If you’ve been blogging about real estate for a while then you already know what a great tool it can be. It’s easy to communicate your expertise on the current market trends in your area, and can also be a great place to offer general advice for those people not quite committed to buying or selling yet.
A blog can also be a great way to bring new people to your website. Most people will start their real estate adventure long before they’re committed to working with a specific agent by doing some simple Google searches, usually looking for market information or advice on when the best time is to buy or sell. If they stumble upon your website in this process and start reading your posts, they might move on to browsing for homes or requesting a home evaluation from you!
If you’re an avid blogger, you should always be thinking about Search Engine Optimization when you’re writing and posting. If your post appears high up in the right search, it could bring valuable leads to your website. Keeping these simple SEO tips in mind will help you get the most from search engines like Google and Bing.
1. Think About Titles
Every blog post should have a title, everyone knows that. But did you also know that the title you pick will appear in the permanent URL of your blog post? Or that the title of your blog post feeds into the important Meta Title tag (the title that appears at the top of your browser window)? Because what you title your post affects some key search engine ranking factors, it’s important to give it some extra thought.
What words are you using in your title? If you’re writing a post offering advice about selling a home during the Christmas season, you might be tempted to title it something amusing like “Ho Ho Hold the Decorations!” But before you click “publish”, put yourself in the shoes of someone trying to find this information. What phrase would you type into Google? Probably something like “Selling a Home at Christmas” right? Would you ever type in “Ho Ho Hold the Decorations” to find this information? What kind of information would you expect to find if you did type that phrase into Google?
Search engines like Google use the title to understand at a high level what the page – or in this case, the post – is about. Using amusing titles may make you smile, but if no one searches for the phrase “Ho Ho Hold the Decorations” no one will ever read your post! It’s always better to title your blog posts clearly and concisely, using words and phrases people might search for to find the kind of content you’re writing about.
2. Real Estate is a Location Game
Remember that every meaningful search done by people seriously considering buying or selling a home includes a location variable in the form of a city or community name. If you’re interested in buying a home in Edmonton, searching just for “homes for sale” won’t get you anywhere: you’ve got to look for “homes for sale in Edmonton” or “Edmonton homes for sale”.
In some cases, the city name isn’t enough: for example, if you’re moving to London, Ontario and do a search for “London real estate” you’ll quickly realize the search results are dominated by websites targeting people who live in London, England. In that case, it’s important to use both the city and province when searching for information.
When you’re writing blog posts on general topics like house hunting and negotiating, it’s easy to forget to add in this specific location information. But even though the process of negotiating a price might be exactly the same in Edmonton as it is in Calgary, at the end of the day, you want more people from your city to read your blog, because these people are more likely to convert into clients.
No matter what you’re blog post is about, always remember to sprinkle a few location-based keywords – three or four are more than enough – to keep your search ranking targeted.
3. Link to Your Website
Part of having a professional real estate blog is raising awareness about your services and expertise, and at the end of the day what you’re really after is conversions: you want someone to go back to your website and contact you in some way.
Not linking back to their real estate website is by far the most common mistake most agents make when they blog. Every single post should link back to your website, and ideally it should link to a specific page relevant to the topic you’re discussing in the post. For example, if you’re talking about how important it is to price a home correctly the first time, the best place to link back to is your Free Home Evaluation page, not your homepage. If you’re talking about househunting, link to a community search tool. If you’ve announced a new listing, make sure you link to the listing details page.
Also consider the words you’re using when you link. Instead of using the link text “click here”, use keywords relevant to page you’re linking to, such as “Calgary Home Evaluation” when linking to your market evaluation page or “Search Riverdale Edmonton Homes for Sale” if you’re linking to a community search in Riverdale. From the perspective of the search engines, your blog is a different entity than your real estate website, so linking back and forth can help both sites rank higher for these keywords.
If you’re not sure how to add links, check out the handy guide to adding links in blog posts we posted in our How To Series last week.
Interested in having Redman help you better strategize your blogging updates and Search Engine Optimization? Check out our ongoing Monthly Strategy Packages that can be used toward regular design, content and blog updates.
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