The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Pages: A Basic SEO Guide

Ever wonder how a webpage makes it to the top spot in Google search results?

Is it magic? Strategy? A little bit of both?

There are hundreds of ways to make a page on your real estate website “search engine friendly,” ultimately ending up on the coveted first page — or even the top result.

But you’re busy helping home buyers and sellers with one of the most important transactions in their lives. Focusing on these hundreds of ranking factors means sacrificing your dedication to your clients. So, what do you do?

SEO, Not Magic, Is Key to Ranking #1 in Google

“Search engine optimization,” or SEO, is one of those terms that’s thrown around a lot in the digital marketing world. It’s how webpages end up on the first page of search results, be it in Google or Bing or another search engine.

As I mentioned before, there are hundreds of factors that contribute to a page’s performance in the search results, from keywords to the user experience. However, you only need to focus on seven SEO tips to get your website noticed by home buyers and sellers — your potential clients.

1 – A Compelling Title Tag and Meta Description

Most people, home buyers and sellers included, don’t want to spend hours digging for information online. They want to have it now.

To provide people what they want when they want it, search engines condense the information on your page into a brief overview, like this:

A title tag (the heading) and meta description (a two- or three-sentence explanation) summarize what’s on your webpage so that people can easily figure out if your content is what they need. The best of these SEO elements are short and eye-catching while still promising the information that people want.

Check out our post about real estate blogging to learn more about writing title tags and meta descriptions. (Don’t worry, these SEO tips work for creating webpages, too.)

2 – Content That’s Relevant and Useful

High-ranking pages don’t just have compelling title tags and meta descriptions. They also have content that people want to read.

Since most home buyers and sellers don’t live and breathe real estate, they want information from the expert — and that’s where you come in.

Give answers to frequently asked questions, write out a list of home staging tips, or outline the process to purchase or sell a property. If new developments are popping up left and right in your market area, consider creating a “crane watch” page.

Having a niche can catapult you over the competition. If you specialize in a certain community or type of property, offer information that buyers and sellers can’t find anywhere else. They’ll see you as a resource, and when they’re ready to act, they’ll come running to you.

3 – A Balance of Keywords and Conversational Writing

Write for people first.

It might seem like obvious advice, but writing directly to people who read your content will keep you focused on providing relevant and useful information.

When you try to stuff your page full of keywords in an attempt to rank #1 in the search results, you inevitably lose sight of your webpage’s purpose. Besides, Google doesn’t like it. Potential clients don’t like it, either.

Worried your writing isn’t good enough for your page to rank #1 in search engines? Don’t be afraid to put keywords in strategic places (the title tag, headings, etc.) when you go back and make edits. Alternatively, you can hire an SEO content writer to do it for you.

4 – A Balance of Text and Imagery

It’s official: goldfish have longer attention spans than we do.

Now that you have only eight seconds to grab a person’s attention, you need visual elements on your page to keep them engaged. Images, headings (which I’ll talk about in the next section), icons, links to relevant pages — heck, even short paragraphs — can keep a buyer or seller on your website.

Keep in mind that people are more likely to read your page on their phone or tablet. That means having a mobile-responsive real estate website is more important than ever.

5 – A Clear Path for Readers (and Google) to Follow

Think back to the days of writing essays for school. Teachers would encourage you to use outlines to break up your thoughts and effectively organize information.

Do the same when writing content for your website.

Use headings of different sizes (a Heading 1 is the largest and should be used only once), followed by supporting headings of size Heading 2 and Heading 3, on your pages to convey information quickly and succinctly.

6 – Links to Relevant Pages on Your Website

Home buyers and sellers who are in the “research” phase of the sales funnel soak up information like a sponge. The more you can provide them, the more they’ll be happy — and grow to see you as the expert they want to work with.

Let’s say you’re writing a blog post about how to stage a home. If you have pages already on your site about home selling and home staging, link to those to provide the readers with more information.

7 – Fresh Information

Remember, Google is all about relevant content. Based on how your page has performed in search engines (Google Analytics can help with this), continue to update the page by adding new information, removing outdated information, and including links to new content.

There’s More to a Successful Website Than SEO

Ranking well in Google is only half the battle. Highly effective pages on your website ultimately do the one thing that your real estate business needs to survive: rake in leads.

At Dakno, we don’t just help real estate agents with optimizing their webpages for search engines. We also provide them with the tools they need to drive traffic to their website and seamlessly capture and manage leads. Plus, our marketing retainers let agents add even more highly effective pages to their website to keep the leads coming in.

Talk to our Sales team, and we’ll show you some of our clients’ successful websites in action.