Every agent wants to generate more online leads consistently but not everyone has the time and resources to instantly improve their local SEO strategy. A better solution would be committing yourself to small regular SEO tasks and gradually develop them into habits that would bring you measurable gains. Here’s how to simplify your SEO strategy and stop overwhelming yourself with search engine optimization work.
How to simplify your local SEO strategy
1) Do a small on-page SEO task every day
Properly optimized properties, pages, posts and images mean a lot if you want to rank high. In fact, on-page factors are one of the most important rankings signals search engines use. It’s challenging to optimize multiple site properties at any one time so it’s important to optimize things as you go.
To do so, you’ll need a well-researched list of keywords (use keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner to find broader queries and check out how to find hyperlocal ones). That done, you may use this checklist to go ahead with your on-page SEO work:
[Related post: Get on the Map: 23 Brilliant Ways to Master Local Real Estate SEO]
2) Optimize your website for mobile
For local businesses like brokerages, a huge volume of searches comes from mobile devices. Mobile-friendly websites provide a better user experience and rank higher. In fact, check out your data and you’re most likely to find out that the majority of your own traffic comes from mobile devices.
*Stats taken from Understanding Consumers’ Local Search Behaviour survey by Google
If you’re not sure whether your website is optimized for mobile, you can run Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and use insights from your Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) account to fix the issues.
[Related post: How Proximity Is Changing Local Real Estate SEO and Why It’s Important]
3) Reach out for an online review each day
Google, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter – people are sharing their experiences of being your customer and what they say really matters. Both people and search engines take online reviews as an important factor signaling whether you can be trusted. In fact, 68 percent say positive customer reviews make them trust a business more, even without visiting their website. And most importantly, the more reviews, the better:
*Stats taken from 2015 Local Consumer Review Survey by BrightLocal
Commit yourself to reach out to at least one customer each day to ask for a review. Here’s some additional reading on what to do with your reviews next: Real Estate Agent Reviews: Are You Missing the Crucial Ingredient?
4) Get citations
Provided that all other factors are equal, real estate websites with more citations rank higher than the ones with fewer.
An example of a citation is a listing in a local yellow pages directory, even if it doesn’t link back to you. Likewise, other examples of popular citation sources are:
- local, national and international business directories;
- local chamber of commerce website;
- convention and visitor bureaus;
- local business associations websites;
- tourism authorities websites;
- local media websites, etc.
Here’s a quick guide to enhancing your local SEO strategy with citations: Struggling with Local Real Estate SEO? Ramp It Up with Citations
5) Earn local backlinks
Link building is a very time-consuming process. Moreover, the results are not always instant so many agents give up on the idea, focusing on other parts of the local SEO strategy instead.
Reaching out to get featured in the national media is hard and you have no way of knowing when it’ll happen. But there are other promising areas you can focus on, and local link building is one of them. If you have a variety of links pointing back to your site from local websites, search engines get to know that your business is all about that particular area. In other words, you’ll see yourself ranking higher for a bunch of your important local keywords.
For more info, refer to this guide: SEO for Real Estate: a Definitive Guide to Local Link Building
6) Blog permanently
It may be challenging for an agent to blog each day but it’s important to build your blogging or guest blogging routine and stick to it.
Blogging has many benefits you can’t afford to miss out:
- driving traffic;
- converting traffic into leads;
- boosting your local SEO strategy and rankings;
- strengthening your social media presence;
- building you a reputation of a go-to local expert.
If you’re not sure what to blog about, here are some ideas to get started: 7 Types of Real Estate SEO Content That Make an Exceptional Blog
7) Craft ads that are locally relevant
As a real estate agent, you’re probably using ads to gain your properties more exposure. The research by Google revealed that customers find very specific, hyperlocal online ads to be worth clicking on:
- 67% of smartphone users prefer ads with info about city and ZIP code, and 61% want ads customized to their immediate surroundings;
- 61% of customers use the phone number or address from the ad.
- 68% use call-to-actions, like the “Call” or “Get Directions” buttons.
*Stats taken from Understanding Consumers’ Local Search Behaviour survey by Google
[Related post: Facebook Ads for Real Estate: New Benchmark Data to Watch in 2017]
What’s next?
Trying to embrace all aspects of a local SEO strategy is confusing for a busy real estate professional. Simplify things by committing to an easy routine that won’t take much time but yield quick results.
