Local SEO is essential to a realtor’s marketing efforts. To improve your efforts, local SEO tools will help measure your success. Here are 10 tools to use.
Over 5 million homes were sold in the US in 2017.
With just over 1 million realtors in the US, that’s a lot of competition. So how do you set yourself apart from your competition?
With local SEO, that’s how.
Since you sell in a geographic area, you want to ensure that your website is optimized to reach people in that area. Using local SEO tools can help make your name and listings more visible to that target audience.
Below we’ll explain more about what local SEO is. We’ll also tell you what tools will benefit you most.
What is Local SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s a series of tactics used to increase a websites ranking in organic searches.
The goal behind SEO is to bring more organic traffic to a website. Organic traffic is traffic comes to a site as a result of the terms they’ve searched. The generally accepted rule is that more organic traffic leads to more conversions.
Local SEO is SEO with a local-focus. These strategies aim to increase search ranking with a focus on a geographic location and audience. As a real estate agent serving a specific community, you want to ensure that you’re website is optimized to appear in local searches by local clients.
10 Local SEO Tools for Realtors
Local SEO tactics include everything from updating your business listings to monitoring reviews. And local SEO tools help you do just that – and more.
1. Whitespark Local Citation Finder
Having a consistent name, address, and phone number (NAP) is an important part of local SEO. They appear on your websites, on review websites, as well as business listings.
When your NAP isn’t consistent, search engines can’t be sure of your credibility. That means you won’t rank you well. Considering the number of places a relator can be listed, managing your NAP is key to success in local SEO.
Whitespark is a tool that helps you manage your local listings. It makes sure that your NAP is exactly the same everywhere it appears online. It also finds places that you should be listed.
2. BrightLocal
The real estate market is very competitive. You want to be sure you’re doing a better job at local SEO than your competitors.
BrightLocal can compare your search engine ranking with your direct competition. It can also indicate where your competitors are listed.
It offers a range of packages that also include review monitoring and other tools. Starting at $19.99 per month, this is a great way to keep up with the competition.
3. Local SEO Checklist
This basic checklist is totally free. It lists 40 options and specific tasks that you should be doing for local SEO. If you’re just starting on local SEO, this is a great way to ensure you’re doing everything you need to increase local rankings.
4. Yext
Reviews give local customers an opportunity to create a conversation about your brand. And 84% of people trust an online review just as much as a personal recommendation. That’s why reviews are a key part of local SEO.
For good local SEO, you should be soliciting and engaging with reviews. Reviews left by local customers will impact your ranking. So will responding to reviews left by your clients.
Yext can help you monitor your reviews across all of the online review platforms. With far more platforms than Facebook, Yelp, and Google, doing this manually can be time-consuming.
With Yext’s analytics, you can read and respond to reviews quickly. This gives you the opportunity to thank the customer in real time or fix a customers problems as you become aware of them.
5. Moz Local
Moz Local will help you with both your reviews and your NAP. Moz is reputable in SEO, and this local SEO tool is no exception.
Beyond monitoring reviews and local listing, Moz Local offers:
- Instant Directory and Aggregator Submission
- Distribution Reporting
- Review Monitoring
- Real-time Update Distribution
- Google My Business Synn
- Review Management for Google
Moz will cost you between $99 and $250 per year with a range of options and collections.
6. Navads
If you want to appear on maps, Navads is the tool you need. Through partnerships with Google, Apple, TomTom, and HERE, they provide the location data that powers navigation and mapping online.
Navads offers Google My Business tools, helps to manage your local listings, and optimizes your local data. But their most important tool is local search. This will improve your rank on map search results so your clients can find you.
7. GeoRanker
GeoRankers local citation finder will get you cited on the websites that are most appropriate to your business. This function is especially helpful for realtors. With national, local, and private listing sites, GeoRanker ensures you’re listing where you need to.
8. Screaming Frog
This free local SEO tool will check how well you’re doing at local SEO. Actually, it will audit and index your website for broken links. These can hurt your local SEO rank and should be fixed immediately.
9. Google AdWords Keyword Planner
Keywords are the words and phrases that your client uses to search for your business and services. By knowing what terms your potential clients are using when they search for what you offer, you can improve your local SEO. You do this by creating content that uses these words.
But how do you know what terms and phrases to use? By using a keyword planner. And Google’s keyword planner is completely free.
Need an example of local SEO content? Check out https://www.travisclosehomes.com.
10. Ahrefs
The higher your website authority, the better you rank. One part of your authority is based on the age of your site. The other is based on the number and quality of links and references to your site from authoritative sites.
Building links to your site will help you improve your authority, and by extension, you rank. Building links between local sites will help your local SEO.
Ahrefs gives you a backlink profile for your website. It checks who is linking to you and what anchor text they’ve used for their link. It will also tell you whether or not these links are strong.
New to Local SEO?
If you’re new to SEO, local SEO tools can help you improve your local search ranking. For businesses that deal face-to-face with their community, local SEO is an important aspect of digital marketing. Using these tools can give you an edge over your competition and ensure that you’re doing everything you can to appear in local searches for your services.
For more tips and advice on digital marketing, check out our blog.
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