1) Build a Personal Website:
The main word for you to pay attention to is ‘personal’. You want for your prospects to feel like they know you, who you are, your values, what you stand for without actually getting to meet you. This is crucial. You want your website to be very welcoming, and I cannot stress that enough!
To be completely honest, I think it is a little weird to have someone random come to my house to try and sell it or a random person looking for my next home. I find that weird and I am sure other prospects will feel the same way. This is why your prospect has to feel like they know you after they view your website.
To give your website a more personal feel, you will definitely want to add professional, welcoming images of you to the homepage of the website. An introduction video would go great as the first thing on the homepage. All you would have to do is talk about who you are, how you got started in real estate, and why you love helping people sell their home or buy their next home. This will allow people to see who you are and why you do what you do.
You should also have a great about page on your website. Talk about your family, your goals, your childhood. Remember that this website is a great way for people to get to know who you are. In today’s market, people buy who you are. They buy the brand, not necessarily because your product is the best. So, you want to make sure your brand is of the utmost professional and personable.
A personal website also gives you the ability to massively customize and tailor the site to you. You can add photos and videos as needed. You can write articles about real estate, buying your first home, how to value a home, how to navigate the MLS, and much more. You can add those articles to your website with ease. It also allows you to add the homes you currently have listed on the market. You make sure the photos are of outstanding quality and that your prospects can feel what it would be like to live in that home through your photos.
Mass customization is a major reason why you should build a personal website instead of relying on the page the real estate agency gives you.
A personal website establishes you as a major player in the real estate game. We have grown to believe that because someone has a personal website they are now an established authority figure in their industry. You can tap into that psychology with a personal website.
Let’s face it. The page that your real estate agency gives you really doesn’t do anything to set you apart from anyone else. Remember, we are looking to give you a competitive advantage, and a personal, professional website could be the that competitive advantage for your real estate empire.
Your website should do 3 things from an aesthetics standpoint:
- Establish You as Someone that is Sharp as a Tack
- Make You Seem Enthusiastic as Hell
- Establish You as an Authority Figure
Why are those three things important?
Number 1, no one likes to waste their time, so if you are not sharp as a tack, no one will want to do business with you. Number 2, you have to be enthusiastic as hell about the service that you sell. You love real estate, this is why I love real estate, they will love real estate, and they will love doing their real estate deals with you. Your enthusiasm is contagious! Number 3, we are taught from a very young age to listen to authority figures. Think about your teachers, adults, or respecting your elders. That is what we were taught from a young age, so you need to tap into that. You need to establish yourself as an authority figure in the real estate world.
Always remember, if you want NextGen Marketing to do all the work for you, Schedule A One on One Strategy Session to talk about growing your real estate empire!
2) Start a Google My Business Listing for You
Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. By verifying and editing your business information, you can both help customers find you and tell them the story of your business. In marketer’s terms, a Google My Business listing is considered local SEO.
It is the map pack that shows up after the ads section in a Google search. Think about when you search for restaurants near you, lawn care services near you, or real estate agents in your city ;). It is the map pack that comes up. It typically contains the business name, website, and either directions or a phone number to call.
This is your Google Local Listing. It is something you definitely want to create. In my video, I talked about a case study. I started a Google My Business in the Akron area for a real estate. He is no longer a real estate agent because he decided to pursue a different career path. I did absolutely no optimization for his local listing. None, but in the short time that his Google My Business was up, we generated 5 new leads for him. FIVE!! Let me remind you, I did not optimize this listing at all. No optimization, but he still pulled in five new leads. He wasn’t ranked number one for the Akron area either! That’s how powerful Google My Business can be for you. This is why I decided to put it in my Real Estate SEO article. It really is that powerful!
I hope you do not take that lightly either. You have to start a personal Google My Business listing. Add your phone number, your office location (the agency office location will work), and add your new website to the listing! You’ll have to add some images to your profile, hours that you work, and what services you provide that real estate agent or real estate appraiser. You can add multiple of those categories.
