The 8 Newest Real Estate SEO Trends You Need To Know In 2023

What is SEO for real estate agents, and how can it grow your business? As Google continues to update its algorithms, there are several new trends you should know about to stay ahead of the game.

You’re likely already familiar with the basic concepts of SEO, but if not, we’ll cover these as well as explore eight trends you should be aware of for 2021.

What is SEO?

You’ve probably heard a lot about how SEO for real estate agents is a crucial component to successful business growth. So what is it exactly?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  Basically, SEO consists of different techniques and actions you can take to tell Google what your website and content is about. When Google gets a better sense of your website’s purpose, credibility, and legitimacy, you will end up ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).

If you want to get serious about growing your online presence and increasing your traffic, brand awareness, and brand authority, then you need SEO.

Google’s algorithms are smart, and they are updated over time. For this reason, staying on top of your SEO strategy is essential if you want to improve your ranking or maintain your current one.

In addition, SEO is relevant to all aspects of your online presence. SEO comes into play on your website, blogging for real estate, YouTube, and other social media.

How Do You Implement SEO?

Valuable Content

First and foremost, the key to good SEO for real estate agents is to provide valuable content for your audience. You can’t just rank number one on Google for the sake of ranking number one. Your content will only rank if people find it valuable. 

Your real estate content should provide solutions to their problems and give your expert advice as a Realtor. When you share your professional advice, you also gain authority in your industry.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO consists of everything you can control on your own site, such as keywords, linking, and meta information.

You are probably familiar with the idea of including keywords throughout your content and titles. Generally, a good rule is to use the keyword four times for every 1,000 words in your post. For YouTube, include it a few times in the video description. In addition, it should always appear in the first paragraph.

Linking is important for creating your site’s structure. A good site structure helps Google’s algorithm navigate your site, provides a greater user experience, and factors into your site’s legitimacy. It can also help Google create sitelinks for your site in the SERPs.

There are two types of links: internal and external. Internal links are to other pages or posts on your own site, while external ones link to outside sites. When linking to external sites, be sure you choose a site that has a good domain authority score, otherwise Google might think you are linking to a spammy site.

Also, keep an eye out for broken links and be sure to fix them or redirect them to the appropriate page. There are tools you can find online that can help you analyze your site structure and find any broken links.

Lastly, you should optimize your meta information to maximize the benefits of SEO. To do this, you can include your keyword in the post or page URL, meta description, image titles, and image alt text. This will make it easier for Google’s bots to crawl your site and understand what your content is about.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO is slightly more complicated and involves you reaching out to other sites. The most significant factor for successful SEO is backlinks.

Backlinks are links from other sites to yours. When you have a lot of high-quality backlinks, Google will view your site as more helpful and authoritative, and will increase your ranking as a result.

You can reach out to sites and ask them to link to you. For example, suppose you find a post about Facebook Lead Ads for real estate, and you have a helpful infographic on your website that you think would be helpful. In that case, you can email the post author and ask them to link to the infographic because it will benefit their audience.

8 SEO Trends You Should Know in 2021

1. Google Answer Boxes and Feature Snippets

A recent trend in SEO for real estate agents is related to the feature snippets and answer boxes that appear on the first page of Google. While these features have been around for a while, there has been a greater emphasis on them recently.

If you create content that is optimized for these features, it could drastically improve your authority and ranking. A good way to do this is through keyword research.

2. Address On Google Maps

Embedding a Google Map on your website that shows your businesses’ address can help improve your SEO. When Google can confirm your location, they can better provide that information to your audience on your Google business page, as well as verify your site’s legitimacy. 

3. Blog Comments

Blog comments, both on your site and others, are a great tactic for helping your SEO and boosting traffic. Comments left on your own site show Google that there is activity and traffic on your site, which can improve your ranking. When you comment on other popular blogs in your niche, you can draw traffic to your blog and demonstrate your authority and knowledge. 

4. Reviews and Testimonials

Getting good reviews is important for your business in general, but it also affects your off-page SEO. When you get reviews on sites like your Google business page, Facebook page, website, and Yelp, Google will see that your website is popular and helpful. As a result, your site will start climbing up the SERPs.

The more reviews you have, the higher you will rank. However, this doesn’t mean you should go for quantity over quality. In the end, it’s better to have less high-quality, detailed, and authentic reviews than a lot of short, spammy ones.

5. Stay On Top of Your Brand Mentions

Set up a Google Alert to monitor any mentions of your brand online. The purpose of doing this is to build backlinks and make sure information about your business is accurate. For example, if you see that a blog mentions one of your posts but does not link to it, you can contact the author and ask them to include the link.

Also, you should monitor online business directories, especially local ones, to make sure that your business information is correct. If you see your address or phone number listed incorrectly, be sure to fix these immediately. Google verifies their information with these directories, so you want to make sure that your information is accurate.

6. Page Load Speed

Page load speed, especially on mobile, is critical for SEO for real estate agents. Mobile-friendly sites are receiving greater attention from Google lately, so you need to be sure your website is optimized to work well on a smartphone. If you have a long load speed, Google can penalize your site and drop your ranking.

To get a faster load speed, you can condense your image file sizes, turn videos into pop-ups instead of embedding them directly on the page, and delete any plugins that are slowing down your site. You can find tools to help you analyze and fix your page load speed.

7. Google Web Vitals Update

In 2020, Google introduced the Web Vitals update to its algorithm. This update aims to improve the user experience and presents three metrics to help you do so.

• First Input Delay measures the interactivity on your website and assigns it a score. 
• Largest Contentful Paint tracks your website’s overall loading performance, which is why it’s so crucial to have a fast loading speed. 
• Cumulative Layout Shifts measures visual stability on your site.

8. Local SEO

An important aspect of SEO for real estate agents going into 2021 is local SEO. Local SEO is great for small businesses, including real estate. This means focusing more on trying to rank high in local search results for your area. A localized approach can drive traffic, increase brand awareness, and increase the amount of high-quality leads for your business. 

Final Thoughts on SEO For Real Estate Agents

These eight SEO trends are especially important to focus on as you work to grow your real estate business in 2021. Remember that SEO for real estate agents is an ongoing process. 

Rankings can change over time, so just because you make it to the first page of Google doesn’t mean your job is done! It will only be more critical to stay on top of Google’s updates in the future so that you can be sure your website is continually optimized for success.

What SEO techniques are you currently using? Which ones do you plan to try out? Let me know in the comments below!