If your real estate agency has been a key player in your local real estate market for years, you might be wondering why your online presence isn’t keeping up.
Maybe you’ve noticed fewer inquiries, lower visibility in search results, or a dip in foot traffic, even though your team is just as experienced and dedicated as ever.
This is where Digital Spotlight comes in. We specialise in helping real estate agencies like yours get found online—and more importantly, get chosen.
Here’s what our agency brings to the table:
- Real, Measurable Results: Many of our clients have worked with three to seven agencies before they found us, and they stick with us because we actually deliver.
- Data-Driven Strategy: Our detailed audits and analysis help determine whether SEO is the best solution for your real estate agency.
We use a math-based approach to drive more leads, inquiries, and foot traffic to your business.
- Proven Experience: With a deep pool of campaign data to draw from, we know what works. Our insights can help your real estate business climb the rankings and stay there.
- Local SEO Expertise: We understand that targeting your real estate SEO to your locale is crucial.
In fact, 46% of all Google searches have local intent, and 76% of users who search for something “near me” visit a business within 24 hours. If you’re not showing up in those searches, you’re missing out.
The truth is that the real estate space has become increasingly competitive. And in today’s digital-first world, even the most experienced real estate agents are not immune to these challenges:
- Local competition and market saturation have intensified, and your client bookings have thinned out.
- Your real estate service website isn’t showing up where it counts—on the first page of search results.
- Even when people do land on your site, it isn’t converting as it should
Sound familiar? You’re not alone.
Being the best in your area isn’t enough anymore; you also need to appear where your clients are actively searching.
If you’re ready to reclaim your spot as the go-to agency on the Sunshine Coast, Digital Spotlight is here to help.
Want to explore what’s possible for your business? We offer a pitch-free consultation; no hard sell, no pressure.
We only work with clients we know we can genuinely help, and we don’t make recommendations until we’ve listened to your goals and discussed what’s realistic for your market.
Call us at 1300 891 181 or email us at [email protected] to book your consultation and find out exactly what we can do for your real estate business.
Take Your Real Estate Business to the Next Level With Digital Spotlight
At Digital Spotlight, we don’t believe in cookie-cutter SEO strategies. We’ll take the time to understand your business, and we’ll create SEO campaigns that are tailored to your specific needs and goals.
Instead of making empty promises, we focus on what truly matters: real, measurable results. Our clients have seen the benefits of our work, and we’re confident you’ll experience that same success when you partner with us.
We begin with an in-depth technical SEO audit of your website, allowing us to pinpoint areas that need improvement.
From thin or duplicate content to indexing issues, faulty redirects, and slow page load times, we’ll identify what’s holding your site back and give you clear, practical recommendations to fix it.
It’s about protecting your business from penalties and helping your site perform at its best.
With our client retention rate of 95.67%, our proven track record of success speaks volumes.
If you’ve worked with other SEO agencies and been disappointed, we get it. Many of our clients come to us feeling the same.
We’re here to show you how it should be done.
A Digital Marketing Agency That Understands Real Estate
We know the real estate market moves quickly, and your SEO strategy should too. Our lead-focused approach is designed to attract not just previous or current clients but brand-new prospects actively searching for services like yours.
So far, we’ve helped generate over $130 million in additional annual revenue for our clients by getting them in front of the right audience on Google’s first page.
With more than 15 years of experience and over 1,800 clients across 355 industries, we’ve helped businesses secure top rankings where it counts.
Today, around 79% of those clients rank on the first page for more than 200 non-branded keywords.
When you’re ready to take your real estate SEO to the next level, we’re here to help you do it—with strategy, transparency, and results that actually move the needle.
What Is Real Estate SEO?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) for real estate is all about helping people find your website when they’re searching for realtors online.
Put simply, it’s a mix of strategies that make your website easier to discover on search engines like Google.
The goal? To help you appear higher up on search engine results pages (SERPs), so that when potential home buyers or sellers, for example, are looking for property help, your business is right there in front of them.
SEO is essential for any business that wants to grow and stay competitive in the long run. The higher your website ranks, the greater the number of clicks you’ll get, which means more eyes on your listings, blogs, or services.
Unlike paid ads, SEO brings in visitors naturally through organic search.
With the right approach, an SEO specialist can fine-tune your website, social media, and even mobile apps so that search engines understand what your business offers—and show it to the right audience at the right time.
Types of Real Estate Search Engine Optimisation
If you’re in real estate and want to boost your online presence, here are the four main types of SEO to focus on:
On-Site SEO
Also known as on-page SEO, this covers all the elements you can control directly on your website, such as your page URLs, headings, meta descriptions, and even the images you use.
These tweaks help search engines better understand your content, which can lead to higher rankings in local search results.
Once we figure out the local search keywords and elements that will actually boost your site’s relevance on Google, we’ll jump into these on-page SEO elements:
- Keyword Strategy
Getting your keyword strategy right is a vital part of making sure your website speaks the same language as your potential clients and search engines.
The right keywords help Google understand what your pages are about, so they can be shown to the right people at the right time.
We’ll focus on high-impact keywords that reflect what local buyers and sellers are actually searching for. That way, your business is more likely to appear when it matters most.
As trends change, we’ll update your content to keep it fresh, relevant, and aligned with what your audience is looking for.
- Internal Linking
Internal links make it easier for people to get around your site. Instead of digging through menus or typing in search bars, users can just click through to related pages.
This setup keeps people on your site longer, which can be beneficial for your search engine performance.
Additionally, search engines use links to move through your site and figure out what your pages are about. Internal links help them understand the structure and relevance of your content.
We’ll fix or remove dead-end links and improve anchor text to help users and search engines navigate your site better.
