CHEM.agency has been an expert in the real estate SEO space since 2004, giving us unique and authoritative insight into what it takes for Realtors to succeed online.

Real Estate SEO can be overwhelming, but it’s a make or break factor in how successful your website becomes. Websites that do SEO well will see significant benefits to their lead generation, and to their business as a whole. That’s why SEO is critical for your real estate website!

This guide is made specifically for real estate agents and professionals who want to take a hands on approach to their SEO. While it will get into some complex subject matter, our guide skips the advanced technical explanations you’ll find in some generalist guides, and focuses instead on exactly what Realtors need to know about SEO.

If you’re hoping to increase your online presence and grow your real estate business, read on.

Why Do I Need Real Estate SEO?

Search engines connect people, like your potential clients, with the information they are looking for. The National Association of Realtors® estimates that 95% of people use a website as part of their home buyer journey. In fact, 99% of Millennials use websites at some point in their home buying search in 2016. (Source, pg 49.)

Those stats make it clear that most real estate agents need a website to succeed in today’s industry, but having a website is only just the beginning. The adage “if you build it they will come” does not apply in the online world. Instead, you have to build it, and then you have to ensure it is seen.

There are a few ways to drive traffic to your website, most of which follow a paid advertising or pay-per-lead model. By contrast, SEO focuses on building a website’s traffic without paying for advertisements. The goal is to have a site show up in the organic results, when users search for a related term. For example:

Search engine users are familiar with paid versus unpaid online sources, and tend to trust and choose natural results. In fact, up to 95% of all traffic goes to organic results (Source). That is some serious opportunity!

But search engines don’t always know which sites should receive all this traffic. We need to help them out with SEO, by creating great content and optimizing it in the search engines’ preferred format. Search engine optimization is the art and science of making a website rank better, increase its visibility, and gain more traffic. 

In a nutshell, you need SEO because you have to be seen where your buyers and sellers are looking online.