Many questions arise when it comes to putting together Google ads and real estate. There is some skepticism around if it really works for realtors and everything related to the business.
Questions such as, “Should realtors be using Google AdWords?”, “How will it help me?” usually arise from not being able to use the tool properly to generate significant ads.
Before aiming for keywords to try and get some hot leads, it is a good plan to start with the basics. Have you already tried to get the ball rolling? That is just great. Let’s now take a look at some things that you might be doing wrong.
Then, we will move into the nitty-gritty of finding the proper keywords to make our real estate Google ad a primer and a significant source of listings.
How to Succeed Using Real Estate Google Adwords
Let us first briefly state what some useful practices to get to understand how Google AdWords works are.
Here are some tips to keep you from failing:
- Make a strong Ad Copy.
- Create a landing page optimized for conversions and direct your traffic to this page.
- Collect your data and analyze itto help make more sensible decisions in the future.
- Write and understand your goals (KPIs) to give a proper direction to your ad campaigns.
The Importance of Keywords
Keywords are an essential part of AdWords, and your overall real estate marketing strategy.
If you want potential leads to find you, you must first identify exactly what people are looking for and target those keywords.
For a paid campaign, Google AdWords will provide what the hottest keywords in an area are. The cost is simple. The most popular keywords will cost you more but will generate you more leads.
If you are tight on budget, you can purchase broader keywords that will cost you less but will not generate as many leads.
The process of adding keywords is a step you take after you have created the ad. This is where you should ask yourself, “What are my leads looking for?” Since you are a realtor, you can easily think like a client here.
Understanding Google AdWords Keywords
AdWords offer three categories of keyword match: broad match, phrase match, and exact match.
Broad Match
In this case, Google will show your ad to people who not only look for your target keywords, but also to those that look for variations of it.
Let’s say you are targeting the following keyword: buy homes in Santa Clarita.
Your ad will show to people who use other words or phrases in addition to your keyword, like “cheap homes in Santa Clarita, California” or “the best time to by a home in Santa Clarita” or “top neighborhoods to buy a home in Santa Clarita.”
You must understand that a broad match, even when it will reach a broader audience, it is not targeted. This could be a problem since you are paying for an ad that people who are not even interested in real estate might see.
AdWords offers a “broad match modifier,” which is a feature that allows you to decide what keyword or keywords must be in the query for your ad to show up. You add a + sign in front of those words that you consider important, and that should lead to your ad.
In the above example, “buy homes in Santa Clarita,” if you place a + in front of +buy and +homes, then your ad will be shown to people who specifically type in those words.
Phrase Match
With this method, you can specify an exact phrase, which must be in a query for your ad to be shown. You do that by writing them in quotations.
For instance, if your phrase is “buy houses,” searches “buy houses near me,” or “buy houses in Santa Clarita” will see your ad.
Exact Match
This is even more specific as only searches with an exact phrase will see your ad. You set this up by writing the phrase in brackets.
Using our example, if you type [buy homes in Santa Clarita], your ad will only show for people who type in that exact phrase. Notice how, for this to work, you must be very knowledgeable about what are people typing in exactly.
Get more Specific with Negative Keywords
To get more relevant leads to see your ad, you can also add what keywords you do not want your ad to show up for. Negative keywords are crucial to targeting your campaign.
Negative keywords are those keywords you do not wish your ad to show up for. You can select these by adding a negative sign (-) in front of them.
This is especially useful if you have selected a broad match, and you work in a specific field of real estate. Let’s say you only work for residential real estate. You do not want people searching for commercial real estate to see your ad, so you write a negative sign in front of the word “-commercial.”
Negative keywords gain more value when you think of all the money you could be wasting with non-relevant viewers been shown your ad. For example, since you have the positive keyword “Santa Clarita” in your campaign, your ad may show up when they search for:
- Santa Clarita weather
- Santa Clarita location
- Santa Clarita diet
In these cases, you want to negative the words “-weather,” “-location,” and “-diet.” There is a list of keywords that you should negative in your campaign.
Which Feature will Work Best for You?
For starters, you may want to go with broad match. This provides more room for improvement and to better understand what works for you and what does not.
Once you have gained more knowledge of your potential clients, you can start sliding down into more specific targets.
Using exact match keywords, you take advantage of the intent. This intent is understood once you have become familiar with your market.
Once you understand Google AdWords correctly, you can tell where a lead is in the buying process and target them with the proper keywords based on that. This makes the platform very useful, so you must take advantage of that.