- URL Structure
Cluttered URLs filled with random characters or endless dashes don’t do anyone any favours—not your visitors, and certainly not search engines. That’s why we focus on tidying them up.
Keeping your URLs short and simple helps search engine bots crawl your site more easily. If your URLs are too long or packed with unnecessary codes or characters, it can hinder your site’s indexing.
Straightforward URLs also provide users with a clearer sense of where a link will direct them. If a URL is unintelligible, people might be less likely to click on it.
Off-Site SEO
These are strategies that happen outside of your website, such as securing backlinks, running branding campaigns, or writing guest posts that link back to your content.
To support everything we’re doing on-site, we’ll also implement off-page SEO strategies designed to boost your website’s credibility and visibility:
- Backlinks
We’ll focus on securing local backlinks from reputable sources, including local businesses, blogs and newspapers.
Strong backlinks don’t just help improve your rankings; they also enhance your website’s credibility and authority. This helps more people in your area discover your services.
- Brand Mentions
As part of our SEO approach, we’ll strategically place references to your brand across various online platforms, enhancing your online visibility.
These eye-catching references essentially work as the digital equivalent of placing billboards in the city’s highest-traffic spots.
They can help more people see and remember your business, even before they’re ready to make a move.
And you won’t have to lift a finger. Our outreach team handles the prospecting and communication involved in this process.
- Guest Blogging
To drive more high-quality backlinks and referral traffic, we offer guest posting services. This includes creating and publishing articles on reputable blogs or websites that your audience already trusts.
Guest blogging is a great way to boost your authority, reach new potential clients, and guide more people back to your site, all while building your reputation within the industry.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO takes care of everything happening behind the scenes, such as how quickly the site loads, whether it functions properly on mobile devices, and whether search engines can easily crawl your pages.
These details might not be visible to your visitors, but they have a significant impact on how well your site ranks.
Our services include ongoing technical audits that can identify and fix the issues holding your site back in search rankings, whether these are broken links, slow-loading pages, or indexing problems.
Local SEO
If you’re focusing on a particular city or community, local SEO will help people nearby find you more easily.
We’ll make sure your business appears when someone searches for terms like “real estate agents near me”, so you’re visible right at the moment they’re ready to take action.
By fine-tuning the structure and content of your site, we’ll help better align your business with local search intent.
Is SEO For Real Estate Worthwhile?
The short answer? Absolutely.
The long answer is that SEO is one of the strongest tools for generating leads because this approach focuses on people who are already searching for what you offer, rather than chasing them down with cold outreach.
When done correctly, SEO can enhance your visibility, establish your authority in your niche and ensure you appear when potential clients are actively searching.
- Getting Seen
Once your real estate website ranks well in search results, more people will naturally come across your business when looking for properties or agents. And when you keep showing up, your brand recognition will correspondingly increase.
Through keyword research, an SEO strategy can help you target the exact keywords people use when they’re actively looking to buy property, especially those local terms that matter most.
Ranking well means you’re more likely to get clicks from serious, ready-to-act buyers in your area.
- Spending Wisely
Paid ads can deliver quick wins, but they can also burn through your budget fast. SEO, on the other hand, builds momentum over time.
Once your site starts ranking well through SEO, you’ll enjoy steady, reliable traffic without having to pay for every click.
- Boosting Your Bottom Line
Consistent traffic means more leads coming in, and when those leads are genuinely interested, they’re more likely to convert.
That means more enquiries, faster property sales, and a healthier bottom line for your business.
What Real Estate SEO Is Not
While a powerful tool, SEO isn’t going to knock major Australian real estate portals like Domain or the REA Group off the top of Google’s results.
This is a common mistake people make when they dive into SEO. There’s always someone ready to sell you the idea that you can outrank the big platforms, but that’s not how this works.
Keep in mind that those sites have a firm grip on buyer attention, and for good reason. Unless there’s a massive shift in how people search for property, they’re going to stay on top.
Your SEO strategy needs to work with that reality, not against it.
What Kind of Real Estate Businesses Can Benefit From SEO?
Search engine optimisation is a fantastically versatile approach that can improve the online presence of almost every business category in the real estate industry.
Some businesses that can benefit from SEO include:
- Real estate agents and brokers
- Buyers’ agents
- Developers
- Investors
- Legal professionals such as conveyancers
- Mortgage lenders and brokers
- Property management service providers
- Property photographers
- Quantity surveyors and property appraisers
What Separates Real Estate SEO From Other Industries?
The way people search for homes and the nature of what’s being sold mean that SEO for real estate comes with unique challenges and priorities.
Here’s how real estate SEO stands apart:
- Longer and More Layered Buying Journey
When people think about buying a home or property, they don’t usually start with a specific property in mind.
Most begin with broad searches like “homes in Brisbane” or “best suburbs in Melbourne”. From there, they gradually narrow things down based on lifestyle needs, budget and other factors.
That’s why real estate businesses need more than just listings.
You need a well-rounded content strategy that includes regular blog posts, social media updates, in-depth suburb guides, market snapshots, and of course, listings with clear photos and functional descriptions.
- SEO Isn’t a One-Off Project
SEO isn’t something you set and forget. While it’s true that all industries need to keep their content fresh, the real estate industry moves quickly with shifts in market trends, interest rates, and buyer demand.
This means real estate businesses need to consistently review and update their keywords, content and overall SEO approach.
- Balancing Local and Broad Keyword Targets
Most businesses focus on keywords specific to their industry or niche. Real estate is trickier, as people often start with broader searches and narrow their focus only after conducting some research.
This means that effective real estate SEO needs to strike a balance between appearing in search results for wide-reaching terms as well as for highly local ones.
Getting this mix right helps capture attention early on and maintain visibility as buyers refine their search.