Optimizing Your Google My Business:
The next portion of my Real Estate SEO article is optimizing your Google My Business listing to show up higher in the search results. This is also a very important step to take in the process of generating leads from Google!
Optimizing your Google My Business ultimately comes down to putting your NAP (name, address, phone number) on other high-quality websites. By other high-quality websites, I mean places like Zillow, Home Advisor, Better Business Bureau, Realtor.com, etc. This is called a citation. You are citing your local Google My Business listing to other high-quality websites. That connection (NAP) is considered a citation for you. The more high-quality citations you have, the better your local Google My Business listing will do in the rankings.
In Layman’s terms, you will need to create different listings across the internet for your Google My Business. By creating listings on the internet, Google will start to view your local listing as a quality listing over your competitor’s listings. This is the tedious part, but it is so, so, so important!
ATTENTION: FOR YOUR LOCAL LISTING TO GET THE CREDIT FOR THE CITATIONS ACROSS THE INTERNET, THE NAP (NAME, ADDRESS, & PHONE NUMBER) NEED TO MATCH EXACTLY WHAT IS ON YOUR LOCAL LISTING!
That last portion is absolutely crucial to your success in ranking your Google My Business in the local search rankings!
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Let me explain a little better:
If your local Google My Business says that your business name is Nicholas Wolf – Real Estate Agent, LLC then the citations that you put on high-quality websites like Zillow or Realtor.com must match exactly that – Nicholas Wolf – Real Estate Agent, LLC.
The same goes for the address you use in your Google My Business. If the address you use is *this is a fake address for an example* 1654 Hollow Leaf Rd Suite 679 Dallas, TX 55555, then your citations have to read 1654 Hollow Leaf Rd Suite 679 Dallas, TX 55555. The citations have to be an exact match to your Google My Business. The address cannot read 1654 Hollow Leaf Road STE 679 Dallas, TX 55555. If your citation does read like that, then Google will not give you credit for that citation.
It’s also the same thing for your phone number. If your phone reads (555) 555-5555 in Google My Business, then your citations have to read (555) 555-5555. They cannot read 555-555-5555. If it does, Google won’t give credit for that citation!
That last part is extremely important for optimizing your local listing! You must follow those directions to a T to even have a chance of ranking highly in the local listing search results. Keep in mind that you are entering a huge competition. I do not know one company that wouldn’t want that top spot in Google, so it will take some work for you to rank in the local listing search results.
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3) Optimize your website to show up in Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)
This is going to be a fairly long section of the article right here because there is a lot that goes into optimizing a website. I hope you’re still with us. If you are, you are already ahead of the game without doing anything for your Real Estate SEO. Why do I say that? Because you have drive. This is some high-quality content all about real estate SEO, but I would guess around 75% of people did not even make it far enough to read this section of the article. Keep doing you. You were meant to do great things, so keep working and never, ever quit!
Like I said at the start of the article, what we are proposing is going to take some extra work, but it is going to pay massive dividends in the long run for you! Hang with us. We are almost done 🙂
Let’s get into optimizing your personal website!
In this section, we are going to talk about three main things:
- Finding keywords to target
- Building content around those keywords
- Optimizing that content to show up in Google
- Building your domain authority to make your website more powerful to rank for competitive keywords
Finding Keywords:
We are going to start with building content around certain keywords! So, I am going to start by finding keywords.
Now, at NextGen Marketing, we use Ubersuggest. Personally, I love Ubersuggest. Why? Because it is free!!
Once you’re in Ubersuggest, you’ll go to keyword research and overview. You will then want to think about what keywords your prospects would search for. I think something like, “How to buy your first home,” “How to sell your first home,” “What to look for when valuing homes,” “How to search for investment property.” I think all of those would work. You’ll have to do the keyword research on it to get the exact terms or phrases prospects are searching for!
