How to Use the Best Keywords for Your Real Estate Website

When you think of the best leads your website can generate, are they from people looking for real estate somewhere in your state, region, or city? State and regional leads are too broad and could result in someone looking for listings in Miami, Florida when you do business in Jacksonville. Sure, you might get a referral, but it’s not a closed deal and a life-long client, is it?

To make sure the right people are visiting your real estate website and the leads generated are strong, you want to use good local keywords to help people who want to buy or sell real estate in your area find you.

Getting Local with Keywords

Do you sell California real estate or do you sell Sacramento real estate? Or, do you sell luxury real estate on McKinley Boulevard? When someone opens up a search engine and looks for real estate, which one would be the most useful to your real estate business? The best way to be found on a search engine for the actual real estate you sell is use to right keywords throughout your website and in your blog content.

What kinds of keywords will help someone find you based on the area you sell the most? Try a few of these:

• Subdivision names – You can create entire blog pieces or videos on individual subdivisions
• School district names and school names – Focus on the best schools in your local area and name them within your content
• Neighborhood information – In the Tampa Bay, Florida area, there are dozens of smaller neighborhoods, townships, and cities. Being found for “Tampa Bay” is less meaningful than someone looking for (and finding you) in Safety Harbor, Brandon, or Ybor City.
• Special events in the local area – Each month or quarter, write a blog post about special events going on in your area. You’ll be able to name the event, the town it’s located in, and other local information
• Local businesses – Feature or partner with local businesses and mention them within your website and blog. You’ll both benefit from the extra exposure when someone searches for that business or type of business in your local area.

You don’t just sell real estate in your state or even your city. You sell in specific neighborhoods, condominium buildings, or streets. Using keywords that focus on your local area in different ways will help raise your visibility in search engines when someone types in a search for “best school in Boise” or “moving to Paris, Texas” or wherever you do business.

Use Keywords Naturally – Don’t Stuff Them in Every Nook and Cranny

While there are plenty of tricks for using keywords in meta descriptions and tags throughout your website, when it comes to writing blog content, there’s one main rule to follow:

Don’t keyword stuff.

This is a small thing that has big consequences. When you “stuff” keywords into your content – throwing in a “Whispering Trails neighborhood” or “Bay County schools” at random just to help your search engine rankings – you make your blogs unreadable. The content doesn’t make sense to the person who found your blog post and hoped to learn something new about that neighborhood or school. You’ll lose a lead long before they’re willing to share their contact information with you.

To top it off, you’ll make Google unhappy. It might not sound like much until they downgrade your search engine ranking for keyword stuffing, meaning no one can find you when they search using your specific keywords. Keeping Google happy isn’t a bad thing. Making them angry can hurt your business online.

Make sure your real estate website is found for what you actually sell by creating content with the right keywords for your specific business. Get local when you write blog posts or make videos, give visitors to your website good information about the local area, and know that when you get a lead, it’s most likely from someone who wants to live in the area you work.