- Buyers Want Specific, Practical Info
People looking for a place to live, for example, want more than just photos and price tags. Yes, the property itself matters, but so does everything around it.
They want to know things like:
- What’s the community vibe?
- What are the local school options?
- What kind of job opportunities are in the area?
- Is it close to hospitals or health services?
- How long will the commute take?
- Is there reliable public transport?
- What’s the local crime rate like?
When real estate businesses provide clear, relevant content that answers these questions, they’re more likely to show up in search results and stay top of mind among serious buyers.
Benefits of Implementing Real Estate SEO
With SEO becoming more popular in the real estate space, it’s clear that showing up online is no longer optional. If you’re not making yourself visible, you’re already falling behind.
Around 68% of all online activity begins with a search engine, which means that if you want to be found, your strategy needs to work in conjunction with Google, not against it.
With nearly 93% of global internet traffic flowing through Google, that’s where your efforts will see the most significant return.
What’s more, SEO brings in over 1,000% more traffic than organic social media alone. It’s no wonder that roughly 60% of marketers say their top leads come from SEO, blog posts and other inbound tactics.
We’re in a strong position to help you get real results because our SEO services are designed to drive strong returns.
On average, we’ve helped clients cut their marketing costs by about 33% and bring down acquisition costs by 23%.
More importantly, we’ve spurred significant jumps in the metrics that truly matter. Our clients have seen an average growth rate of 83% in high-value transactions and, in some exceptional cases, a four-fold increase.
Here are several more compelling reasons why getting serious about SEO will make a real difference to your business.
Increase Traffic and Revenue
A solid SEO strategy, built around relevant and valuable content, can help drive more visitors to your website.
But it’s not just about increasing traffic. It’s about getting the right kind of people onto your site.
If your website content aligns with what your target audience is actually searching for, you’re more likely to attract potential clients.
We’ve seen this approach work time and time again. In fact, the organic growth we’ve delivered for our clients has helped generate more than $130 million in extra revenue annually.
With the right strategy in place, our SEO services can help you achieve the same kind of success.
Boost Brand Awareness
Effective SEO can position your business as a reliable source of information. Each time someone finds your content helpful and valuable, they’re building a connection with your brand.
For real estate businesses, this kind of visibility is incredibly powerful. Good SEO can effectively boost brand visibility, which will help you stay top of mind among potential clients.
When people think about buying, selling, or renting property, a well-optimised site can ensure it’s your brand they think of first.
By consistently showing up in search results, your brand steadily becomes more familiar to the public.
Over time, that builds familiarity and trust, which can lead to more queries and higher conversion rates.
Improve Brand Protection
In real estate, it’s common for major listings platforms to have better SERP results than the actual agents. That can make it challenging to manage your online reputation and ensure potential clients see your business first.
The good news? A strong SEO strategy can give you back some of that control.
With the right approach, you can reduce the visibility of harmful content and strengthen your presence with more neutral or positive content instead.
Our ranking defence plans are designed to keep your top search positions secure and prepare for any potential hits to your online image in future.
We’ll also include public relations recommendations in well-established platforms like Forbes and The Huffington Post.
By understanding your full digital footprint, we can take meaningful steps to reduce the impact of any damaging reviews or mentions while building a stronger, more trusted online presence for the future.
Reducing Paid Channels
Cost-per-click (CPC) marketing isn’t getting any cheaper. In fact, the average CPC for all industries using Google Ads grew by 12.88% year-over-year in 2025.
The higher the value of what you’re selling, like real estate, the greater the likelihood of needing to pay more to advertise it.
This is why investing in organic traffic through SEO is becoming essential, as it’s a more sustainable way to generate leads. When you invest in SEO, you won’t need to pay every time a user clicks on your website.
SEO Is “Always On”
SEO never sleeps. Unlike traditional marketing or physical storefronts, SEO doesn’t have closing hours.
Imagine someone scrolling online late at night, looking for a property or real estate service. If your website is optimised correctly, it can appear in their search results and bring them directly to you, even while you’re tucked up in bed.
This characteristic makes SEO a dependable long-term strategy for attracting clients without requiring ongoing active management.
That’s the beauty of SEO. Once it’s set up right, it works quietly in the background, day and night, helping you attract new clients without needing constant hands-on attention.
It’s a reliable, long-term way to stay visible and relevant, no matter the hour.
Attracting More Buyers and Listings
If your website is easier to find, more people will land on it. In turn, this can lead to more listings, more buyer interest and steady momentum for your real estate business.
Here are the advantages of working with SEO specialists such as Digital Spotlight:
Establish Topical Authority
Showing up in searches about real estate will help you stay visible and relevant. Our SEO services will focus on creating consistent, helpful content to give you a leg up in this regard.
Over time, effective SEO builds your authority among potential clients and search engines. The more you’re trusted, the easier it becomes to rank for the kind of keywords that actually lead to transactions.
We can help establish this kind of authority for you by creating strong, relevant content that reflects your knowledge and experience in the industry.
Avoid Common SEO Mistakes
It’s easy to go way off track in SEO if you’re not familiar with the latest changes. Common issues include:
- Going after keywords that don’t match your audience
- Neglecting content, metadata, and site speed
- Failing to sustain website visitors’ interest
- Not ensuring mobile compatibility
- Using spammy tactics that search engines penalise
Having someone who knows what they’re doing, such as our SEO professionals here at Digital Spotlight, will help avoid common pitfalls and wasted effort.
The best part? You don’t need to become an SEO expert to benefit from it. That’s exactly what we’re here for.
By leaving it in the hands of experienced professionals, you’ll free up time to focus on what matters most, whether that’s running your business, growing your team, or planning your next move.
