In April, I wrote an article explaining the ways social media can help your search engine rankings, and now I’m back to follow up those insightful and comprehensive observations with five actionable tactics that’ll lead to noticeable improvement in your search engine optimization (SEO), an increase in leads, and ultimately, your bottom line.
1. Get yourself some Facebook reviews
First, check to see that your business’s Facebook page is set up to receive reviews. If it’s not, check out this article that walks you through the process. Of course, receiving reviews in a vacuum won’t help your SEO.
Fortunately, your Facebook reviews (like everything else on the internet) don’t exist in a vacuum.
In fact, when your Google My Business listing shows up in the search results, Google often pulls reviews from other source, including Facebook. This extra indication of social proof improves the chances that visitors will click through to your site.
In the image below, you can see that Google is pulling Facebook reviews. (The black marks are to blur out the info of this real estate agent.)
2. Set up a business account on Pinterest and focus on local content
Every agent wants to become the go-to agent in their chosen neighborhoods. But you can only do that if you commit to becoming an expert in those neighborhoods. The same concept applies when you want to dominate social media niches, especially on Pinterest.
Creating a board on Pinterest that focuses on real estate in certain neighborhoods will get your content in front of the people that are most likely to be interested in it. And it’s a great place to promote neighborhood guides to increase your chances of earning backlinks, which will provide a huge boost to your local SEO.
Plus, you can set up your boards for double duty and pin your most photogenic listings.
3. Be consistent with your name, address and phone number
In local SEO speak, the instances of your company’s name, address and phone number on business directories, review sites and social media are known as “citations.” And while small variations in these citations aren’t the end of the world, experts agree that your name, address and phone number need to be consistent across the web.
So take a quick look through your social media presence and check for inconsistencies. If possible, use a phone number with a local area code. And if you list an email address, use one that has your company’s domain.
4. Build relationships with local influencers
When most marketers think about their target audience, they often forget about influencers. But there’s a reason Kylie Jenner makes about $300,000 per Instagram post.
An influencer’s feed is one of the most effective promotion channels available.
The good news for those of us in the real estate industry too miserly to shell out $300,000 for an Instagram post is that there is another way. In fact, there are tons of local real estate reporters out there, especially in major real estate markets. By building relationships with these people, you’ll have a contact to tap whenever your brokerage has a press release or company news to announce.
If your new reporter friend picks up your story, the backlink you receive from the local news website will be very good for SEO. Just make sure you only leverage the connection when you have real news.
5. Strategically incorporate keywords into your social media profiles
To date, none of the real estate agents I’ve worked with have ever brought up keyword optimization for their social media profiles. At the risk of sounding blasphemous, optimizing for search engines isn’t just about Google anymore.
Two billion people use Facebook to search per day. Another two billion use Pinterest to search each month. Sure, that’s still a pittance compared to Google’s search traffic, but you’re also facing far less competition for search traffic on Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites.
If you already know how to research keywords, the process isn’t too much different for social media. However, you should know that you need to adjust your target keywords based on the social media platform.
For example, you wouldn’t want to target the same keyword on LinkedIn as you would on Pinterest. For more detailed guidance, Kissmetrics provides a comprehensive walkthrough of how to optimize your social media profiles.
Now you’re ready
Hopefully you’re now ready to win the most ruthless popularity contest on the planet — I mean, improve your search engine rankings.
If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this post, it’s to focus your social media efforts on targeting the neighborhoods you sell real estate in.
From a search perspective, it puts you in a less competitive space. And from a broad market perspective, it focuses your time and efforts on the prospects that matter most.
Chris Meyer is the founder of CM Business Writing in San Francisco. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
