Let’s start with the basics: SEO is short for search engine optimisation, a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results.
SEO For Estate Agencies encompasses the technical and creative elements needed to:
Today’s estate agents cannot wait for people to walk into their branch and, with such massive competition, previous clients are often just not that loyal anymore. There are plenty of choices when it comes to choosing which estate agent to single out.
Until the end of the images in the screenshots, you can see that:
Even the best-ranking ones will most likely appear “below the fold”, meaning that you’d have to scroll down to view them.
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Let’s look at a typical Google page.
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What keywords should estate agents rank for?Looking at the keyword search data, we know that the most searched phrases are not necessarily the ones that will generate better ROI. Generally, the lower search phrases are much more targeted. Estate and letting agents often have an idea of the most popular search terms their prospective customers are inputting into Google, only to find out that they may have been targeting the wrong ones. For example, “estate agents west London” is a higher search volume phrase – great if you need tenants or buyers. However, search phrases like “estate agents TW1” or “estate agents Twickenham” might have a lower search volume but are much more targeted. A good SEO strategy would include a dedicated landing page for the main area of “west london” as well as dedicated landing pages for each of the sub-areas within west London. Long-tail keywords in SEO for estate agentsIn the property industry, within search, there are very descriptive phrases and questions like, “What is it like to live in Chiswick” or “Why Teddington is the best place to live?” or “2 bedroom flat in Ealing for sale”. We dedicated a specific article to what are long-tail keywords and why they convert more. It is advisable to build your website with this type of content: these phrases are lower in search volume but ranking highly for them is more achievable. People like asking questions or being more descriptive in their searches nowadays. We all like to use Google – not only because it’s simple but it returns the result that we were looking for (most of the time). For example – If you are looking for an estate agent in Brentford and you type in ‘Estate agents Brentford’ or “Properties to rent in Hammersmith and Fulham“, Google will return the most relevant website. In order to be the most relevant, you must have a page about that search term to at least give you a chance to rank. A first page ranking for your local branch town is possible. Local area guides and local information is key to this and making sure your website is a hub for local information. Would you sell your home with an estate agent that does not talk about your village or town on their website? |
Challenges with SEO for estate agentsAppearing under property-related search can be tricky for quite a few estate agents as most use a live feed to the portals. However, we know that by sending all stock to your website first, Google won’t be seeing duplicated content. Creating a clean URL structure with road and postcodes within the property listing is also a key ranking factor. Google wouldn’t understand just numbers and special characters, which would make it very hard to rank. Helping Google rank a page
are some of the many on-page variables of a page visible to Google’s algorithms. Being experts in search and SEO, we know exactly which searches work and what doesn’t. Imagine a funnel of keywords put into a system: some lead to calls, some lead to sales and some don’t and could waste budgets quite easily. Unfortunately, choosing the wrong keywords will inevitably lead to limited results. Local SEO for estate agents and letting agentsWe wrote a blog on Google maps for local businesses, which for estate agents and letting agents is a very powerful (and free) tool for local SEO to be used. Be warned however that duplication of multiple branches is a common issue for many estate agents. Pulling everything together and merging pages would be our first key recommendations for starting a brilliant SEO campaign for estate agents. Having consistent N-A-P (name, addresses, phone numbers) in local business directories is fundamental too. For example, a lot of estate agents have high street branches which could have the address of 23-25 High Street. On the estate agents’ website, this could read right, but across a directory like Yell, it could read 25 High Street. This will confuse Google and is not good practice as Google will lose confidence and contribute negatively to your ranking factors. |
Some data for you to considerSEO is a data-driven science, so here are some figures for you to conclude.
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Let’s dive into a tailored SEO strategy designed to boost your estate or letting agency’s online visibility.
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