Driving Local Real Estate Leads With The Right Keywords

Are Zillow and Trulia enemies of real estate agents?

We think it’s time for real estate agents to reimagine their relationship with listing websites like Trulia and Zillow. Although they garner massive amounts of traffic due to their ease of use and statistics, they can never provide the personal expertise of a real estate agent.

As real estate agents already know, the homebuying process takes months - maybe even years! Buyers first explored the huge real estate websites for a general understanding of their potential new community; the buyer may be months from buying a house.

Once they get a general idea of the real estate landscape, the buyer turns back to Google and asks: “real estate agents in ___________.”

Are they finding you at that critical moment? Using the right keywords is essential for catching these local leads.

The Google Search Algorithm:

Google uses a special algorithm to rank websites on search queries. As Google matured they realized the pages with the best ranking contained mostly useless content jammed with a bunch of keywords. Learning from their mistake, Google now uses an algorithm that prioritizes quality content that answers real questions and is valuable to the reader.

What are the different types of keywords?

Keywords generally fall into the following three categories: Primary, Secondary, and Long-tail.

Primary: 2-5 keywords broadly describing your business and community. These will be the most popular and competitive terms, and should be used on every page of your website. If you’re just establishing an online presence, ranking with these terms will be very difficult, but it should be your eventual goal.

Example: Fort Myers Real Estate

Secondary: 3-5 slightly more precise keywords. These words will have less competition and should be used all across your website and on specific static or landing pages. Pursuing these words will result in drive qualified leads.

Example: Luxury Condos Fort Myers

Long-tail keywords: 4-6 PHRASES that are easy to rank and particularly relevant to your expertise. Use these to generate blog or website content, and sprinkle them around your website. Although the terms may not always seem relevant to the real estate business, the specificity of long-tail keywords result in nearly 70% of all website traffic. Example: Best Family Beaches in Fort Myers Florida

What are the essentials for good keyword usage?

Although there is no secret formula for creating the best keywords, follow these guidelines to generate keywords that drive local leads:

• Location: include your city, region, neighborhood, or community
• Content Labels: after generating a content idea, be sure to accurately describe what you are offering. Use words like plan, guide, study, introduction, steps, or how-to.
• Common terms: leverage your expertise with common search words to generate more web traffic
• Length: focus 3-5 of the most precise words, not a full sentence
• Service: Do you specialize in commercial real estate, homes, apartment, condos, foreclosures, or rentals? Accurately describe your service in your keywords

Ready to create more leads with your online marketing?

If you want more tips for creating and incorporating keywords into your website, our brand new ebook, the Beginner’s Guide to Inbound Marketing for Real Estate Agents, is exactly what you need! By using its keyword, optimization, and analytics tools, you’ll be generating more leads and creating more conversions in no time! Download it for free today!