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Now, you may be thinking, “Google is international, why would I want to have people from Los Angeles visit my website if I am in New York?” You make a very good point! I explained this in my video as well. One thing I have learned is that everything goes full circle. What do I mean by that? I mean that the person from Los Angeles may not be selling a home in New York, but they may know someone from New York. That person from New York may be looking to buy or sell a home, and they can now set you up with their friend from New York because they were reading one of your articles you wrote.
Going back to what I said about your website – sharp as a tack, enthusiastic as hell, and an authority figure. Because you were able to establish yourself as those three things from your website, and you wrote a killer piece of content, now that person from LA is sending you referrals to New York. Think that’s too crazy to happen? So did I until I watched it happen! The internet and Google are very, very powerful tools that should not be underestimated.
Now that we have found some keywords to go after, we are going to build high-quality content!
Building Content:
Google always wants to show to best content to their consumers. How do we know which content they view as quality? We look at the statistics. Around 90% of pages that rank number one on the first page of Google has over 2000 words on them. Most have embedded videos and infographics as well to go with the 2000 words! With those statistics, we can now figure out how to build our content, so Google will view it as high-quality content.
First and foremost, your article needs to have at the very minimum 2000 words on the page. At the bare minimum, you should have 2000 words on the page. Next, you should make a video and embed it into the page for people to watch the video, then you should also add infographics to the page the keep things engaging for the reader.
I would even challenge you to create articles that have 5000 words on the page!
Your keyword should only be about 1.5-2% of the density in the article. It should not show up more than that. If it is anymore, Google will view it as keyword stuffing which is a big no-no in Google’s eyes. Does Google have eyes? Let me know what you think in the comments on my YouTube video about Real Estate SEO. You can find that video here → https://youtu.be/Bp3mzraQdns
After you build the content, you are going to want to optimize and share that content for people to see it and share it with others!
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Optimizing that content to show up in Google:
We have already talked about how to do the keyword research and build the content. Now it is time to optimize the content!
Optimizing the content is fairly simple. It really comes down to making sure your keyword is spread throughout your article. I also like to make sure that relevant matches to the keyword are spread throughout the article as well.
What do I mean by that?
So, if our keyword is ‘real estate SEO’, we are going to want to put in the article ‘seo for real estate agents’, ‘real estate agents’, ‘real estate agents search engine optimization’. You want to show Google that your article is about your keyword. With those relevant keyword matches, it gives Google bots a good indication that this article is high-quality content, and this article is relevant to the keyword throughout the entire article.
Remember, Google wants to show their consumers the best content they have to offer in the search results. You have to give Google that best content!
Building your domain authority to make your website more powerful to rank for competitive keywords:
This is the part that I am going to lose a couple of people on, so I need you to hang with me!
What is Domain Authority?
According to Moz, a major player in SEO, “Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). … Domain Authority is calculated by evaluating multiple factors, including linking root domains and the number of total links, into a single DA score.”
Let me say it simply for you! Domain Authority is the weight your website has in Google.
How does this impact you?
Let’s say you are competing the keyword ‘Real Estate’. You probably won’t want to go for this keyword, but for the example, you are going after ‘Real Estate’. Let’s say you have a Domain Authority of 15, but your competitor has a Domain Authority of 30. Their Domain Authority is a lot better than yours. If you both have the same amount of content, it is all optimized the same exact way for the same exact keyword, your competitor will outrank you in the SERPs because they have a more powerful Domain.
Remember, the power of your domain in Google is calculated by your Domain Authority.
So, now the game becomes making your domain powerful enough to rank for the keywords that you want to go after!
Let’s get into how to do this! It kind of ties right into our last section of this article as well, so let’s jump into it!
The best way that we like to do that here at NextGen Marketing is we have an outreach program! By that I mean, we create a killer article that readers will love. Then, we add social share options to the article page. This allows people the option for our readers to share our content with their following! If it is really good content, it will do well with having other people share your content!
