Real Estate SEO

Archive for the ‘Real Estate Marketing’ Category

I received this inquiry from a real estate SEO client, and thought I would share my response -

Q: “I recently read an interesting pointer in Realtor Magazine regarding naming photos. It recommends taking care with image names and not to leave camera-coded numerical file names on the images – rather retitling with relevant words. It further claims Google will recognize the keywords associated with those images and direct consumers to your website. I wanted to ask what technique/strategy you would recommend when naming photos during the download process. I noticed that when I hold my cursor on the photos on our blog, the photo title is revealed. Any insight or guidance is appreciated.”

A: Yes, it is very important to re-name images when you upload an image to your real estate website or blog! This is known as image optimization, and it is similar to optimizing a blog post or web page. Search engines do crawl photos (i.e., when you conduct a Google Image Search) so it’s best to optimize the photos when you upload them. You can do this by using your SEO keywords whenever possible: in the title, alt. text, or description.

Take a look at the image below – which is a screen shot of an image upload on WordPress – to see the steps involved in optimizing an image:

It’s also important to make sure that the keywords you are using are relevant. If you have an image of a generic beach – Wesagussett Beach, for example – title it as such. Using one of your keywords that has nothing to do with the image such as “Weymouth Homes for Sale” will not help your rankings and will not drive the relevant traffic that you are looking for. Additionally, the image alternate text (alt. text) and descriptions should be relevant and accurate.

To give an example, if you have an interior kitchen photo of 1482 Elm Street, don’t name the image <1482ElmStreetKitchenWeymouth>

• Make sure that the words have spaces so the search engines can crawl them as words and not 1 giant keyword
• You can make a title that specific, but if you are looking to increase your SEO rankings, you can name it something like “Elm Street Interior Kitchen Weymouth Home”. That way, you have the specifics of what street it is on if people are searching for it, as well as one of your SEO keywords  (“weymouth homes”) incorporated into the title.

Writing blogs consistently and often is a great way for your website to get noticed by search engines. We recommend, and place our clients on, the WordPress platform, which is an easy to use posting system that provides tons of great features for SEO. So how do you get started?

We break down the basics of publishing a post here:

1) From your WordPress Dashboard, select “Posts” from the far left sidebar, then “Add New”

2) Write Your Content. This is where you will write all of your content. It’s important for your to take your keywords that you’ve researched (or that Boston Logic has given you!) and use them in your title, and as bold and links to relevant pages on your website in your content.

3) Add and Image. Once you’ve written your blog content, it’s optimal to break up your content for readers with an image: optimizing images are also a great opportunity for optimization, as well!

Right above where you write the body of your content you’ll see “Upload / Insert”. To upload an image, click the 1st rectangle shape. From here, a box will pop up where you click the “Select” button to choose an image to upload from your computer. Once it’s uploaded, you can optimize your image by adding Alt. Text and a Description that contain your keywords that are descriptive of your text – it also helps to have keywords in your Image Title.

You can also add a URL so that when a user clicks the image, they will land on a page of your website. If you are doing a featured listing and have an image of the apartment located in Boston, you can place the URL of the listing here so they can click to read more.

4) Tag and Categorize your post. Now that you’ve got the body of your post written, time to Tag and Categorize it. You can find both the Categories and Post Tags section on the far right of your “Edit Post” dashboard.

Your categories should be based on your SEO keywords that you’d like to rank for – select the checkbox next to the appropriate categories that your blog post fits into. These are more broad, and you should only add another category when you have a whole new topic with multiple blog posts.

Tagging allows you to be a bit more descriptive with your posts. Here, you can take the level of detail to describe your post to the next level. For real estate SEO for example, let’s say that you’ve written a Featured Blog on one of your properties in Back Bay, Boston. Check off the “Back Bay Apartments”, “Back Bay 2 Bedrooms”, etc. Your “Post Tags” are located right beneath your “Categories”.

5) Fill out the SEO pack. Depending on what version of WordPress you have, the All in One SEO Pack may be available. This is a great SEO tool that WordPress uses for you to describe your own content: add a Title, Description, and Keywords – and be sure to include yout SEO keywords that you want to rank for in all three sections.

Blogging is an important aspect of your real estate online marketing strategy, and takes a lot of work. Sign up for Boston Logic’s real estate SEO services today to help you blog consistently for website success!

After such an overwhelming positive response to our October post on QR codes, we’ve decided to write a follow-up blog post on QR codes and their role with online real estate marketing and how to implement them.

To refresh your memory, a QR (Quick Response) code is  a machine-readable 2D image, similar to a barcode.  They can be read by scanners or by applications on smart phones, which then directs the user to any URL that the QR code owner desires. And in the world of real estate, QR codes are becoming increasingly popular as a fast and easy way to connect online initiatives with offline marketing.  These codes make it much easier for people to visit your real estate website or individual property listings directly from their smartphones. And using sophisticated Google Analytics software, which we at Boston Logic utilize for our real estate SEO client campaigns, you can for the first time track the effectiveness of a print campaign!

Here are a few ideas on how to incorporate QR codes into your real estate marketing strategy:

• QR Codes On Sign Riders. Adding a Quick Response code to your sign rider can be a fast and convenient way for buyers to get additional information about the home while standing in front of property for sale. This makes the problem of running out of property flyers a thing of the past, as you can create QR codes that direct the user to a detailed website with photos, comprehensive descriptions, and even view documents on the property.