Whether you’re just starting or looking to scale up, we’ll work with you to create an SEO strategy that’s tailored, realistic, and actually works.
Understand Market Insights
SEO data can give you a clearer view of how your market is shifting. Factors such as search patterns and competitor moves can reveal what buyers and sellers are truly seeking.
It’s not just about traffic; it’s about understanding where the industry is heading and using that to make smarter business decisions.
Real Estate SEO = Stronger Lead Generation for You
A well-designed real estate SEO plan works as part of your overall marketing by bringing in new leads.
This can be done by directing visitors to your site’s conversion points, such as contact forms, newsletter sign-ups, or downloadable market research.
Also, remember that not all site visitors are looking for the same thing. Someone looking to buy or lease is going to have very different questions from someone who wants to sell.
Your SEO strategy needs to speak to both groups so you’re not missing out on key opportunities.
Why Tools and Agencies Are Useful for Real Estate SEO
If you’ve ever wanted an easy way to assess your competitor’s keyword strategy, it’s now possible with the right tools.
Here are just a few of the ways SEO tools can make a real difference to your campaign:
- Discovering keywords that drive conversions and enhance your brand’s presence
- Identifying high-value keywords to improve your ranking in key areas
- Finding long-tail keyword variations to make your content more searchable
- Revealing the SEO strategies of your competitors, so that you can stay one step ahead
- Tracking your performance and measuring progress against your goals
When it comes to real estate SEO, these tools can provide valuable insights and help optimise your online presence.
Here’s a closer look at the tools we use and how they can help strengthen your SEO strategy.
Semrush for Real Estate
Semrush is invaluable for boosting your website’s search engine ranking. Key features include:
- Keyword research
- Competitor analysis
- Content optimisation
- On-page and local SEO
Semrush is one of our most prized tools for content creation, mainly due to its ability to assist us in the following:
- Identifying your target audience and their favoured search topics
- Creating original SEO-friendly content
- Enhancing existing content to drive organic traffic and engagement
For your real estate website, in particular, Semrush has crucial tools that we can deploy to your advantage:
- Site Audit: This tool helps us quickly identify technical issues that might be blocking your site from performing the way it should.
- Keyword Magic: This tool draws from a massive pool of around 25 billion search terms and helps us figure out which ones people are actually typing into Google.
- Topic Research: This tool pulls in themes and angles that are receiving attention in the real estate space, helping us build content that aligns with what your audience is already interested in.
- Backlink Audit: This tool keeps track of which websites are linking to yours and if those links are helping your SEO.
Ahrefs Local for Real Estate
Ahrefs is particularly valuable for generating high-quality content ideas and securing backlinks, which are crucial for improving your site’s authority and rankings.
After all, most people won’t just search “real estate agents” when they need help.
Some will type in specific services like “home buying” or “property management”. Others might go straight to the problem they’re trying to solve, like “how much is my property worth”.
If your site isn’t showing up for these types of searches, there’s a good chance you’re losing out on people who are already looking for what you offer.
We can use Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer to identify what people are actually searching for when it comes to real estate services. This tool draws keyword ideas and SEO data, including how often each term gets searched, from a massive database.
Google Business Profile for Real Estate
Google’s free listing service, formerly known as Google My Business, allows users to display key information like their name, address, hours and more.
For real estate businesses, this isn’t just helpful; it’s essential.
It significantly contributes to enhanced online visibility. Not only does it let you upload photos and gather reviews, but it also ensures potential clients can easily find you online.
We can help organise and optimise your Google Business Profile (including unverified listings) to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward.
Real Estate SEO Tips
There’s no shortage of information online when it comes to SEO, but not all of it is tailored to the unique needs of the property market.
So, if you’re looking to build long-term SEO success for your real estate business, here are a few essential things to keep in mind:
A Specialised SEO Approach
To see real, lasting results from SEO, you need someone who understands both the industry and the ever-changing world of search engines.
It’s not just about ticking boxes. It’s about knowing how to navigate the complexities and make SEO work for your business.
For real estate agents, SEO is a powerful tool to boost visibility and connect with the right audience. With so much competition online, getting noticed is the first step in attracting those who are actively searching for your services.
Act Now, but Be Patient
SEO doesn’t deliver immediate results. It takes time before you begin to see the full benefits.
According to Google, it typically takes between 4 and 12 months to see noticeable results.
However, it’s essential to keep in mind that every business has its own circumstances. Factors like your goals, resources, chosen strategy, and the competitive landscape will all influence how long it takes to see results.
That’s why we start with an in-depth technical SEO audit before asking for any payment. This will help us better understand your business needs and ensure we adopt the right approach.
Create an SEO Strategy
Our custom SEO strategy for your real estate business will begin with a firm understanding of your goals. We’ll ensure that we address your specific challenges while aligning with your business objectives.
With Australia increasingly embracing mobile-first marketing strategies, our services are more relevant than ever.
As consumers become more digitally savvy and mobile-friendly, ensuring your real estate business is optimised for these users is key to staying competitive.
Start With an Optimised Real Estate Website
If your website’s significant challenges are poor traffic and low visibility, our optimisation services can help your site become a reliable resource that sets you apart from other real estate businesses online.
We use state-of-the-art tools and an extensive dataset to get a clear, accurate picture of your business: your goals, your budget, and what you need to succeed online.
From there, we’ll tailor a strategy that gives you the best possible value for your investment.
Through data modelling, statistical analysis, and multi-variant testing, we’ll dig into what’s really working (and what’s not) on your site.
This approach helps us shine a light on your strengths, fine-tune your performance, and attract higher-quality leads that are more likely to convert.
It’s not about guesswork; it’s about making informed decisions that move your business forward.
