The business world is changing. With the advent of new innovations and technology, the traditional workplace is no longer as common as it once was. The “rat race” of the past 50 years has been replaced with the “gig” industry, populated by freelancers and work-when-you-want-to jobs. With this changing work culture, the professional service industries, including the real estate industry, are seeing a rise in both their relevancy and their demand.  Therefore, real estate SEO has never been more important. As the real estate industry increases in popularity, more and more businesses are being created, vying for a client’s attention. This increased competition is great for the client, but can be detrimental to your company, especially if it’s a small one. So how can you expand your company’s reach in such a crowded market? Marketing is an expensive endeavor. If you are running a small business, you may find yourself overwhelmed and outspent by the ad campaigns and marketing techniques of the real estate giants. The future, though, isn’t all bleak. The right guidance and information can make your company just as visible, if not more so, than the competition.

A Tried And True Method

Marketing experts will tell you that, currently, the most effective technique for increasing your client base is still word of mouth. What has changed throughout the years, however, is how that word of mouth is spread. No longer do real estate companies have to rely on friends or family to gain new clients. The advent of the internet, social media, and smart phones has increased the size of the community, from a neighborhood to the entire globe. Reviews and ratings are available to anybody with an internet connection.  When looking for a real estate company to work with, the majority will start with a Google search. Research over the past decade has shown most people will Google a company before they consider working with them. It has also shown that relatively few of these people will look past the first page of a Google search result. What does this mean for your company? In order to attract new clients and build your business, you need to ensure your company’s website appears high up on Google’s search list.

SEOs and SERPs

The most important terms in search marketing are SEO – search engine optimization – and SERP – search engine results page. These two factors are essential to increasing your company’s visibility and making it stand out from the very crowded real estate industry. Mastering these two concepts will help your business grow and thrive. The idea is simple: use SEO concepts to increase your place on SERPs. Theoretically, the more SEO avenues you use, the higher your website will appear on a SERP. There are other steps you can take to improve your SERP placement, such as making sure all your meta descriptions are filled out, or getting as many positive reviews as possible. But the traditional method of creating keyword-filled content to be recognized by Google’s search algorithm is still one of the best ways to increase your SERP placement.

Real Estate Industry Backlinks

A newer idea that has recently come to the attention of search marketers is backlinks. Backlinks is the idea of building organic connections to your website through other websites. An example would be having the website for your real estate company listed on realtor.org. The more links you have to your business’s website, the more people will be driven to it. You can create a backlink profile for your company in a few ways. The best methods for link building are dependent on the content you have. As a real estate business, SEMRush’s research has shown that professional (real estate industry) directories and general directories are the best places to have your website listed.

As you can see from the above graph, directories are considered to be the most reputable sources for real estate website hosting, although there are other avenues listed that are just as viable an option.

Further Information on Real Estate SEO

SEO and SERPs are the future of marketing. They will make your website, and your company, stand out in the crowded real estate industry. Having a great Google presence is vital to the growth of any real estate business. One newer, and fairly simple, way to increase your search engine presence is to have your website listed in many different places. The more places people can see your website, the more likely potential clients will head there, increasing your link clinks, and therefore, increasing your visibility. However, it is also necessary that the referring domains you are considering are reputable. A balance should be struck between those domains that are reputable, and those that are popular. As it is challenging to know where to begin listing your website, or which referring domains are the most relevant for your business, creating the perfect backlink profile can be difficult. But it doesn’t have to be. SEMRush has already done most of the work for you. They have analyzed over 2,000 different firms’ websites to determine which referring domains are the most valuable for your company. The chart shown above is just one of the many pieces of useful information they have aggregated, giving you an easy method for making your backlink profile. If you want to find out more about how to use backlinks to your advantage, thereby moving your real estate firm ahead of the marketing curve, check out SEMRush’s step-by-step instructions on how to best utilize backlinks to your advantage. By downloading their information, you will be able to build the perfect backlink profile for your real estate company.

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