Search engine optimization may be critical for generating more real estate investing leads but can getting it wrong really be worse for your business than not doing it at all?
Real estate investors have been scrambling to SEO their websites and blogs in the last couple of years so that they come out on top of Google, get seen and attract more prospects. Some seem to instantly hit #1 with ease, while others get nasty emails from the search giant.
So what’s the deal; how devastating can bad SEO be and where are investors going wrong?
Focusing on the Wrong Metrics
Unfortunately many real estate investing businesses are focused on the wrong metrics. They read some tips on SEO from a year ago and just think they need to keep on doing more of that to win at it.
Unfortunately many of those SEO strategies are way out of date and are doing them more harm than good. This is especially true when it comes to, curating other peoples’ content, stuffing as many keywords as they can into a web page or article and focusing on flooding just one or two platforms with their content and often ones which now rank poorly.
Google now demands diversity in links, text and referring sites.
Killer Pandas & Penguins
These wild animals can take you down!
Throwing up masses of spun, borrowed or keyword stuffed content can do serious damage to real estate investing websites and blogs. Google will demote companies who do this in their search rankings and have even shut some down. So worse than just not working, bad SEO means wasted money which could have been used to create profits and sometimes it means paying to fix and remove the bad too. Anticipate more stringent rules coming and err on the side of doing things really well.
Does Good SEO = No SEO?
Google doesn’t want real estate investing companies to be trying to trick the system at the cost of delivering poor content to users, so it is rewarding those with natural content which is highly relevant.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use keywords at all but limiting them to 1-2% density and staying diversified while focusing on customer experience will be rewarded.
You do need an SEO strategy and investors definitely shouldn’t be overlooking SMO (social media optimization) but think common sense and being unique and interesting to read versus high volume.
