5 Smart Strategies for Real Estate SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to helping motivated buyers and sellers find you—and the properties you represent—via Google, Bing and other search engines. At a high level, SEO is all about using relevant keywords in your website content and attracting links to your content from other websites, especially those that Google considers trustworthy and authoritative.

Here are five smart SEO strategies you should implement on your website to attract more real estate leads.

1. Build your website on an SEO-friendly platform

If you haven't set up your own real estate website yet, you should. A website can serve as a useful resource for buyers and sellers in your community, which can, in turn, help you generate leads. WordPress is a popular choice for many real estate agents.

2. Do your keyword research—and be specific

It's extremely important to use keywords on your website that are both relevant to your content and represent what your potential clients are looking for. Along with keywords that describe your location and what you do, make sure you use keywords that optimize content on your site to match a visitor's intent. For example, find a real estate agent in San Francisco.

3. Start blogging

Blogging is great for SEO because each blog post is its own webpage for search engines to index. When the post is optimized properly, it provides yet another opportunity for your content to be found. Plus, a blog post that's informative, timely, useful, or simply interesting is likely to be shared on social media networks by your visitors. When your post is tweeted or shared on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Google+, it's exposed to a wider audience.

4. Be a resource to clients and the media

Earn trusted links that boost your SEO ranking by making sure your website contains lots of useful information, such as recommended contractors and stagers in your area or tips on buying and selling. The media can be your best friend in this effort, as media sites tend to have strong authority on Google. For instance, if you get quoted in a newspaper about a real estate trend and the reporter links to your website, your website's search engine authority gets a boost.

5. Keep it up

SEO is an ongoing process that requires regular effort and time. To get the most from your SEO efforts, try to dedicate a block of time each week to creating new, optimized content for your website. Be active on social media. Weigh in on current real estate news and trends. Offer your best advice online. Engage with the media. Yes, it's a lot of work. But part of an agent's job is to get out there, get noticed, and get referrals—and SEO is a great way to make that happen.

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