Real Estate Local SEO
-
My site hovers on page 2 of google for the key search phrase. I have a blog that gets updated often, I have genuine links coming in, I promote on all social media channels, I do email campaigns, I have a site map, I have my local address on what I believe are the most important sites like Yelp, Manta, Google Local etc.
All this and my site is still on page 2 while other sites with less of everything are on page 1.
What is missing?
-
Hi Joel,
Without actually being able to see your specific business, the cause of your lack of first page rankings is hard to judge. Some things a Local SEO would look at in reviewing your situation might include:
-
Your proximity to the centroid of business (are you located within the main cluster of businesses on Google Maps for your key search phrase or are you far away from the cluster)
-
Potential existence of duplicates. This comes up frequently in industries like real estate, law and the medical field because multi-partner practices took Google up on their guidelines that stated you could have 1 Place Page for the main practice and a unique Place Page for each partner, as well. This has all gone to heck now, and no one I know is recommending doing this anymore because of Google's tendency to merge similar listings, sapping rankings, and also, their official refusal to remove duplicates. See:
and
So, that may be an issue affecting your ability to rank.
-
The consistency of your citations across the web. If you work for a mutli-partner firm, there is a chance their may be mixed up details out there about you or your partners. Lack of consistency can definitely hamper rankings.
-
Your domain age. If other firms are older than yours (web-wise) they may have a slight-to-moderate edge over you, even though you are making greater efforts than they are. Also, real estate is one of the toughest verticals, particularly if you are in a populous area (a big city). It can be tough for newer competitors to break into established SERPs that already have a ton of strong businesses in them.
Those are a few things to consider. It sounds like you are doing a lot of things right, Joel. I recommend you check out 51 Blocks' local competitive analysis tool to be certain you are actually doing more than your competitors appear to be doing:
http://www.51blocks.com/online-marketing-tools/free-local-analysis/
It's free and a very cool tool.
This is as far as I can go without seeing your actual business in action. I hope these ideas are good food for thought.
-
-
Local as in city or state, earn links from the areas you want to rank in.
-
Thank you, when you mean local IP do you mean from the USA or from the State that I am in. Reason I ask is most people i know don't host in the state.
-
Hi Joel,
If you are looking for local citations, Dana DiTomaso just did a webinar on this form of link building yesterday. I don't think the video is up yet, but keep your eye out for it. We found it to be very helpful.
-
Hi Joel,
Have you considered earning local links?
If you're trying to rank for something in Google places all you need is a ton of relevant citations, from good directories.
If you're trying to rank for local organic results you need local organic links. You can look up local sites (that have local IP's and get them to link to you. You can also do a charity in your office and invite other Companies to join. After the event, write a press release about it. Then ask these companies if they want to leave a quote about the event (this works great). Lastly syndicate the PR to your site and ask them to share it with their audiences, or link to it from their site.
This is just one example of gaining links. Good luck.
Hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Dealing with negative SEO
Interested to know people strategies for detecting and mitigating negative SEO. Previously I've used link monitoring tool and kept an eye on all new back links coming in to any page on the site. I have then manually assessed each one again using some tools and actually visiting the website. However, this always leaves me with one dilemma. Regardless of my assessment how do search engines see that link? I run three lists a white list, grey list and blacklist. White list - very relevant and have a lot of authority. I.e. leading industry blogs and forums. Grey list - out of topic/industry, directories Blacklist - sites de-indexed by Google, illegal content or absolute spam (i.e. one page filled with hundreds of links to different domains) Do you have any thoughts? How do you assess if link is bad?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Looking for SEO advice on Negative SEO attack. Technical SEO
please see this link https://www.dropbox.com/s/thgy57zmmwzodcp/Screenshot 2016-05-31 13.25.23.png?dl=0 you can see my domain is getting tons of chinese spam. I have 410'd the page but it still keeps coming.. 7tnawRV
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattguitar990 -
Pagination & SEO
Hi In one of my other Q&A's someone mentioned I may need to look at pagination. For instance, are these pages counted as 'new' pages in Google's eyes when clicking on pagination? http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/plastic-storage-boxes http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/plastic-storage-boxes#productBeginIndex:30&orderBy:5&pageView:list& Does anyone have any advice on what I could do? It's not something I have had much experience with. Thank you Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
How do you Hire someone for SEO?
What questions do you ask when hiring an SEO person? What is the most important thing in selecting a company for SEO? Should they be able to make recommendations on changes in your website for seo?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Realtor1010 -
Read More & SEO
I have just had my site redesigned. The site was designed with only important facts bullets at the top of the page and all other information is below in the read more section that expands when clicked. I am wondering if I need to have this information in the read more section visible to the customer or if having the majority of the text in the read more is OK? and how it will effect rankings having it this way? I have had spots #1 &2 on Google for my keywords- until the site was redesigned...wondering if this was part of the reason. I have moved some of the text up to be visible on some of the pages - but it makes the site look cramped - and competes with the ease of use the site design Any insight on this is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cheri110 -
Google Local oddity
So I spotted something a little weird... one of my client's Google Local placements in blended results has the domain name - complete with the .com extension appearing where the business name typically appears: Businessxyz.com www. businessxyz .com of Google reviews Has anyone seen this? I setup their Google Places account quite some time ago and used the business name - not the url. I also setup their Google+ and Local page - using the name. None of the page titles on the website contain the url. I simply can not pinpoint where G is pulling this from or why for that matter. All competitors are appearing with business name - only my client has the domain name visible for the particular local search query. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SCW0 -
What is the best permalink structure for SEO?
Your feedback here is definitely appreciated, but I'm also doing a public study and would be honored and humbled if you answered the 5 questions in my survey as well. For those who do not wish to participate, I'd appreciate your general feedback on permalink structure best practices based on what Amazon.com and eBay.com have done to their URLs in recent times. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stevewiideman0 -
The SEO process...step by step
In what order do you carry out your SEO? do you start with keyword research or competitor analysis or is it on-page and then on to link building, do you concentrate on article submissions and then move on to social networking? List your step by step process here.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IPIM0