Skip to main content ↓

As a realtor, you probably already know that a large portion of your clients find you and your properties online. An increasing number of consumers turn to the Internet for all of their needs, and home buyers are no exception.

How can you make your property listings accessible and findable online, though? With search engine optimization (SEO), you can optimize your listings for search engines, which increases their visibility in search results, meaning more eyes (and offers) on your available properties.

Keep reading to learn more about SEO for real estate listings, plus get six real estate SEO tips to help you make the most of this digital marketing strategy. If you’re looking for professional help with your real estate listings’ SEO, contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 about our SEO services!

What is SEO?

In order to start doing SEO for your real estate listings, it’s important to first understand what exactly it is. Basically, SEO is the process of tailoring your website content to rank well in search engines like Google. If you rank well, Internet users who search for terms related to your website (ex. “homes in San Francisco”) will see your website in the search results.

Realtors commonly address SEO by adding high-traffic keywords to their website content. While that is not necessarily a bad strategy, it can be a lot of work to tailor the keywords for individual listings to attract the right buyers.

How does SEO for realtors work?

SEO for realtors involves improving a number of factors associated with your website in an attempt to improve its ranking in search engines. How well your website ranks for specific search terms or keywords depends on factors like:

  • When, where, and how often those keywords are used
  • How many links point to your website from other trustworthy websites
  • How quickly your website loads
  • Whether or not your site is optimized for mobile devices

You may think that SEO is as simple as adding a few words and phrases to your site, and asking a couple of local businesses to link to you. But SEO is a little more complicated than you might expect.

For one thing, every website is implementing SEO.

Just as you’re trying to outrank your competition, your competitors are trying to do the same. You might be on top for a week or two, and then a competing real estate agent does something new and jumps to the top spot. Pretty soon, a new real estate website has been launched and takes the top ranking from both of you. This makes SEO an ongoing process.

Additionally, it’s very important to know that users, not websites, drive the whole process. One year everyone might be searching for “luxury condos” in the city and then five years later they’re favoring “rustic cottages” in the countryside. You’re not just trying to keep up with the competition—you’re trying to keep up with your own clientele, what they prefer, and how they want to find it.

You may be thinking that it’s too much work to try to get the top listing on Google.

Look at it this way, though—you know how important it is to use the right words to sell a property. SEO works the same way. Plus, like a good property listing, SEO can be a real boon to your business.

What are the benefits of practicing realtor SEO?

There are numerous benefits to utilizing SEO on your real estate agency website. Not only can it bring more traffic to your website, but it can increase the business you receive as an agent.

More traffic and conversions

Website rankings alone won’t generate traffic to your real estate website, but high rankings certainly help. 64.5 percent of Internet users click on the first three results in a search engine listing, and only 30 percent click on anything after the third result.

If you’re on the second page of search results, less than 10 percent of Internet users will even see your page.

SEO is a reliable and affordable way to reach the top of search engine results and generate more clicks to your real estate website.

When it comes to the keywords you choose in relation to your traffic and conversions, quality counts as much as quantity. Optimizing only for broad terms like “real estate” or “homes for sale” might land your site in more results pages, but it won’t rank well.

More importantly, with these broad keywords, you’ll fail to attract local buyers in the market for your services.

An SEO strategy that targets buyers by location, home models, neighborhoods, and other specific criteria may not bring millions of clicks, but the visitors that do find themselves on your site will be more qualified, and far more likely to contact you.

Once these users click your site, they’re also far more likely to convert. In fact, conversions among organic traffic exceed paid traffic by 25 percent.

It definitely pays to utilize SEO to increase your visibility in search engine rankings for the keywords most relevant to your real estate agency and ones that target your local customers.

Higher ROI

SEO outperforms other marketing tactics in terms of click-through rates and conversions, so it’s typically much more profitable than other methods.

As the number of people that turn to the web to search for a new home increases, SEO will continue to generate even more revenue for your agency.

The price tag of SEO depends on several factors, including the scope of the project, the services performed, the length of time the company works with you and the size of the firm.

Some firms charge by the hour, while others charge a monthly cost. In other words, depending on your SEO needs, your firm could pay as little as $76 per hour for SEO or as much as $6,000 per month.

While relatively low costs are a huge benefit of SEO, the real value comes in the ROI.

One of our clients, Noble’s Pond, saw an increase of 751 percent in their website traffic over 90 days. Now that’s a positive ROI!

Greater brand awareness

Because search engine users rarely go beyond the first page of results, most sites that aren’t at the top of the rankings don’t get a first glance, let alone a second. Since the main goal of SEO is to take your site to the top of search engine results, it’s also a terrific strategy for building brand awareness.

If your website resides at the top of search engine listings, it will become more popular among searchers. As mentioned in the statistics earlier, more people will click your site, and get in touch more often.

The more calls, the more brand awareness for your agency!

Your site is ranked on several factors, including keywords, site speed, and how users interact with it. As more potential clients discover your site, they may return for multiple visits, follow you on social media, click email offers and share your content.

Some of these factors resonate with search engine algorithms, which raises your ranking even higher.

By utilizing SEO, you can increase the awareness of your real estate agency, thanks to the higher rankings you’ll experience.

Leadership and authority

Keywords aren’t the only thing that will land you a spot in top SERP. The quality of your website is just as important.

Most users view the top results in a web search as the most authoritative and valuable, but it takes time and effort to build both.

