Shine Online: SEO Hacks Real Estate Agents Need In 2024

If you are part of the real estate world, you already know how saturated it is and how hard it is to stand out. Marketing efforts should cover all available methodologies, and SEO is no exception. In fact, SEO should be one of the primary efforts as it feeds all marketing channels. 

Today, real estate agents are aware that people look to buy, sell, or rent property first online. So, the website must be SEO-optimised for the target audience to find them easily. In this article, we'll go over auctionable SEO strategies specifically tailored for real estate agents that will improve their website's online visibility and drive organic traffic to their website. 

Why SEO Matters for Real Estate Professionals?

Leveraging SEO for real estate websites means enjoying many benefits that help the business thrive. Here are the most prominent ones.

Increased Brand Awareness

With a good SEO strategy, the website appears higher on the search engine results pages, improving the brand's visibility to potential clients. The higher the website is ranked, the more credible the organic results are, prompting high click-through rates. 

Targeted Marketing 

As a part of SEO, keyword research identifies the relevant keywords that the target audience uses to search for services like the ones you provide. By incorporating these keywords, the content on the website can be optimised, and that will bring more engagement and conversions. 

Improved User Experience 

SEO practices are not only for desktops but also for mobile screens. So, SEO optimization will improve the site speed and mobile responsiveness, which will provide a better user experience, resulting in higher engagement and longer time spent on the site.

Essential SEO Tips for Real Estate Agents 

Now that the benefits for real estate agents are clear, let's learn some SEO hacks and best practices for agents looking to maximise their online presence and increase their profits. 

Doing Deep Keyword Research 

SEO strategy can only be done with an in-depth identification of the terms and phrases that potential clients use while searching for real estate services. To find those keywords, tools like Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, or Ahrefs can give valuable insights into the research that can help you optimise the content thoroughly. 

Create High-Value Content 

To have excellent SEO results, the website's content must be crafted according to the website visitor's intent. Informative blogs, articles, and guides about the hot trends in real estate, as well as reports about the real estate market and property features, and how-to blogs related to maintenance of the property, will bring value to the reader and position your website results high on the search engine results page. The keywords should be added to the content to enhance visibility and attract organic traffic. 

Optimize the Website 

The next SEO hack is to look at the whole website and optimise it by focusing on precise navigation, user-friendly URLs, and well-structured HTML. Part of the optimization is crafting appropriate header tags and including relevant pages in titles, meta descriptions, and image alt texts. In addition, the website should be mobile responsive and checked for its web core vitals to ensure a seamless user experience. 

Focus on Technical SEO 

Technical SEO is crucial for search engines to be able to crawl the website quickly, navigate it, and understand what it is about. So, security, XML site maps, and crawlability aspects should all be regularly monitored and optimised. 

Implement Backlink Building 

On-page SEO is essential, of course, but page SEO should be addressed, too. Building a good backlink network with secure backlinks from reputable sources will signal to search engines that the website is trustworthy and authoritative. To create such a network, you must proactively reach out to other real estate professionals and industry influencers to get backlinks on their websites. Quality backlinks, defined as backlinks on sites with a huge domain rating score and lots of organic traffic, can significantly impact your SEO performance. 

Create Relevant Pages And Directories 

Local SEO is also essential for real estate agents because they first want to act locally and then nationally. To do local SEO, you must create dedicated pages for specific neighbourhoods, property types, or services you offer. These pages should be optimised with relevant keywords and detailed information, containing queries about the location. Plus, you can list your business on relevant online directories to improve visibility and attract backlinks.

SEO Practices to Avoid 

The SEO hacks we discussed above are called white SEO practices and are recommended if you want your real estate website to get the attention it deserves on search engines. However, there are other hacks that promise instant results but are not recommended, as they fall under the black hat SEO Tactics category and are usually penalised by Google. Here they are. 

Keyword stuffing is a tactic that involves cramming excessive keywords into the content. It should be avoided because you want to create quality content that informs and educates the reader. 

Link buying is a tactic where you buy links from spammy websites and hope to get higher domain ratings. This doesn't work because Google will only assess those links as spammy. 

Duplicate content-copying content from another website or duplicating your own across multiple pages will hurt your ratings. Instead, you need to produce unique and original content. 

Misleading redirects - redirects that take the visitor to pages that they do not expect to land on. This tricks the users or search engines, which, if practiced, lowers the credibility and transparency of the website. 

Hidden text - text hidden on the page so that only Google can see it and not the users, but it is also considered deceptive by search engine crawlers. What you need to do is prioritise transparent and user-friendly to deliver a positive user experience.

Conclusion 

Mastering SEO for real estate websites is crucial to stand out in the competitive real estate market in 2024. Implement the SEO hacks listed above, and avoid the black hat practices to elevate your online presence and attract the target audience. Always get information about the latest SEO trends and continuously improve your strategy. If you can't deal with all the changes in the SEO industry, ask for a professional SEO specialist to help you with the optimization efforts.