Best SEO Tips for Real Estate Investors

Every advantage counts in the cut-throat world of real estate investing. While you spend countless hours cultivating relationships with motivated sellers and scouting for hidden gems such as abandoned or vacant properties in your market, what if a constant stream of qualified leads flowed directly to you?

Meet SEO (Search Engine Optimization): a seasoned real estate investor’s preferred tool for generating high-quality, motivated prospects without the cold-calling grind.

SEO for real estate investors enhances a website’s visibility in Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

Do Real Estate Investors Need SEO?

Much like you proactively seek distressed property sellers and other such leads, these individuals are also actively searching for you.

These motivated leads, scour the Internet for solutions real estate investors provide; they represent a valuable audience and SEO can help you tap into them effectively.

Put simply, cold-lead nurturing involves chasing individuals, while SEO attracts them to your doorstep.

You become the solution to their search, appearing prominently in Google’s results pages just when they need you most.

Key benefits of SEO for REI websites include its capacity to generate motivated leads, establish brand authority, and deliver a high return on investment (ROI) in the long term.

How Does SEO Work for Real Estate Investors?

A website with effective SEO has many of its web pages appearing higher up in the SERPs. For instance, a cash buyer’s real estate investing (REI) brand website operating in Texas might have many of its pages appearing in search results when prospective clients run queries like:

• Sell my house fast in Texas
• Buy vacant property quickly in Texas
• Sell Texas house for cash
• Best Texas cash buyer for foreclosed property

These are examples of search queries used by individuals seeking solutions to specific problems, such as offloading a property quickly. Often, searches will be variations of these examples.

Someone might search for “I want to sell my house within a week in Houston,” “Looking for someone to buy my house for cash in Houston quickly,” or “Will someone buy a property with damaged roof and flooring in Houston.”

As evident from the sample queries above, SEO for real estate investment marketing, when implemented correctly, can direct high-intent visitors to an investor’s website.

Now, let’s explore the best SEO tips & strategies for REI marketing you can use to attract qualified leads, solidify your brand as a trusted authority, and watch your site climb the search engine ladder.

#1. Target Keywords Relevant to Your REI Brand

First things first, you should know what your target audiences (e.g. distressed property sellers or other investors, including wholesalers & cash buyers) are typing into Google.

Keyword research tools, such as Google Search Console, Semrush, Ahref’s Keyword Explorer, Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, Moz Keyword Explorer, Majestic, Keywordtool.io, etc. can help real estate investors identify relevant keywords for effective SEO.

These tools provide important search-keyword information, such as:

• Search volume
• Competition (difficult level)
• Search intent

Avoid chasing generic keywords with high search volume and high competition—instead, zero in on keywords with moderate search volume and low difficulty.****

Remember, you’re not just after website clicks from Google, you need leads – potential customers you can convert and turn into profit.

That’s where search intent comes in. So, pick keywords that indicate a strong intent and align with your real estate investing goals.

Bear in mind that while long-tail keywords often exhibit lower search volumes, they are generally easier to rank for and can play a pivotal role in generating qualified leads.

For instance, ranking for a long-tail keyword like ‘Sell my house fast for cash in Texas’ is easier than trying to rank your web pages for a keyword like ‘cash home buyer.’

#2. Create Engaging Content for Your Audience

Don’t just sell, solve their problems.

Search engines like Google love websites that keep visitors engaged. They do this by tracking parameters, such as:

• Session duration: This metric monitors how long people stay on your REI site.
• Bounce rate: It gauges the percentage of visitors who arrive on your webpage and depart without navigating to another page, signifying a lack of meaningful engagement.

Publishing high-value content is among the most effective ways to engage your audience and encourage them to reach out to you.

Yes, it’s a resource-intensive exercise and takes time. But, it will increase the session-duration and lower the bounce-rate. So, it’s worth the effort to increase your real estate investment website’s ranking on Google.

#3. Optimize Each Piece of Content on Your REI Brand Website

Whether you use a content management system (CMS), build a website from scratch, or use REI Grow, an all-in-one marketing platform to quickly create (with drag-and-drop feature) and publish landing pages, lead capture forms, blog posts, help articles or FAQs, be sure to optimize each piece of content for search engines.

