When attempting to build a brand or image online, or to increase readership for your real estate businesses website, SEO marketing is an absolute must. It has been lauded by many in the industry as one of the most effective options for digital marketing.

Real estate businesses especially must bring in a wide range of clientele in order to make money. Utilizing SEO for a website or article can help companies appear trustworthy as well as more established in the industry. Both of these things assist the company in drawing in new and exciting clientele.

If you want Google to find your business and rank it in their search results, you should probably start with validating your business on Google. Google My Business.Click To Tweet

What is SEO?

 

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which refers to the process of utilizing complex variety of methods to naturally drive a website further up on the page when appearing in search engine results. This increases website visits and readership greatly, especially when SEO formatting brings a website from the fifth or sixth page on a search engine to the first page, which is really the only place where you will actually get seen.

With the increase in your website’s readership, it in turn increases the pool of individuals who can be converted from readers into buyers. Small businesses can especially benefit from these services, as they can help the business to grow faster than it would without utilizing SEO marketing.

How Does SEO Work?

 

There are several factors that come into play when attempting to utilize SEO for your business. In order to make a website rank higher in search engine results, SEO writers and experts need to consider:

  • Backlinks
  • Key words
  • Citations
  • Reviews

Among other things.

Honing in on these factors and working on maximizing a website’s marketability can push that website up the search engine page, making it more visible to possible readers. The increased visibility is one of the main reasons that experts recommend that business owners consider getting SEO services for small businesses.

Half the battle is standing out in a crowd, and SEO helps you to do that. You could truly be the best real estate business in your entire state, but if your website has not been optimized, very few people will find you.

Backlinks

 

A backlink is when another web page links to your page.

Backlinks are important because it communicates authority to search engines like Google. In other words, a search engine weighs how authoritative (legitimate) your site is in its subject matter to determine how high it should rank in results. One of the ways search engines determine authority is by checking to see how many other legitimate websites send their readers back to you for industry-related key words.

So, the more backlinks from quality websites to your site, the more authoritative your website appears and the higher it will rank.

Connecting with websites that offer similar or complementary content can be a great way to build relevant backlinks. Overall, the best way to get your page linked to and to increase your backlinks is to offer quality online content that other websites consider important or interesting enough to link to.

If you are interested in finding out how many backlinks your website currently has you can use the free SEMRush tools.

 

If you would like to know how many backlinks and what anchor text you need to take over the number 1 spot on google you can

Key Words and Hyperlinks

 

One of the core ways to optimize a page is by focusing on key words. 

If your website’s content does not contain the key words and phrases that your ideal audience is using to search for you, then search engines cannot recognize your website as being relevant. Thus, implementing the right keywords effectively (without stuffing them) is vital.

These keywords provide key information to Google about the contents of the page, and therefore make it easier for their algorithm to send it to the top of a search if it knows your page matches the search.

Hyperlinks are important as well, as they strengthen the content of the page because it provides more value to your readers. Hyperlinking to other helpful websites on the topic of the article or page indicates to Google the type of content, as well as shows that the page itself is rich with interactive, complex content.

 

Citations

 

A great way to get Google to trust your page is by utilizing citations.

A citation is anything that ties the page to contact information, like address, phone number, and business name. Increasing the number of places where this information is provided increases the trust Google can put in your business’s website.

The best websites to build your real estate citations are in this eBook.

 

Quality Customer Reviews

 

When appealing to a search engine for consideration to be put higher up in the search results, a great way to go about this is by increasing positive online presence.

When Google is able to detect a solid number of good reviews from trusted clientele, they are able to more effectively decide that your business should be moved up in the search results page.

There are a variety of websites and services on the market that can be utilized to expedite or improve upon the process of receiving reviews. Finding the right one is important, but there are myriad quality options available.

The top sources for real estate:

1.  Zillow Reviews
2.  Google Reviews
3.  Yelp Reviews

Google My Business

 

I am always surprised when I start consulting with a new agent about how to show up on Google and they don’t have a Google Business account.

If you want Google to find your business and rank it in their search results, you should probably start with validating your business on Google.  Google My Business.

It is free and fairly easy.  It gives you a pin on the search map, probably the best citation your website can get and a place to collect your Google reviews.

Summary

Getting your real estate website to stick out in a sea of real estate websites requires some work.  That work is generalized as SEO or search engine optimization.

This article just touches on the huge subject that is SEO.  But we have to start somewhere.