On Site SEO for Real Estate, Why It's Worth Your Time
Not to toot my own horn, but I've done pretty well in doing SEO for real estate clients. The unfortunate thing I've noticed is that so many of these sites are outdated and built on platforms whose only real purpose is to display MLS listings relatively efficiently. What that leads to for us poor SEOs in many cases, when we're willing to take on this task, is trying to workaround these archaic systems to do some worthwhile on site changes for SEO. This can be a nightmare in terms of trying to develop clean URLs (if you're new to this, a clean url would be bobsrealty.com/gotham as opposed to bobsrealty.com/q=3rnp23np3i5jipjzjf;akdjf;lllsic=5456). Even worse, sometimes there isn't even basic SEO functionality like the ability to edit page titles, meta descriptions, alt tags or even basic page content.
So while it may not be worth your time as an SEO to tackle this without someone waving a lot of dollars in your face, I can't stress enough how much this can benefit you if you're the real estate company considering taking the plunge into SEO. In so many places around the country real estate companies are ignoring SEO, and even if a few competitors aren't ignoring it, just by playing the game you can stand to benefit immensely.
You want an example now, don't you? *Channels inner Billy Mays*
For the record, this is neither me nor Billy Mays
YOU WANT AN EXAMPLE, DON'T YOU?!?!?!?!
Cue example.
The situation:
- Real estate company wants to be found on Google, since they're only receiving branded traffic.
- Their site only allows for a singular page title and description throughout the site
The solution:
- Set fire to their server
- Just kidding
- Connect with their web developer and get them to understand what we need minimally to get things where we need to go (and I mean minimally)
- Web developer creates workaround that allows us to alter SEO data on their category pages - essentially the pages designed to cover the various geographic areas they target
- We do keyword research and alter aforementioned SEO elements
The results:
- Rankings go up...a lot.
Protecting the names of the successful...
- It begins raining
mennon-branded traffic, or at least sprinkling traffic, with a forecast for a downpour
45 days = 127% increase in non-braded traffic.
The takeaway
- SEO your site! I'm not even talking about hiring a firm, just read some blogs (may I suggest this one?) and give it a stab yourself to start. If you have a few bucks lying around, hire a reputable SEO firm (check out my guide on questions to ask an SEO firm for help)
- I can't stress this enough - this wasn't hard or terribly complicated. I have to believe making some basic changes to your site to get an extra thousand or so extremely targeted real estate prospects on your site each month would be worth such a minimal investment of your time and/or money.
Related articles
- 3 On-Page SEO Mistakes and Tips for Franchisees (hubspot.com)
- A Bad Website Can Ruin Your SEO (dailyseotip.com)
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About Adam Henige
Adam Henige is Managing Partner of Netvantage Marketing, an online marketing company specializing in SEO, PPC and social media. Adam heads the SEO and link building efforts for Netvantage and has been a contributing blogger for industry publications like Search Engine Journal and SEOmoz.
Tags: Business, google, on site seo, Real estate, real estate seo, realty seo, search engine optimization, seo for realtors
