single word on your site. Just as a reader would, it will scan the most accessible, popular and informative pages. This is why you need to optimise as much as possible.
So that when the crawlers get to your page, they can easily find everything they need to make an informed decision on whether your content is ‘worthy’ of displaying in search results.
SEO for estate agents should always be focused on keywords that are relevant for your agency. To be honest, you don’t have to spend too long on your keyword research, it’s obvious most SEO for estate agents is people searching for “Estate Agent in LOCATION” or similar local terms such as “Estate Agent near me” or “Local Estate Agent”.
There are many ways to optimise for SEO depending on what type of information you’re trying to rank for in search engines. If there is one thing to bear in mind, it’s the user journey.
A crawler needs to scan your information as quickly as possible and so does your audience. On average, a reader will give your page attention for less than 10 seconds before clicking away. So the first thing you need to do is make sure your website loads fast enough. A slow site reduces those 10 seconds significantly and will inevitably end in a bounce.
Other important factors to consider when optimising are headlines. Does your site have key indications of where viewers can find information? Are there clear signs for how your users can find homes relevant to them? Are the services you provide made clear?
We find many agencies are not optimising their homepage or branch pages. These are key for you to rank high for the important local search terms. Make sure your agency website title and H1 title has target keywords in it.
A couple of great tips for estate agencies looking to boost their SEO:
These 3 content tips are simple and effective, plus big factors to help boost your google rankings for local search.
If you’re now sitting there wondering where to start, you wouldn’t be the only estate agent to ever have done this. This is why you need to get to know your audience. Put yourself in the shoes of who you want to reach. Typically, those looking for a home in your area.
One term might be ‘Estate Agents in London’ or ‘Homes for rent in London’ ‘Flats to buy in London’. Do you see? Whatever people enter into the search engine is what you want to try and replicate in your website. You can use tools such as Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to discover what users are searching for.
By doing this, you are clearly demonstrating to crawlers that you can provide the answers their users need. Be careful though, spamming your site with too many keywords or key phrases will end up with a black mark against your site.
After you’ve figured out your keywords, make sure search engines have as much information about you as possible.
Exact location, opening hours, telephone number, a short description of who you are and what you do and any photos of your offices. This sort of information will help when users search for ‘Estate Agents near me’. It will also promote you as a rich website to promote at the top of search result pages.
Your site’s structure is also essential. Remember these crawlers are looking for key information and then trying to go deeper into your site. Try not to have too many inter-connecting pages.
A simple main page, several secondary pages and then a few tertiary pages will do. Try not to directly link secondary and tertiary pages. A messy web might seem useful, but for crawlers, it just shows that a user will struggle to navigate and get the information they need.
One thing we talk about at Homeflow is the use of clean urls. In simple terms, the url or web address needs to match the search term. Clean urls are essential for SEO for estate agents. An example for this could be a branch page such as www.estateagent.com/branch/london/wembley. This could be a local page for a Wembley branch.
If you believe your site is looking strong, it might be time to reinforce it with backlinks. While it can be very research-intensive, finding other well-performing websites to link to can really strengthen your presence to a crawler.
Search engine bots will note that others are willing to link to you, demonstrating that there is some worth to what you’re saying. If you have the time, reach out to other industry websites and ask to feature on their site as a link or you could even offer to write a guest article for them.
Always bear in mind that Google (and others) are search engines. Their entire purpose is to present users with the answers they need. If you can demonstrate to them that you have those answers – you’re onto a winner and things do not need to be too complex.
Homeflow are not an SEO consultant for estate agents. However, we give you the website platform which will aid your SEO performance. Our estate agent websites are quick to load, look offer amazing design and also perform well for google SEO.
Search engine results are core to any successful estate agent or real estate business, so speak to one of our team today about boosting your SEO for your estate agency or property business.