How estate agents can find and attract an audience on Google

I've posted before on things you can do to improve your estate agency's Google ranking, including a very brief look at what phrases people might be searching for.

However, that blog didn't cover how you can research what other keywords people might be using to find websites like yours. You don't need to be a techie to understand the results of this, so that's today's article..


It's always a good idea to start with a blank sheet of paper and scribble some ideas down for how you think people will search for you. As mentioned in the previous blog, these might be similar to:

• Houses for sale Crawley
• Flats to rent Crawley
• Crawley estate agents

Consider what people ask you day in and day out: areas of town, transport links, types of property, etc.
Using Google's Keyword Tool, you can then use these initial ideas to find other keywords people are using - and most importantly, how many people are using them. It may be that you are surprised by the results!
This is really a job for you or your web development company to do at the start of your website project, but it's never too late to get started. A website only performs as well as its search engine ranking!
To use the keyword tool, follow these steps:

1. Enter your search phrases into the 'Descriptive words or phrases' box.
2. Make sure 'Use synonyms' is ticked.
3. Enter the characters provided in the Capcha to prove you are human. (!)
4. Click the 'Get keyword ideas' button.

Now you have Google's list of suggestions, along with search statistics for your own. In order to make most sense of the list, I also recommend changing the 'Match Type' selection box at the top of the right hand column to 'Phrase' and then clicking the 'Local Search Volume' header, so that the phrases are sorted most popular first.
You will probably want to run through those steps a few times to refine your results and save them using the 'Download all keywords' spreadsheet export.
Once you have your list, there are a number of ways you can make use of it (although some of these are a bit more techie!):

1. Amend the meta tags, page titles and header tags on your website to reflect the keywords you want to target (the most popular ones).
2. Use them as ideas to form the basis of informational web pages blog posts. This can help with link building, an important SEO component we will have to come back to another time.
3. Create a pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaign (instant results, if not free) - more on this soon, as it's possibly the best use of your online marketing budget in the short term.

I'll also come back to monitoring changes in your search engine ranking and visitor numbers another time, but do this right (or outsource it to a reputable SEO company) and you'll see the difference pretty quickly.
Proper cost effective marketing.