Each page on your real estate investing website should include:

• Several hundred words of high-quality, audience-first content
• An SEO-optimized page title and meta description; this information appears in the SERPs and affects both the ranking and the CTR (click-through-rate)
• Large chunks of content broken down into structured headings and lists
• Alternative (ALT) text for images to provide context for both search engine crawlers and people with visual impairments
• Internal links to other pages on your website; these links help both users and search engines navigate your website
• External, high-authority links or citations, if any

#4. Optimize Your Web Pages for Local Searches

Incorporate key details of the location into the page title and description to enhance the visibility of your location-specific web pages.

This simple tactic improves the chances of securing a higher ranking in location-based search results.

Craft your page with descriptive and keyword-optimized content tailored to your target audience.

#5. Optimize Your Google Business Profile for REI Marketing

Set up a Google Business Profile for your real estate investing venture—it’s indispensable for effective SEO. This free tool, formerly Google My Business, can boost your local search visibility.

Here’s how to optimize your REI Google Business Profile for maximum impact:

• Fill it with essential details: Include accurate, up-to-date business information, sprinkled with relevant keywords like “cash buyers Austin” or “sell vacant Austin property in a week.”
• Show off your business: Add eye-catching pictures showcasing your expertise and personality (think property flips, happy client testimonials, or office space).
• Make it easy to find you: Provide clear hours of operation (if applicable) and contact information. Link directly to your website for seamless conversion.
• Let the customer testimonials speak for your brand: Positive feedback boosts your ranking in the SERPs and builds trust. Encourage happy clients to leave glowing reviews on your Profile.

Do you want to streamline Google Business review collection for your REI brand? REI Grow automates the entire process, making it easy for investors to gather reviews from their happy clients and have them published on their Google Business Profile, from a single dashboard.

#6. Mobile-First User Experience (UX) Design

Is your website mobile-friendly? Google completed the switch to mobile-first indexing on Oct 31st, 2023.

This means Google primarily crawls the mobile version of your real estate investment marketing website for indexing.

So, be sure to follow responsive design principles and optimize your website (both in terms of design and content) for mobile devices.

• Run Google’s mobile-friendly test to determine if a page has a responsive design.
• Use MobiReady to test website performance on different mobile devices.
• Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to learn how you can reduce page-load times for your web pages.

#7. Create a Backlink Profile for Your Website

The strategies we listed above fall under on-page SEO; real estate investors should also leverage off-page SEO.

This SEO strategy for real estate investing websites involves gaining backlinks from other websites.

Search engines perceive backlinks as your website receiving referrals from reputable sources.

Backlinks from high-authority sites, like your local chamber of commerce, a renowned real estate investors’ association, or trusted news outlets, carry more weight and tell search engines your website is worth visiting.

The more of these “votes of confidence” you gather, the higher your website ranks in the SERPs.

Do keep in mind that quality outweighs quantity in this case. So, avoid spammy links and focus on high-authority websites in your niche.

Off-page SEO for real estate investment marketing may involve contributing guest articles, participating in forums, offering insights on industry-specific blogs, or cultivating relationships with other real estate investors in your market.

The higher the authority of a website linking back to you, the greater the chance of your website ranking better in the search results.

Lastly, Complement SEO With Robust Lead Follow-Up Strategy

SEO done right helps drive targeted traffic to your website, but results do take time.

It’s a long-term investment that pays off, steadily bringing in potential leads like motivated sellers ready to offload vacant apartments or abandoned properties.

Once a visitor expresses interest, whether through a contact form, phone call, or text message, a robust lead follow-up strategy ensures you capitalize on every opportunity.

REI Grow simplifies this process (besides helping investors set up an SEO-optimized website with minimal effort), helping you capture and nurture leads in many ways:

• Prospective customers fill out a contact form
• They call your business phone number
• Prospects transition to a text conversation if you’re currently unavailable for a call
• Potential leads engage with your REI brand through automated workflows that collect necessary details and even schedule a phone call or appointment based on your availability

Furthermore, REI Grow helps you nurture leads collected via your website (which land in the CRM) effortlessly through automation in email and text marketing for real estate investors.

Your real estate investing brand stays in touch throughout their journey, reminding them of the next steps and guiding them towards your desired action, be it booking an appointment, scheduling an on-site visit, or discussing an offer.

Thus, a combination of SEO and advanced automation positions you for a high return on investment in the long run.