When we work on your website, we don’t just look at keywords; we take a close look at the user experience (UX).
After all, it’s not just about getting people to your site. It’s about making sure they have a smooth, engaging experience once they’re there.
Here are some of the key UX elements we’ll review and refine:
- Content Relevance and Quality: We’ll make sure your website content really matches what people want: clear, helpful, and genuinely useful.
- Content Structure: We’ll tidy up title tags, headers, and meta descriptions, and remove any thin or duplicate content that might be holding your rankings back.
- Image and Video Optimisation: From compressing files to adding proper alt text and updating your sitemap, we’ll make sure your visual content is search-friendly and loads quickly.
- International Setup: If your audience spans multiple countries, we’ll use the correct country domains and language tags to give every visitor the right version of your site.
- Mobile Optimisation: We’ll ensure your site is fast, responsive, and easy to use on mobile. After all, that’s where many property searches begin.
- Mobile Usability or Core Web Vitals: We’ll fix issues like small text, awkward spacing, and viewport settings so your site is comfortable to browse on any device.
- Navigation and Access: From fixing broken links to simplifying your menu structure, we’ll make it easier for people (and search engines) to move through your site.
- SEO and Tech Health: We’ll handle important behind-the-scenes elements like redirects, canonical tags, and robots meta tags—so your site sends the right signals to Google.
- Website Security: We’ll help prevent errors and security issues that could impact both user confidence and your search rankings.
These steps are necessary because good UX keeps would-be clients engaged and improves conversion rates.
A seamless and intuitive UX can lead to less frustration, which encourages visitors to stay longer and interact more.
Strong UX can reduce cognitive load—that is, the amount of brainpower users need to navigate your site and find what they’re looking for.
The more streamlined and intuitive the user journey, the less likely people are to abandon your site in frustration.
Analyse Your SEO Competitors
Even if you know your industry competitors inside out, your SEO competitors might look quite different because it all depends on the keywords you’re targeting.
That’s why competitor analysis is such an essential part of any solid SEO strategy. It helps you understand who you’re really up against in search engine rankings and what they’re doing to earn those top spots.
Once we’ve identified your competitors, we’ll take the time to analyse what’s working for them.
What kind of content are they publishing? How have they structured their pages and websites? What types of pages are performing best?
By studying their successes and challenges, we can uncover valuable opportunities to strengthen your own strategy and give you a competitive edge where it really counts.
Our services include rankings evaluations of the competition’s sites. Our market research and keyword competitor analysis will allow us to develop the most effective approach to helping you outrank other real estate professionals’ websites.
These continuous competitor audits can directly shape your SEO strategy as they constantly update the information on the gaps, opportunities, and emerging trends in your niche.
Do Your Keyword Research
Securing the best search engine rankings stems from knowing the keywords your potential clients use when searching for properties. This is where our SEO campaigns excel.
We’ll develop a keyword strategy tailored to your needs and carry out regular monthly reviews.
We’ll first focus on key terms that need improvement, taking into account factors such as predictive traffic, negative reviews, and the relevance of each keyword to your business.
We won’t limit the number of keywords we can optimise throughout your campaign. Further optimisation won’t result in extra costs.
Our keyword research will draw data from multiple sources, including Google Search Console, Google Ads (formerly AdWords), product listing ads (PLA), competitors’ rankings, and other keyword tools.
With a comprehensive approach, we’ll ensure that the SEO strategy we create for you targets the right keywords to meet your long-term objectives, particularly in highly competitive real estate markets.
Our regular keyword reviews will also keep your campaign on track and ensure it remains effective as it evolves.
What Should Be Your Real Estate Keywords?
When it comes to real estate SEO, common phrases like “houses for sale” or “real estate listings” might seem like the obvious choices.
However, while these keywords often attract high search volumes, they’re not always the best ones to target.
For more focused results, especially in local search, we consider terms like “real estate agent near me”, which indicates that the searcher is ready to connect with a professional.
Also, let’s not overlook the potential of “low-hanging fruit” keywords. These are more specific phrases (for instance, “Queenslanders” or “duplexes in Brisbane”) that tend to face less competition due to being more niche.
By targeting these low-competition terms, we can position your brand in front of your ideal audience with less effort and higher chances of ranking.
Diving deeper into your potential clients’ search intent can help uncover keywords that larger real estate platforms have missed.
Target the Correct (Local) Keywords
Tools like Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool can simplify the process of identifying and analysing the queries your target audience is using in their online searches.
With access to a database of over 25 billion keywords, Semrush can help us uncover the most relevant ideas for your content.
Look for Long-Tail Keywords Opportunities
Long-tail keywords are more specific search phrases that might have lower search volumes, but they’re often easier to rank for and tend to attract people who are ready to take action.
For real estate, that means highly motivated buyers and sellers in your local area.
Using tools like Semrush, we can uncover a wide range of long-tail keywords related to your business.
These keywords vary in search volume and keyword difficulty (KD), but those with high search volume and low competition are the sweet spot.
By targeting the right long-tail keywords, we can help you increase your chances of ranking well on SERPs.
Create Good Quality Content With Your Clients in Mind
In crafting content for your real estate business, we start by taking a close look at what you already have on your website, assessing it from an SEO perspective to see what’s working well and where there’s room to improve.
From there, we’ll put together clear, SEO-focused guidelines to help produce content that resonates with your brand and target audience.
We’ll also conduct thorough keyword research to craft high-quality on-page content that’s not only informative and relevant but also aligned with the most common search intents.
It’s all about meeting people where they are in their journey—whether they’re browsing, enquiring, or ready to act.
Our editorial SEO approach is built for long-term success in the content marketing space.