• Property flyers. Property flyers themselves are a great tool to utilize a QR code. You can direct potential buyers back to your real estate website for more information, additional pictures, documents and even the virtual tour.

• Event or Open House Information. Do you frequently blog about or feature on your website open houses for your available properties? You can make this content more available and drive more traffic to these web pages and posts by having a QR code direct to these pages on any of your marketing materials, such as post cards. – You can create a QR code to provide additional information about upcoming events or even directions and the date and time for an open house.

These are just 3 of the many ways to utilize QR codes to make real estate print advertising clickable. Not only do they direct users to the information they are looking for while browsing for properties, but it will also gain much appreciation from your sellers as a viable real estate online marketing tactic.

Getting started with Quick Response codes for real estate is easy, and can be done in a matter of steps! Here’s the process to help you get started:

1) Get a QR Code generator. While there are many to choose from, we find that QRreateBuzz is highly recommended due to its superior tracking capabilities. For a quick start, you can also visit qrstuff.com.
2) Download QR Code Reader. To read the QR codes that you generate, you’ll need the QR code reader app on your smart phone. You can find the app by going to your iTunes account for download.
3) Get organized. Pick the properties you’d like to get started marketing with your QR codes. Make sure you have appropriate landing pages, then generate the code accordingly.

Have you utilized the power of QR code real estate online marketing? We are always eager to hear your results!

In a recent research webinar presentation from Hubspot on Inbound Marketing, one of the most impressive data revelations was the amount of leads that corresponded to the amount of blogging the company did.

As you can see from the graph below, the numbers are quite impressive – those who blog daily receive 89% more leads than those who only blog once a month (49% customer acquisition). These numbers also happen to back up what we always tell our real estate SEO clients: blog consistently and regularly! It can sometimes be difficult to get clients to blog at least once a week, but when you blog once a month, not only does it not impress the visitors that come to your site, but you will also get less leads. And we know that leads for real estate brokers and agents is extremely important.

This also begs the question, “But HOW can we blog multiple times per day?” It’s really a matter of getting into routine and a mindset. Make a time commitment to blog as soon as you wake up, or to blog when you get home from work – and make it fun. You’re the expert: blog about what you think your clients want to read about while assuring your expertise as a real estate agent or brokerage.

Blogs also don’t have to be lengthy books of content and text: in fact, users prefer smaller blogs which contain helpful information for them. Being in real estate, consider the amount of questions you get from buyers and sellers: if these are in email form, you can literally copy and paste their question and response into your blog – done!

Blogging and real estate SEO are as easy as ever with our Sequoia real estate websites and integrated WordPress blogging system. If you are interested in a new real estate website or wish to inquire about our SEO services for your real estate website or blog, contact Boston Logic today!

Good Luck!

Graph Source: The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing, Hubspot

While working with one of our real estate marketing clients earlier this week, we were trying to get them on a consistent blogging schedule. As a brokerage, the contact I was working with was going to assign agents to blog for the main company at least twice a week – which is exactly what we recommend for new real estate SEO clients.

In doing this, the client wanted to pass along information on blogging without overwhelming the agents. She was wondering if there was some sort of “blogging format” to follow while writing, and I composed one for her and thought it made great content for a blog post of our own!

Blogging is easy to do, but if you are not experienced with it, it can be helpful to have some sort of simple structure to follow as you get started. I’ve made this outline that you can reference for the next time you blog for your company: and for you veteran bloggers, it may be helpful to check this out and make sure you are following these blogging best-practices!

Simple Blog Post Format

1. Title of Blog Post. This should be accurately reflecting the text to follow, and you should try to use one of your SEO keywords if possible.

2. Intro Paragraph. This is where you introduce the topic of your post. If you are writing about an article you’ve read, cite the reference here, write the reason you are writing the post, or why the content is relevant to your expertise or market.

3. Blog Content: 2-3 Paragraphs. This is the meat of your blog post. Here is where you elaborate more about the topic that you’ve introduced with your blog title and intro paragraph. Optimize the content with your  SEO keywords wherever possible, create internal links to other places on your website, and include relevant information and facts to assert yourself an expert in your field of real estate. Also include links if your reader needs to go somewhere else to read more information, such as an MLS listing on your website to read more.

Important: DO NOT copy and paste anything from the internet! Google punishes duplicate content on websites – you must re-purpose the content to make it unique in your blog post. Wikipedia articles are not your friend.

4. Add an image to break up your text. All blog posts should contain at least one image to help break up your text content and make it appealing to readers. Pull an image related to your text: for example, if you are writing about a featured property, pull an attractive picture from its MLS listing. It is also great for SEO to optimize your images: place keywords in the image title, alt text, and description of your image – bonus points if you can make the image a clickable link to a relevant page on your website.

5.    Conclusion. Here is where you add a personal note of conclusion to the content you have written. Here is a great place to write your opinion on your topic…why did you write this blog post? What does the reader have to learn from it? How does this content relate back to you and your business?

6.    Call-To-Action. Now that you have written this great blog post and have credited yourself as an expert in your field, give yourself the credit and include your contact information. Back to the featured property blog post example, a sample call to action would be: “Interested in finding your next home in Boston, Massachusetts? Contact John Smith of Boston Logic Realty today!” Here you can include a link to your direct email address so that potential leads may contact you.

And that’s it!

Ready for a sample call-to-action?

As a real estate web design and online internet marketing company, Boston Logic can assist you in all aspects of running and maintaining your real estate business. Contact Boston Logic today to find out how to make the most out of your online presence with our real estate SEO services and cutting-edge real estate website technology.