How to Develop a Local SEO Strategy That Connects with Your Market
The goal of SEO is to create more visibility for your online platform, drive more traffic to the platform, and convert more leads into lucrative real estate deals once people visit the platform. Whether it’s your website, social media page, or another site, your strategy begins by targeting your specified local market and attracting sellers in that area.
In the marketing world, this strategy is known as local SEO. It consists of a process designed to identify and attract your target audience. In this case, your target audience is home sellers that want to sell their houses directly to you for cash. Several key characteristics distinguish a local SEO strategy from a broader strategy. We cover some of these characteristics below and how you can use them to develop a powerful local SEO strategy.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO is the process of optimizing your real estate investment business for a search term or phrase that is specific to your local area. Search engines like Google use your location based on your device’s IP address or geolocation to determine what results to show in a search. For instance, when someone performs a local search for “sell my house fast for cash,” the search engine will display local businesses relevant to their location (hopefully yours).
Local SEO includes optimizing your real estate investment business's website for local search terms, as well as optimizing your company’s Google My Business page. So, you want to localize your company based on your primary location target. Ideally, a real estate company that buys houses in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, would optimize its business listings and platforms for that area.
How Do Local Search Engines Work?
Google discovers, understands, and organizes information on the Internet to present that information in response to a person’s search. Google retrieves information about your real estate businesses from sources such as
- Your Google My Business (GMB) listing
- Your company’s website
- Websites, directories, and platforms that list, mention, or link to your company
- Information the public submits to Google about your company like customer reviews
- Unconfirmed relationships with other local business data providers and indexes
Your GMB listing is something you submit to Google. In addition, Google performs two functions to rank your website.
- Crawling - Google searches the Internet for information about your company.
- Indexing - Google stores and organizes the information it finds about your company.
After crawling and indexing your site, Google ranks your site based on the information it finds. Google uses algorithms to rank the information it has indexed.
The goal of your marketing team is to demonstrate that Google should rank your business highly when someone searches for something relevant to what you offer. When Google decides a searcher’s query has a local and intent, and you have demonstrated that your business has the most relevant answer, local SEO can help you show up in the searches.
What Are SERPs in Local SEO?
Search engine results pages are web pages served to users when they search for something online using a search engine, such as Google. The user enters their search query using specific terms and phrases known as keywords. The search engine presents them with a SERP. Different types of SERPs include
- Google local packs
- Google business profiles
- Google local finders
- Google Maps
- Google organic results
Additionally, your business can appear in image, video, and shopping results if relevant to your business model. Your overall goal in investing time and money in local SEO will be to demonstrate to Google that you’re a good result to show to people searching for what you offer.
How to Optimize Your Business for Local Search Queries
Marketing teams spend countless hours developing local SEO campaigns that propel your real estate investment business above competitors. All of the strategies they incorporate in local SEO can be divided into three main categories:
Paid Ads
Paid advertising is highly popular with real estate investors due to its targeting capabilities. Paid ads can include search engine placement such as Google Ads or social media advertising like Facebook Ads. Paid ads help your company gain more visibility from qualified leads in your local market. Plus, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You can match your paid ad spending with your budget with greater ease and flexibility.
Organic Searches
While paid ads can help your business grow, the best search results are the ones you don’t have to pay for. These are known as organic search results. Organic search results occur when someone’s search term matches the terms in your web page’s content. The more search terms your page’s content matches, the higher you will rank in search results. For this reason, it’s important to adopt a solid content marketing strategy.
Google My Business (GMB)
Google provides an array of tools to help your real estate business get noticed. One of those tools is Google My Business (GMB), a local listing tool that allows you to provide details of your business including your exact location. GMB is highly effective in improving both your paid and organic searches.
Contact Magnyfi for Automated Lead Follow-Up Solutions
Magnyfi can help you get more qualified leads through Spark, our fully customizable lead generation tool. Learn more about how we can help you implement the Motivated Seller Prospects Marketing Program in your area.
To check the availability of your market, fill out our application form or contact us at 877-399-2259, and we will walk you through the process. We work with a limited number of real estate investors per market, so claim my market today.