Every content piece is carefully planned, thoroughly researched, and written by our team of experienced human writers, so your content feels relatable and trustworthy.
Provide Helpful Tools and Resources
Not too long ago, marketing meant broadcasting your message to as many people as possible, hoping it would land with the right ones.
Today, success lies in delivering targeted, high-quality content that speaks directly to the people who need your services most.
The goal is to develop content that is helpful, original and relevant to your target market. Our in-house writers know exactly how to craft content that performs well in search engines.
Before any writing starts, our content strategy assistants will look at what type of content can work best for your business. They’ll then put together a detailed content brief to guide the process.
From there, our writers will develop your website content with care and clarity, making sure every content piece is aligned with your brand voice and goals.
At the same time, our copywriters will handle key SEO elements, such as meta descriptions and title tags, to ensure your content is fully optimised from the ground up.
The number of keywords we target will depend on the SEO package you choose, and that number can go up the longer you stick with us.
However, regardless of the package, we’ll base all keyword choices on extensive research, ensuring we target search terms that directly support your campaign goals and have genuine potential to deliver results.
Socially Syndicate Your Original Real Estate Content
An established social media presence is essential for success in real estate today, as social platforms offer more direct opportunities to connect with potential customers.
While social media engagement doesn’t directly affect SEO rankings, it plays a crucial role in increasing visibility and improving overall campaign performance.
By tracking which posts, ads, or blogs receive the most interaction, we can identify the key terms that your audience uses most frequently. This enables us to refine our strategy, making it more aligned with the interests of your potential customers.
We can use social media data to optimise your content strategy, helping you achieve better results.
With our in-depth understanding of Meta’s features and advanced audience segmentation, we can help you lower costs per lead while increasing engagement.
Keep Meta Descriptions Up to Date
When search engines work to give the best results for a user’s query, they rely on context to decide which pages to display. Keywords are crucial, but meta tags are also significant contributors.
Meta tags, or meta descriptions, are short text snippets that summarise key details about a webpage.
While they don’t directly impact your site’s ranking, they do play a role in improving user experience. These tags can help improve click-through rates and conversions.
Consider this from a potential client’s perspective: Would you prefer to click on a website that clearly explains what it offers or one that leaves you guessing?
That’s precisely why we include on-page elements, such as meta tags, as part of our SEO strategy.
As part of our services, we’ll use geo-targeted and relevant keywords to ensure your content matches search queries. That includes adjusting and updating meta descriptions, title tags, headers, URLs and body content.
We’ll also tidy up any areas that might be holding you back, like any missing, duplicated, or irrelevant meta descriptions that can quietly drag down your performance.
Focus on Technical SEO and Perform a Full Technical Audit of Your Site
Sometimes, it’s not your content that’s the issue; it’s what’s happening behind the scenes. Hidden technical issues can hinder your website’s performance, even if your content is relevant, helpful, and well-written.
That’s why we offer a complimentary technical audit of your website, a service that other digital marketing agencies typically charge thousands of dollars for.
We don’t stop there. We also conduct thorough technical audits on a regular basis to address any issues that could impact your rankings before they become a problem.
Our regular checks can help identify new ways to fine-tune and optimise your site, ensuring your pages and content work well for both users and search engines.
Prioritise Solving Crawling and Indexing Issues
We’ll keep critical components, such as sitemaps and robots.txt files, up to date so search engines can crawl your website seamlessly.
When reviewing your sitemaps, we’ll check a wide range of elements, including hypertext markup language (HTML), extensible markup language (XML) for the root domain, news or blog, subdomains, mobile, images and videos.
We’ll also enhance your site’s crawl depth, which will help Google find and index your important pages more smoothly.
Have a Local Approach
Local SEO is essential for estate agents and property professionals, as real estate is all about location.
If you want to enhance your rankings and boost conversions, we’re here to help. Our services are specifically designed to enhance your local visibility.
Through our data-driven approach, we’ll help potential clients easily find you and get in touch, whether they’re searching for nearby agents or trying to visit your office.
After all, whether you offer exceptional real estate services won’t matter if potential clients can’t even find your firm in the first place.
We can help you set up and maintain your Google Business Profile (GBP). This can improve your firm’s chances of appearing in search results for your desired locations.
We can further localise the content of your site by optimising your name, address, and phone number (NAP) on each of your web pages.
How to Claim Your Google Business Profile
Your GBP is Google’s way of officially recognising your business NAP, which needs to be consistent across all online platforms, not just Google.
This means having the same details on your GBP, your website, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), citation sites, and anywhere else your business is listed.
In the past, Google required a postcard to be sent to your business address for verification. Nowadays, to reduce spam, most new listings need video verifications.
Optimising Your Google Business Profile
Once your GBP is verified, it’s time to optimise it. We ensure your profile is fully set up for local real estate SEO through the following steps:
Choosing Primary and Secondary Categories
Google considers this a critical ranking factor. With our GBP management services, we can select the categories most suitable for your business and add more categories as needed.
Adding Business Services
Under each of your categories, we can list the services you offer with a short description of each.
Updating Your Business Description
Your Business Profile description provides potential clients with clear, concise information about your business. We can craft a unique, concise description that accurately represents your business.
Adding Your Service Areas
As a real estate business, you’ll often serve customers at your main office while also having a wider service area where you can travel to show or list homes for sale.
We’ll incorporate both your address and service area into your GBP, as this can help local customers find you easily.
Adding Your Additional Business Information
We’ll add all relevant business details, including your website, phone number, business hours, handicap accessibility, and any other pertinent information.
If your office is wheelchair accessible or has any special features, such as being veteran-owned or family-run, we can include that information as well.
These details help build trust and make your business more approachable to the people who matter most.
