by Creating a real estate website that is a destination for potential clients is a rewarding experience. You get to put together powerful tools and great content for anyone interested in your neighborhoods to view.
Of course, if you put together all of this great information and no one views it, then it isn’t much fun. In fact, it can be downright frustrating to slave away and have no one visit your website! An effective online real estate marketing strategy will have you at the top of the search engines to help you maximize the visitors to your website.
Getting more eyeballs to view your real estate website doesn’t take a monster budget when you know how to climb to the top of the search engines. These aren’t “tricks” to get to the top, just solid methods that will get you to the top and have a stream of traffic coming to view your website.
Apply each of these tips to get to the top of the search engines fast.
- Optimize Your Page Titles – Page titles are one of the biggest ways that you can improve your search engine rankings. Your page titles should be unique to each and every page on your website. For optimum results your keyword will be at the beginning of the page title and will incorporate the keyword that you are focusing on for that page. Don’t go crazy and stuff a bunch of keywords in the title, just make sure it uses the keyword in a clear and easy to read sentence.
- Create Two Sitemaps – A sitemap is a list of the pages that are located on your website. It may sound simple (and it is) yet many real estate websites are missing this key element. Creating a simple HTML sitemap that lists all of your pages is just one type of sitemap. Creating an XML sitemap will allow the search engines to learn even more about each and every page that is on your website, giving your website the best chance to be found when someone is searching.
- Consistent Content – You wouldn’t diet for one day and say “man I can’t believe I haven’t lost any weight” but many people will put up a website and then wonder why they aren’t getting any visitors. The search engines (and your next buyer or seller) want to see that your website is consistently updated with fresh content. Remember there are many different forms of content from evergreen (for example information on historical architects in your neighborhoods) to more event driven information (for example how interest rate moves have impacted inventory). Take the time to create a content calendar as that will keep you on track with consistently updating your website to attract search engines and potential customers.
- Variety of Content – It would be nice if all we had to do was write content, but that isn’t the reality anymore. To get to the top of the search engines take the time to create video content, written content (pages, PDF reports, social media updates), images (photography and graphics), audio, and watch search engines start pushing your site to the top because you truly are a destination for local and unique information.
- Anchor Text – Anchor text is the text that is used when creating a hyperlink on your website. Creating Anchor Text that clearly defines what the document that you are linking to is about will help the search engines attribute some keyword value to that page. For example when you take the time to link the word “San Diego Homes” vs. “Click Here” you are letting the search engine know the page is about “San Diego Homes” giving you an opportunity to rank for that keyword phrase.
Some of these methods can take more time than others, but the key is to take the time to do them. Getting to the top of the search engines is like running an endurance race…it takes consistent effort over a period of time. In fact as you are creating new pages you will be able to make quick work of the Page Titles and Anchor Text on each page. Simple changes often have some of the best results so go back through your website and start applying these methods and start seeing your website at the top.