Search engine algorithms prefer sites with authoritative content that has been linked by other websites. This means that you need to work hard to develop articles, blog posts and other media that resonates with prospective home buyers.

If you produce quality content, it can attract links from powerful websites, which can help both your authority and your traffic.

You will get clicks to your quality content, which will lead to user comments and shares. Over time, your linked content will make you a voice of authority in real estate, which raises your rankings even higher.

How to do SEO for real estate listings

what is seo

You can gain serious traction by optimizing real estate listings for SEO. Learn how to get started with SEO for real estate listings below, and you can stay ahead of the curve and keep your potential clients informed, satisfied, and ready to take the next step.

1. Begin with an effective, responsive website

To maximize the reach of your listings, you should start with a website that’s responsive. Your potential clients are most definitely typing addresses into search engines via mobile devices and expecting to find real estate listings.

An effective website is the foundation of SEO for real estate listings. Once your website is in place and highly functional, you can move your focus to optimizing your real estate listings for search.

2. Do your research

Keyword research is an essential part of planning SEO for real estate listings. You need to know the search terms that will lead potential clients to your website and real estate listings. Once you know these terms, you will strategically insert them into your listings.

There are many tools for doing keyword research, but one of the best is Google’s keyword planner. If you have a Google Ads account, this is a great way to see how many people are searching for terms related to your industry and how many other businesses are competing for traffic from those terms.

3. Optimize your listings for search engines

Once you’ve found appropriate keywords for your listings, you’ll want to include them where relevant. Resist the temptation to use them in every single listing, as this is called “keyword stuffing” and can actually negatively affect your rankings, but use them wherever it makes sense.

For example, if you are trying to list a 750 square foot apartment in Harrisburg, you might list is as “750 Square Foot Apartment in Harrisburg.” But if keyword research shows you that more people are searching for “one bedroom apartment in Harrisburg,” that’s probably a better choice.

7 real estate SEO tips

Get the most value from using SEO for your real estate listings with these seven real estate SEO tips:

1. Include local keywords

Although your property is only technically located in one city, think about other keywords that describe the surrounding area. For example, if you are listing a property in Harrisburg, consider how buyers in the area might search for properties. Think about broader descriptions like “Central Pennsylvania” or “Dauphin County,” and do some research on those keywords as well.

2. Use the address in your header tags and body

Be sure to include the street address, city, and zip code as a part of your real estate listing SEO strategy. This will draw attention to the listing and make it easier for the search engines.

3. Promote the listings on your real estate website and blog

Although search engines are extremely helpful in bringing traffic to your listings, don’t rely on them to do all the work. Make sure to link to your individual listings from your website, and consider creating a section on your homepage that shows your most recent properties.

If you have a blog, that can also be a great way to keep visitors up to date on new listings. Don’t be overly promotional and risk losing subscribers, but adding a few new properties you think your readers might be interested in at the bottom of a post could potentially spark some new clients.

4. Also promote the listings on your social channels

Posting links to your listings on social media platforms will help with exposure to your audience. That being said, be careful not to do it too often. Your fans will get annoyed if your social channels fill their news feeds up with real estate listings, so limit yourself to one or two properties per week at the most.

5. Optimize your images

Images are some of the most important parts of real estate listings. They can make potential buyers want to contact you, and give a much better sense of a property than text alone. But even though they can work wonders with human visitors to your site, search engines cannot process visual content.

The only way search engines can tell what your photos are of is with file names and alt descriptions. Be sure to include these as a part of your real estate listing SEO, and make sure that they are relevant to both the photo and the content on the page.

6. Create local profiles

Be sure to create local profiles on all the big directories for real estate listings. Then, consider reaching out to other online communities that will benefit from your listings, such as community or neighborhood online communities.

Get more clients (and sell more homes) with real estate SEO

When you use SEO for your real estate listings, you help your business reach more clients, from homeowners looking to sell to first-time homebuyers. SEO for real estate websites, however, takes time and dedication.

learn about our seo services

If you know that your company doesn’t have the time to dedicate SEO, but recognizes the value of SEO, think about investing in real estate SEO services. With professional SEO services, like from WebFX, your business can attract more clients and sell more homes, without cutting into your busy day.

Contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 for a free proposal!

We Drive Results for Realtors

  • 24 million leads generated for clients
  • Dedicated account manager backed by 500+ digital experts

Get a Quote

dots background

author image

background shape

Explore our real estate case studies

Read our case studies for a more in-depth look at our results.

Property Management, Inc.

88%

Increase in pages per session

Reynolds

71%

Increase in conversions

ExpressIt Delivery

232%

Increase in traffic

Your
Business

IS NEXT

Get a free proposal
today!

Solving key challenges for realtors

Our website isn’t driving enough traffic

Bring more qualified traffic to your website so you can maximize your conversions and revenue with our award-winning SEO, web design, and copywriting services.

Website icon.

We aren’t attracting enough new clients

Struggling to bring future property owners and sellers to your real estate company? Our marketing services help you get your business in front of the people most likely to become clients.

Marketing icon with flame.

We’re struggling to sell new properties

Boost your online visibility and spread the word about your property listings to earn more sales for your company and clients with our top-tier advertising and marketing services.

Branch icon of a storefront.

We’re struggling to stay ahead of our competitors

When you partner with WebFX, we’ll conduct in-depth competitor analysis to help you outshine your biggest competitors and always stay one step ahead.

Target icon with archery arrow hitting target.
TO TOP