Vancouver has one of the most unique real estate markets on the planet. As a real estate professional, you’re always looking for qualified leads who are actively searching for homes in your area.
Improving your local SEO is a huge boon for these efforts. 99% of millennials use search engines when looking for real estate – the number for other generations isn’t far behind. You want your name to be the first one in the search results when they’re looking for real estate. We’re here to help.
The following 5 SEO Tips will improve your ranking in Google and other search engines for Vancouver-based real estate searches. They’re all free, simple to implement, and effective. Let’s dive in:
Set Up Your GMB
We don’t bury the lede – this tip comes first because it’s the most important. If you only take one thing away from this article, let it be how important Google My Business (GMB) is for local SEO.
Setting up your GMB is incredibly simple, and it’s completely free. GMB is Google’s business directory, and participation in the GMB service grants you the possibility to show up in some very powerful search results.
That’s the result I get when I Google “vancouver real estate agent”. Note that I can see reviews, the real estate agent’s address, phone number, hours of operation, and more. You cannot be a part of these results (known as the 3-Pack) without a GMB, and they are some of the most visually compelling search results you can get on Google.
To set up your GMB, go to the Get Your Business on Google page and follow the steps. You’ll need to input information about your business category (real estate agency or real estate agents is usually best), and upload some photos of your business. We have a complete guide to GMB in Vancouver, so if you need more guidance, check it out.
Optimize Your Title Tags
Title tags dictate three things: how links to your page will display on search engines, the title you’ll find in your browser’s tab, and how links will display in social media. These links are the first thing your clients are liable to notice, so optimizing them is essential.
When crafting title tags, you’re balancing two things: keywords (for SEO) and copy (to attract prospective clients).
Exactly how you’ll craft your title tags will depend on the content you’re titling – it’s always best to write content first, then create a title. You’ll want to front-load keywords (that you’ve found through keyword research), focusing on both primary and long-tail keywords.
An example will help. Let’s say you identify “Surrey homes” as a keyword. You create an article about the most beautiful homes in Surrey. Your title tag should have “Surrey homes” very near the front, like:
10 Surrey Homes That Will Blow Your Mind
Better yet, include some long-tail keywords, like “Surrey homes for sale”. You might then create an article like:
10 Surrey Homes For Sale at Unbelievable Prices
This enables you to rank for a lot of terms; Google might recognize keywords like “Surrey homes”, “Surrey homes for sale” and “Surrey home prices”, while all your clients see is an enticing title.
We’ll delve deeper into the kinds of content you should create in the content creation section. For a deeper dive into title tags, check out our Guide to Title Tags in Vancouver.
Local Citations
Local citations consist of any online records of your business name, address, and phone number – for this reason, they’re often called NAP citations.
You need to have a number of accurate NAP citations across the web, or search engines will have a hard time verifying that you have an active business with a physical location.
In Vancouver, it’s especially important to pay attention to the address. You don’t want your city listed as Vancouver when you’re in North Vancouver. I know that can be confusing for out-of-towners, but the SEO benefit of accurate NAP citations far outweigh any confusion from potential buyers.
When we look at citations, we have two primary goals: increasing the number of citations, and correcting existing citations. For the first goal, we turn to business directories.
Make sure your real estate business is listed with the most important directories: GMB, Facebook Business, and Yellow Pages. Other directories, like Yelp, are also incredibly important to list with, as well. There are also a number of online tools to help you increase your citations, like BrightLocal’s Citation Builder – you’ll have to pay to automate citations, though.
Correcting citations is something you can do yourself – check out our Guide to Local Citations in Vancouver for a complete look at how to do this for free. Again, BrightLocal has a paid tool for this, in the form of their Citation Tracker.
Create Content
Your website is only as good as its content. Fortunately, real estate professionals in Vancouver have a lot of options when it comes to content creation. We’re going to focus on two: location pages and blogs.
Location is as important in SEO as it is in real estate. Search engines care deeply about where their clients are making searches. Your clients want to be sure you know the neighbourhoods they’re interested in buying in. Location pages marry these two concepts together.
You’ll want to build a location page for any neighbourhood you’re active in. In those location pages, you’ll want to talk a lot about the character and landmarks of the neighbourhood. Given your profession, this is something you’re already naturally inclined to do.
Let’s say you’re building a location page about the West End. Your natural instinct is going to be to talk about the neighbourhood’s proximity to Stanley Park. That’s a good instinct. You’ll want to mention Davie Village. That’s another good instinct. Basically, bring up whatever makes a neighbourhood unique and attractive to prospective buyers on your location page, and you’ll be doing yourself, your clients, and search engines a service.
Blogs are another great way of boosting your SEO while showcasing your local knowledge. You might create a guide to the architectural styles in Burnaby, or a showcase of the 10 most beautiful homes in West Vancouver.
No matter what you blog about, be sure to blog every week, and focus on things relevant to both real estate and Vancouver. Your blogging should also be grounded in keyword research.
Craving more information on how to craft incredible content for Vancouver? Check out our Guide to Vancouver Content Creation.
Get Backlinks
Now that you’ve crafted incredible content, you’ll need to get other websites to link to your content. These links provide a signal to search engines that your content is of a high enough quality that other websites want to direct their users to it.
Not all links are equal, mind you. Optimally, you’ll want to get links from well-respected websites. Getting a link from a paper like The Province is incredible. A link from a blog like Inside Vancouver is also going to give you a huge boost. You can use Ahrefs’s Authority Checker to get a better idea of how powerful a link from a given website will be.
Follow all these steps, and you’ll see improvements in how well your website ranks. From there, you should get more clients who are actively searching for real estate in Vancouver. Those will be highly-qualified leads – we’re sure you’ll do great things with them! For more Tips check our this article.
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