Take Your Own Advice -- Local Search for Real Estate Marketing

Realtors should be all too familiar with the old adage: Location, location, location. You may even find yourself saying this when giving advice to your clients. However, when it comes to real estate marketing, this may be a nifty piece of advice that you should be taking yourself! With industries that are location specific, such as real estate, it is crucial to target your ideal clients with local search marketing. This form of online real estate marketing helps realtors “zero in” on their niche by targeting their marketing efforts towards a very specific geographic location. Instead of trying to get exposure for a large area, realtors should more clearly define their domain and become an authority within.
To optimize your website for local search, follow these guidelines:

On Page SEO.

Your inbound marketing campaign should already be focusing on specific keywords within your website. With real estate marketing that is specifically local, you’ll need to optimize your page with “local” keywords. Make sure these keywords are in your title, Meta and image tags. You should also have several pages of local content that is optimized with your keyword as well as including optimized images and video for your specified area.

Off Page SEO.

To start gaining local search exposure, you’re going to have to set up your company on a variety of search engines. Try the following 4 practices to set up your off page SEO.

1. Set up your account on Google Places: Click here to submit your business info, address, contact information, photos and details. You can specify your exact location by listing the specific cities you serve or designate your area as X miles from a central point. To verify, Google will send a postcard to the physical address. This free service with Google will help keep your business showing up when potential clients are looking for a realtor that deals specifically within a certain area. This step is especially important for real estate marketing because Google is one of the most popular search engines—every day Google answers more than one billion questions from people worldwide!
2. Set up your account on Bing Local Business: Much like with Google, you will have to submit all of your business details. Make sure to use those same geo-specific keywords we talked about to define your niche. You can set up your real estate company via Bing by clicking here. 
3. Link building: You will also want to have your real estate company listed in several different local business directories. When search engines see multiple quality links leading to your site, they will tend to rank your website higher. Some local business directories will cost, although you can find some that are free. Get more bang for your buck by being listed on directories with a high page rank and that have fewer business listings on a given page. 
4. Set yourself up to be reviewed: There are many free local business review sites (such as yelp) where you can set up your company. After that, your clients can then leave reviews on the quality of your services. Many businesses shy away from doing this in the fear that they will receive a negative review. However, do not let this deter you. The important thing to remember is to respond to as many reviews as you can, especially if they are negative, to engage in a professional manner with your clients. Thank them for the review, apologize, explain how the situation has been ameliorated and appease them however possible. Real estate marketing depends on responding to these reviews to assure your clients that your services continue to be best that they can be. 

Target your real estate marketing to a specific area to receive more quality leads and traffic. Create a niche for yourself in a certain area and become an authority in your field. Take some time to tweak your local internet marketing and then sit back and watch your leads come flooding in!

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