Adding Photos and Videos to Your GMB
Visual content is essential. Images and videos enhance your site by helping highlight your unique selling points.
Especially when compared to text-only content, videos tend to get more of your message across, since people aren’t just skimming the content.
Visual assets are also easier to repurpose across different platforms and formats.
From uploading high-quality images into your GBP to fine-tuning the profile for local SEO, we’ll help boost your chances of first-page placement in Google and attract more local clients to your real estate business.
Start Getting Google Reviews
This is a step you can immediately take by encouraging your clients to leave reviews. This can be done by sending them a direct review link, which makes the process quick and easy.
Positive client reviews can significantly boost your local prominence, improving your rankings.
Building Citations
After setting up your GBP, we’ll create or update your citations. These are listings of your business on other websites like Facebook, Yelp and Yellow Pages.
We’ll ensure that your NAP is consistent across all these sites. Even minor discrepancies in this data can confuse search engines and derail your local SEO efforts.
Use Real Estate Agents Schema Markup
Schema markup, or what’s known as structured data, helps Google and other search platforms understand what your business is all about.
For a real estate website, this means your schema should clearly indicate whether you’re a real estate agency, broker, agent, or something else entirely.
We’ll review your schema to ensure that it provides important details, such as your NAP. Other helpful information may include your operating hours, office location coordinates (latitude and longitude) and the real estate markets you serve.
By using the real estate listing schema, we can supply search engines with crucial details about your real estate website.
Schema markup can highlight your site’s uniqueness, potentially even landing a featured snippet in search results.
Aggregate Online Reviews From Past Clients
Every real estate professional understands the power of online reviews. Whether they come from Google, Yelp, real estate portals, or your website, we can help you make the most of every positive review.
Part of our schema review process is to ensure that the structured data accurately provides details on reviews and ratings of your services. This step is necessary so that Google recognises these reviews as valid.
The Best Backlinks
Backlinks from reputable real estate websites can significantly boost your site’s authority. Accurate and transparent referencing can highlight your site as a resource that presents information in a trustworthy manner.
Backlinks can also give site visitors the impression that you are recognised as an authority in your niche.
Here’s how we’ll build your backlink profile:
- Selecting the right sites, link types, and pages
- Continuously seeking fresh links
- Establishing relationships from the first email to the final placement
And here are some of our approaches in managing the quality of your backlinks:
- Content marketing
- Guest posting
- Analyses of your competitors’ backlink profiles
- Creating citations for local SEO
- Finding and fixing broken backlinks
- Social media syndication of original content
Get Local Backlinks to Your Real Estate Website
Outside the internet, word-of-mouth referrals are among the most potent forms of marketing.
The same principle applies to backlinks. A local backlink is a link from a relevant, local source, such as a business directory, a local news website, or a community blog.
These types of backlinks help improve your local authority and, more importantly, send targeted, local traffic to your website. They also indicate to search engines that your site belongs to the highest rankings in SERPs.
As part of our link building services, we’ll ensure your site has a natural backlink profile to prevent Google penalties.
Use Social Media to Help With Backlinks
If you’re not engaging on social media, chances are your competition is. And with more visibility, they’re more likely to attract your potential clients.
Social media is a great way to amplify your real estate SEO efforts. It can help increase brand awareness, engage with your local community, and start conversations about your industry.
By sharing helpful advice and contributing to discussions, you’ll gradually build your brand and establish yourself as the go-to expert in your locale.
Monitor the Rankings and Progress of Your Keywords
Tracking your campaign closely offers valuable insights into what’s working and what isn’t.
We’ll keep an eye on your approach to identify the strategies that generate leads, inquiries and foot traffic, as well as pinpoint areas that need improvement.
To accurately measure the effectiveness of your real estate SEO program, we’ll monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your business objectives.
Some KPIs we track include page popularity and the keywords generating the most traffic.
On our side, we use a range of trusted tools to help monitor, refine, and shape your SEO strategy, all with your specific business goals in mind.
Here’s a quick look at some of the tools we use to support your success:
- Google Business Manager: This tool helps us manage your Google Business Profile (GBP) effectively, ensuring everything stays up to date.
You’ll also have access yourself, so you can keep an eye on how your listing is performing and engage with reviews and updates directly.
- Google Keyword Planner: Essential for keyword research, this tool reveals search frequency for specific keywords in particular areas.
It helps us identify the most relevant and high-impact keywords to target, ensuring your content aligns with what your audience is actually looking for.
- Google Search Console: This tool tracks how your website performs in search results. It shows where your traffic is coming from, which pages are doing well, and the search terms people use to find your site.
- Ahrefs Link Intersect: With this tool, we can see which websites are linking to your competitors but not to you. That allows us to spot missing opportunities for local citations, backlinks, or directory listings in your niche and region.
- Ahrefs Rank Tracker: We use this to track up to 10,000 keywords and see how your site ranks in organic search, whether on a city or state level.
It helps us monitor your visibility in local search and make targeted improvements where they matter most.
Testing and Iteration to Improve Your Conversion Rate
To boost your website’s conversion rate, we’ll focus on optimising your landing pages and ensuring your content offers something compelling to potential buyers or sellers.
We’ll conduct A/B testing to refine your site’s performance. In this kind of test, we split your audience to test two versions of a campaign and measure which one performs better.
Optimise Your Real Estate Website for Mobile Search
Mobile optimisation is a crucial element of our SEO services, especially as more people now search for properties and services on their phones than ever before.
We focus on key tools like Core Web Vitals and PageSpeed Insights to ensure your site is fully optimised for mobile devices, improving its visibility across devices.
Core Web Vitals are key metrics that measure the user experience in terms of site interactivity, loading speed and visual stability.