At the same time, this also brings us to our last step, is you need to have social media pages set up for your real estate company. You can share these articles to your social media pages to spread the word about your newly published article!
By having people share your article, your article will start to get noticed, and people may start reaching out to you to see if they can put your article on their website. By them putting your article on their website, you will receive that backlink which is a major ranking factor for your Domain Authority.
That is one way you can build your domain authority.
The other option is a service called HARO. HARO stands for Help a Reporter Out. What this service does is it allows you to communicate with reporters. The service is set up for reporters to send out articles they need to write, and they ask for your expert opinion/ analysis.
When you register for the service, you will get three emails a day packed with topics reporters need other people to write about. So, it may be a topic about how to pick a real estate agent. You would then send the article to that reporter through HARO. You will also ask the reporter that if they pick your article to use for their journal to please give your website the backlink.
Some of the reporters that use HARO are from journals like the Huffington Post, Time, and other powerful blogs! There’s a real chance for you to obtain some powerful backlinks from HARO. Now, you will not always know who you are writing for unless they pick your article. Sometimes the reporter will hide the organization they are with, so it is in your best interest to always speak from experience and do not leave anything back in your article. You want to give it all you got!
That is the option we like the most here at NextGen Marketing, and it has proven to be very effective for us!
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4) BONUS STEP: Create Social Media Pages for Your Real Estate Empire
You need to have separate social media pages set up for your business. This allows you to spread your articles easier. It also allows you to hashtag different things to get your content out there to people that want to see it! Also, you can get some powerful backlinks by linking your website to your social media profiles. So, it really doubles as a win-win, and I can’t think of a reason why you would not want to start social media profiles for your real estate business!
Look, that is a ton of content. It really can be overwhelming. I understand that, so I am going to give you an offer. Because you read this far down into the article, I am going to give you 35% off your first 3 months of service with us.
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Fill out the contact form! To get the 35% off, you will need to tweet me the fire emoji and tell me this Real Estate SEO Guide was fire – @wolfnicholas23 or post on your Instagram story this Real Estate SEO Guide with a fire emoji and tag me @nicholaswolf!
I’ll hook you up with some killer deals if you do that for me! Just the fact that you read this entire Real Estate SEO article proves to me that you want to do really big things in the real estate game. I want to surround myself with people that are doing big things in this world and want to live their legacy. We are in the same boat, so we can definitely do business together. I’ll hook you with a killer deal!
Wouldn’t you want us to do everything for you anyway? We are the Digital Marketing Experts! We get results, and our numbers don’t lie. Our testimonials prove that about us. Our results page is absolutely crazy because it shows the results we get our clients. We have never lost a client which I think is a huge testimonial in itself to the work that we do. We can do the same thing for your real estate empire! Trust me, my team won’t let you down!
We can also start to generate your results fast! Instead of you trying to figure everything out yourself, we do it for you, and we get it done fast! This is what we do every day. I wouldn’t trust myself to try to sell a house, so should you trust yourself to build a website, optimize it, and generate results? I don’t think so. That’s why we’re the experts here! We have everything covered for you!
We can build you a professional, personable website specifically tailored to you. We can build that Google My Business listing. And, we can optimize them to actually show up in the search results!
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To get the 35% off, you will need to tweet me the fire emoji and tell me this Real Estate SEO Guide was fire – Twitter handle: @wolfnicholas23 or post on your Instagram story this Real Estate SEO Guide (screenshot will work) with a fire emoji and tag me – Instagram handle: @nicholaswolf
Let’s get this thing going!
I hope you have gotten a tremendous amount of value from this article, and I hope this article makes you thousands and thousands of dollars! Just remember me when you’re famous 🙂
I’ve had fun writing this, I hope you had fun reading it. This is Nicholas Wolf – CEO of NextGen Marketing signing off for now!
Nicholas Wolf – CEO of NextGen Marketing
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