Real Estate Agents Must Master Local SEO To Survive

There's an old Jesus Jones song that goes, "I saw the decade end watching the world change in the blink of an eye." They were singing about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Europe. But the novel coronavirus is changing the world, too -- including the way Americans buy and sell real estate.

While the shutdown will hopefully be over soon, newly acquired hyper-awareness of social distancing won't go away so fast. As a result:

• Sellers won't be eager to let crowds of people tramp through their homes at open houses.

• Agents, in turn, won’t be able to market directly to people who write their names on open-house sign-in sheets (or enter them on tablets, for that matter).

• Local networking events will decline, at least for a while, removing another potential source of leads.

• Buyers will not want to expose themselves by going to sellers’ houses unnecessarily.

• Video or computer-assisted virtual tours will take on more importance in the home search.

• Listings that are not internet- or mobile-friendly will not attract buyers.

Many independent real estate agents relied on billboards, referrals and sending "just listed" and "just sold" real estate postcards as their main form of marketing. Direct mail, as well as branding, will always be a good way to ensure people know who you are, but as we transition to new modes of doing business, internet marketing will take on even greater importance. And the first thing residential and most commercial real estate brokers need to do is maximize their visibility in local search traffic.

How To Maximize Local Search Results

Local search is already critical for all kinds of businesses. According to a 2018 Google presentation, nearly half (46%) of all search engine inquiries are from people looking for local information.

Almost every adult in the country (97%) uses the internet to find local businesses and service providers. And these are serious queries: 76% of people who enter a local search for a business or service will actually reach out and make contact within 24 hours.

To maximize local search results, your site should be mobile-friendly. Nearly half (48%) of all house hunting begins on a mobile device. Is your site slow to load on an iPhone? Do some of your websites functions not work? After a few seconds of this, visitors will click out of your site and go do something else.

It also helps to claim your account on Google My Business. If your business isn’t listed, you’ll have to enter it manually. You can find detailed instructions on editing your Google My Business listing here.

Also, claim your business on real estate sites. You don’t just want the generic default listing on sites like these, so be sure to go to all of them and stake your claim. That is, claim your business listing, and make sure the information is current, your logo is prominently displayed, you have good photos, etc.

At a minimum, you should claim your listing on the following sites:

• Realtor.com.

• Redfin.

• Trulia.

• Homes.com.

• Zillow.

• Zoocasa.

Get Your Firm Listed On Internet Directories

It's also important to input your firm’s name and data in relevant internet directories. I'm not talking about the link farms, scrapers, and spam merchants — links from those may count against you. I'm talking about respected business directories people actually use that will link to your site and hopefully drive traffic.

Common examples include the following:

• Angie’s List.

• Better Business Bureau.

• Business Journals (your local edition).

• LinkedIn.

• Manta.

• SuperPages.

• Yellow Pages.

• Yelp.

Even if your customers don’t use them to find realtors or look at houses, they may use them to look at reviews. Additionally, Google rewards sites that get a lot of backlinks from quality sites. Be sure your listing information is exactly the same across all directories. The deviation can confuse the search engine algorithms and hurt you.

Do An SEO Audit Of Your Site

At a minimum, go through every page to check each link for functionality, and remove any that don’t work anymore. Also, check to see how fast your site loads. Is there a bunch of redirects? Too many can slow down your site and spook users.

It's also important to use tags appropriately. For instance, make sure you’re using H1-H6 tags to organize your page, rather than just bolding headings.

To improve local search results, complete your site’s meta titles and descriptions to include the name of your town and the communities you are targeting.

Lastly, test your site on mobile devices.

Local SEO Tips And Best Practices

For starters, be sure to use a local number, not an 800 number.

Also, post new content frequently. Newer content gets an SEO boost; stagnant content gets bumped by more recently updated sites. So, update your blog on a regular basis. Upload videos can also be beneficial. On average, based on data from HubSpot users, blogs that are updated three times per week or more see more traffic than less frequently updated sites.

When you do a blog, mention local topics. Even small realtors can get excellent search engine results by focusing on local topics within their niche.

Overall, you'll want to use the same images and other branding elements on Google My Business that you use in any other context. Don't forget to create and add your social media profiles anywhere you can. These are trusted links that should be updated regularly and will be indexed by Google. Creating consistent content that is valuable to your followers and will get them to engage is a great way to send social signals to the search engines.

Just be careful what type of things you share and what content you publish. It should be as unbiased and politically correct as possible so you can avoid upsetting anyone who could be a potential client. Most importantly, remember to have fun and keep it authentic.