Meanwhile, PageSpeed Insights evaluates your site’s performance on both mobile and desktop platforms, offering suggestions on how to enhance user experience on these devices.
Optimise Site Speed
Improving your site’s loading performance is essential for keeping visitors engaged. In our fast-paced digital world, a few seconds of delay can frustrate people and cause them to leave before they’ve even seen what you offer.
We’ll keep a close eye on key performance indicators, such as server uptime, time-to-first-byte (the time from when a request is made to when the first byte of a response is received), and page speed scores, to provide an uninterrupted browsing experience.
Improve Your E-E-A-T Factors
Our SEO strategies are designed to help your site align with Google’s E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness) guidelines.
Content that demonstrates these qualities is favoured by Google, which will make it more likely to be ranked higher in search results.
Optimise Images for Search
We’ll help you showcase high-quality visual elements on your website.
Our image and video optimisation services include reducing file sizes, updating sitemaps and checking image alt text to ensure fast load times and a smooth visual experience.
SEO Tactics Real Estate Agents Should Avoid
When it comes to SEO, it’s just as important to know what not to do. Some tactics might seem like shortcuts, but they can lead to penalties from Google that hurt your rankings and reputation.
Here are a few common pitfalls we help our clients avoid:
- Keyword Stuffing: Cramming your content with keywords makes your content harder to read and less trustworthy in the eyes of search engines.
- Link Buying: Paying for backlinks rather than earning them naturally can have serious consequences. Google’s algorithms are smart enough to spot this, and it can damage your credibility.
- Duplicate Content: Reusing content with only minor changes, such as altering location keywords, can trigger penalties. Unique, high-quality content is always the better approach.
- Sneaky Redirects: Sending users to a different page than the one they clicked on breaks trust and can flag your site as misleading.
- Hidden Text: Using text that’s the same colour as the background, off-screen, or hidden behind an image to stuff SEO keywords is considered deceptive and won’t do your rankings any favours.
Hiring a Real Estate SEO Expert
While managing SEO on your own is possible, you may not have the necessary tools or time to keep pace with the growing industry competition and Google’s constantly evolving algorithms.
In fact, you could end up competing with professionals who specialise in SEO or those who hire experts like us to stay ahead.
Trying to handle real estate SEO strategy on your own could also divert time and resources that would be better spent on running your operations.
Allowing specialists like us to manage your SEO enables you to focus on what matters most: your business and your clients.
Our team uses a data-driven optimisation approach, ensuring your site ranks well and remains competitive. That way, you can focus on your core business without worrying about the intricacies of SEO.
If you’re ready to start boosting your SEO and taking your real estate business to new heights, give us a call at 1300 891 181 or send an email to [email protected] to schedule an obligation-free consultation.
FAQs
1. How much does SEO cost?
At Digital Spotlight, we offer a range of SEO packages, each with its own price depending on the number of keywords, your project’s needs, and the competitiveness of your industry.
We work with a fixed monthly fee for our services, tailored to the package you select.
We’ll make sure our SEO approach aligns with your goals before you commit to anything. We’ll tell you if we think SEO can’t help grow your business.
We’re all about transparency, never offering false promises or unrealistic guarantees.
2. Is SEO still profitable?
Absolutely. SEO remains a valuable tool for driving real results and revenue as long as search engines exist.
Ask yourself:
- Do potential clients still use search engines?
- Do search engines still show organic results?
- Can digital marketing strategies still impact these organic results?
If your answer is “yes” to all of the above, then SEO is still a key investment for your business.
3. How can I measure ROI for real estate SEO?
We believe the most meaningful way to measure SEO success is by looking at your return on investment (ROI).
Before we kick off your campaign, we’ll collect key data on your website’s traffic, search rankings and conversions. This gives us a clear starting point, so we can track your progress every step of the way.
Once we have enough data, we’ll apply specific formulas to calculate a tangible ROI percentage, allowing you to see the direct impact of our SEO services.
The formulas we use are as follows:
As time passes and your campaign moves along, you’ll get monthly reports that show how your search engine visibility is tracking.
These reports will break down your SEO results, including a summary of the campaign and any new inbound links you’ve picked up.
For this purpose, we use Looker Studio, a tool that turns your data into easy-to-read charts and tables.
The Looker Studio report provides a detailed view of how things are going, with a live dashboard that pulls in your campaign data in real time.
4. What are the changes in today’s SEO?
The pace at which SEO evolves is becoming faster than ever. Google rolls out updates so frequently that the vast majority of businesses—around 99%—simply can’t keep up.
Most of these changes are technical, rather than being about keywords or content. To stay competitive, you’ll need specialists who understand these technical shifts.
Our founders, who are mathematicians, compare real-world results against the patterns predicted by our SEO models to spot trends that other agencies often miss.
Once we identify possible changes, we test them to ensure they’re significant. If they are, we implement them across all our active campaigns, ensuring our SEO work stays up-to-date with the latest shifts.
5. Can my real estate website really compete?
Yes, it certainly can. At Digital Spotlight, we design websites with a focus on compatibility across different platforms.
This is paired with a comprehensive analysis of your business needs to ensure your site gets the visibility it deserves.
We can target anywhere from 3 to 20 core keywords for your website, and with our proprietary ranking technology, we can aim for your site to rank for up to 150 variations of those keywords on Google’s first page.
6. Doesn’t my real estate website already come with SEO?
It might do, but in most cases, there’s still plenty of room to improve.
When we optimise your site, we focus on providing valuable, relevant content that your visitors will appreciate.
SEO isn’t a one-off task but an ongoing process. We’re constantly monitoring changing trends and search behaviours.
These updates can sometimes lead to adjustments by our web development partners to further enhance your site’s performance.
