How to Get More Leads: 7 Proven SEO Strategies for Real Estate

In real estate, agents need to utilize every strategy possible to generate more leads and grow their business. With more and more home buyers starting their search online, having a strong search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is crucial. 

According to the National Association of Realtors, the first step for 94% of buyers looking to purchase a home is to search online. If potential clients can't find your listings and website through Google and other search engines, you are missing out on leads.

SEO is not a "set it and forget it" tactic, but rather an ongoing process. 

Implementing effective SEO best practices takes knowledge and effort, but pays major dividends. In this article, we will explore 7 powerful SEO strategies for real estate agents to get more leads.

By focusing on these areas, you can dramatically boost your visibility and generate more contacts and commissions. 

1. Focus on Local SEO

For real estate agents, optimizing your website and content for local searches needs to be a top priority. According to a report from Google, more than one-third of searches on Google have local intent. 

When potential clients are looking to buy a home in a specific city or neighborhood, you want your website to show up on the first page for those critical local searches. 

Here are some tips for improving local SEO:

• Update and optimize your Google My Business listing with your address, photos, services, etc. This will help you show up prominently in local map packs.

• Build citations and create consistent NAP (name, address, phone) information across key sites like Yelp, Facebook, Yellow Pages, industry directories, and local business databases. 

• Create individual pages targeting each neighborhood or city you work in. Optimize each page with keywords like “Downtown Austin Homes for Sale”.

When potential buyers are searching for homes online, you want to show up front and center. Focus on these local SEO tips to get in front of more clients in your area.

2. Create Content for Buyer Keywords

As a real estate agent, you need to be tapping into the search terms and phrases that potential home buyers are using as they look for properties online. Optimizing your website content for these buyer keywords can help drive more relevant traffic to your site and listings.

Conduct thorough keyword research to identify high-volume, low-competition terms people are searching for. Some examples: “first time home buyer programs”, “[city] homes under 300k”, “new construction homes”

Look at search trends to see seasonality and volume over time. You want to focus on buyer keywords with steady, high-volume searches.

Once you’ve compiled your list of target keywords, create optimized content around them such as: Blog posts like “How to Qualify for First Time Home Buyer Programs in [City]”, In-depth neighborhood and city guides, etc.

Optimizing existing and new website content for these high-value buyer terms will help you rank for the searches that signal buyer intent. Plus, you can repurpose this content through your social media channels.

Track which terms drive clicks and conversions to fine-tune your content strategy.

3. Optimize Listings for Search

In addition to website content, optimizing your real estate listings pages themselves is crucial for getting found online. When potential buyers are searching for homes for sale, you want your listings to appear as high as possible in the search results. 

Follow these best practices for optimizing your listings pages:

1. Include the full address in the page title, as search engines give high weight to exact location matching. 

2. In the meta description, highlight details like square footage, beds/baths, neighborhood, and city to help search engines understand what the listing is about.

3. Use keywords in the page URL (slug), title tag, headings, and image file names. Terms like “waterfront” or “luxury” help Google categorize the listings.

Continuously update pages with new buyer-focused keywords, fresh content, and new backlinks to keep pages ranking high for relevant searches. With smart SEO, your listings will catch buyers’ eyes ahead of the competition.

4. Get More High Quality Backlinks

Securing backlinks from authoritative, locally relevant sites is key for ranking higher in local real estate searches. Focus on earning contextual backlinks through directories, niche sites, local publications, and community involvement.  

Here are a few tips to get started:

• List your real estate business on high-authority industry directories like Realtor.com and Zillow. Fully complete your profiles with contact info, photos, and services offered.  

• Guest post on local real estate blogs, providing useful home buying tips for your area. Aim for sites with strong domain authority and regional relevance. 

• Submit press releases to local newspapers/magazines about new noteworthy listings or awards. This can earn valuable local media backlinks.

• Publishing market reports, statistics, or infographics on sites like Medium and SlideShare can also garner high-value backlinks. Always include a link back to your website.

Avoid low-quality networks offering quick backlinks, as those can potentially harm your SEO. 

Quality over quantity.

5. Improve Site Speed and Mobile Optimization

With Google prioritizing fast, mobile-friendly sites, optimizing website speed and responsiveness is essential for real estate SEO. 

Ways to optimize your website speed and responsiveness:

• Reduce image file sizes and enable compression. Large, high-resolution photos can bog down load times.  Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files. Eliminating whitespace and comments speeds up page loads.

• Implement browser caching for static resources so assets can be reused without re-downloading. Optimize web servers and databases for faster processing and delivery. Consider using a content delivery network (CDN).

• Ensure your site uses responsive design across all devices. Text should be legible without zooming. Links and buttons should be tap-friendly.

• Provide a user-friendly mobile navigation menu. Many home searches start on smartphones.

With site speed a factor in search rankings, run regular page speed tests. Target sub-3 second load times. Continuously optimize and improve.

Fast site speed and seamless mobile experience boosts SEO rankings, engagement, and conversions. Users expect quick, effortless browsing. By making performance optimizations, you’ll delight mobile visitors.

6. Track Performance and Iterate

Implementing SEO best practices is important, but tracking performance and iterating based on data is what will take your real estate SEO to the next level. 

SEO is an ongoing cycle of optimization, measurement, and improvement.

Start by establishing clear goals and KPIs to benchmark your progress against. Relevant metrics to monitor include organic traffic growth, rankings for target keywords, click-through rates from search engines, and conversions from organic searches.

Use Google Analytics to track website traffic and Search Console to monitor indexation and performance in Google search. Review reports regularly to see how your key pages and posts are trending for important SEO metrics. 

Based on this data, identify areas of your strategy that are performing well versus those that need improvement. For example, you may see positive local search traffic but lower performance for competitive buyer keywords.

From there, run A/B tests on page content, titles, meta descriptions, and design to see what resonates more with search engines and users. Measure click-through rates and dwell time to gauge engagement.

Check your backlink profile routinely to spot new high-quality links earned, which may provide SEO gains. Identify opportunities to build more contextual links from trusted regional publishers.

Always be testing new tactics while phasing out those that underperform based on analytics. 

With the right tracking plan, you can zero in on the strategies that deliver results.

7. Leverage User-Generated Content

User-generated content like reviews, ratings, photos, and videos from past clients can be extremely valuable for improving real estate SEO.

Actively collect reviews on Google, Facebook, Zillow, and other platforms. Positive local recommendations build trust and social proof.

Embed visual content like neighborhood tours and property photos shared by clients on your site with attribution. User images help search visibility. 

Feature testimonials prominently on individual agent and listings pages. Pull quotes highlight satisfaction.

Share video walkthroughs, client home tours, area overviews, etc. on YouTube and embed on your website. YouTube ranks highly in video search.

Consider reposting high-quality UGC natively on your blog if permitted. Link back to the original source. 

Leveraging authentic content directly from satisfied clients can boost SEO while also providing social proof. 

For real estate agents, SEO is the key to unlocking more leads online. But simply turning that key isn't enough - you must continuously refine your strategy based on data to open the floodgates. 

Master both art and science by crafting compelling content while monitoring analytics. Stay nimble, innovating your approach as algorithms evolve. With commitment to local relevance and buyer-first keyword research, your SEO will have buyers beating a path to your door. 

Don't keep potential clients searching - instead, craft a search-optimized web presence that has them exclaiming “This is exactly the place I've been looking for!”

Want help with building custom SEO strategies for your real estate? Reach out to us today! 

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