Identifying the best SEO platform for your real estate agency or brokerage business can be daunting. Sorting through different providers and going through multiple demos is no fun. Still, you have to be intentional about choosing an SEO platform to pick the right one. Follow these steps to pick the right tool.
List down your essential needs and the features and functionalities the tool must-have.
List down the frustrating aspects of your current SEO tool.
List down extra features you’d like to have if your budget allows it.
Set a budget guideline
Include in the above process everyone in your business who will use the SEO tool.
Many successful real estate agents and brokers have followed these steps and found Semrush to be the perfect SEO platform for generating real estate traffic. Before we tell you why, take a look at the considerations they make when choosing an SEO platform.
What Do Leading Real Estate Agencies and Brokerage Firms Consider When Looking for an SEO Tool?
Keyword monitoring. It’s one of the central features of an SEO platform. Top real estate agents and brokers start by assessing their keyword tracking needs before choosing an SEO tool, and so should you. Many real estate buyers today use search engines to search for properties. So, having a powerful SEO solution can help improve your visibility among prospective buyers and sellers.
Generating keyword lists is one of the vital parts of effective real estate keyword strategies as it helps you generate real estate traffic through search engines. The right SEO tool lets you target leads using relevant posts or pages, such as blog content, landing pages, property listing pages, etc. using the keywords you generate. Other considerations real estate professionals make when looking for an SEO platform include:
URLs and Pages Crawled. Consider the size of your site and whether you plan to track offsite content URLs and competitors’ sites. Depending on your budget, you can get a platform that does extensive crawling.
Mobile and Desktop. Consider whether you need to track ranking on mobile and desktop separately. Take into account the number of keywords you want to track and your location needs on different devices, i.e., Android and iOS devices. Likewise, consider your tracking needs across multiple search engines.
Location. You may want to track your keyword performance in specific locations, such as region, state, zip code or city. The location and specificity of your target audience will determine the level of granularity you need. Consult your digital marketing team to determine when local search needs.
Search Engines. For most real estate agents and brokers, Google is the only search on which they need to actively manage their SEO because their audience doesn’t use Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines. However, if a sizable portion of your audience uses another search engine, consider that when looking for an SEO tool.
Competitors Monitoring. You may want to find out who your competitors are in a broad sense or in specific niches. Likewise, take into account the extent to which you want to monitor your competition. Keep in mind that more extensive monitoring comes at a higher cost.
Exports and Reports. Many SEO platforms today offer unlimited monitoring, so it’s easy to take this feature for granted. Still, find out what reporting features an SEO platform offers and make it match your needs. Besides generating reports, you want a platform that lets you export reports to your preferred business tools.
Semrush is popular among real estate brokers and agents as it provides powerful keyword monitoring capabilities, as well as the other features listed above.
Features and Functionalities Available on Semrush
Besides keyword monitoring, here are other features that Semrush offers.
Keyword Opportunities. Generate a list of prioritized keywords that may improve your rankings. Keyword opportunities can inform marketing initiatives such as new content ideas and optimization of existing content. Likewise, identify at risk keywords that are dropping in the rankings.
Site Health and Audits. User Semrush to monitor your site health to periodically identify recurring issues and track progress made on previously identified issues. Similarly, perform periodic in-depth site audits to crawl your site and your competitors’ sites more extensively.
SEO and Content Recommendations. Semrush provides recommendations for fixing some of the issues you identify while monitoring site health and performing a site audit. Common recommendations include image optimization or updating metadata.
Customizability. Semrush easily integrates with the goals of your real estate business because it is customizable. You can save views, create filters, integrate new datasets, etc. Real estate agencies and brokerage firms quickly access insights on Semrush by customizing their dashboards to match their goals, KPIs, locations, reports and more.
Reports. Semrush reports are among its most popular features. You can review them within the platform or export them into other data tools for presentation and other purposes. Report templates make it easy to generate quick reports.
Competitor Discovery. Use Semrush to discover your most prominent competitors, as well as new content, emerging brands and product targeting opportunities.
Keyword Research and Discovery. Your keyword strategy should continually evolve to keep up with your audience’s changing needs and interests. Use the keyword research and discovery feature of Semrush to brainstorm editorial ideas, optimize existing content and identify niche markets in which your real estate business can thrive.
API access and Integrations. Semrush allows API access and integrates with several marketing channels and business tools, so you can easily aggregate and standardize your data.
Task and Workflow Management. Semrush features task and workflow management functionalities that enable your marketing team to operate efficiently. For example, you can add annotations and notes to document changes in your content, the algorithm, and so on.
Resources, Education and Onboarding. Semrush provides ongoing education and resources on SEO and related topics, including content marketing and digital strategy.
An Indispensable Tool for Real Estate Professionals
Ben Shepardson is a Realty Biz News Contributing Writer and has a long track record of success in online marketing and web development. While pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems, he worked doing enterprise-level SEO and started an online business offering web development services to small business customers.
