Using search console (webmaster tools) for SEO to find new real estate keywords

[Morgan]

How many of you use your own data to mine for new keyword opportunities?

Here’s a quick real estate SEO tip for you.

Check out the screen below (from my wife https://www.carlycarey.com’s Renaissance website)

For our SEO campaign, we focus a lot on “Vancouver island waterfront” type keywords, and in this case, as you can see, there is a decent amount of impressions and traffic available for the longtail keyword “waterfront cottage for sale Vancouver island” (ironically we don’t even optimize for “cottage” specifically and it is only mentioned once on the page, but since we have a lot of authority around waterfront Vancouver island, we can rank none the less.

Now that I noticed the traffic available for that term, I decided to see what other “cottage” keywords have brought decent impressions in the last week or so. I use the query search, add cottages and then sort by impressions.

Now you don’t know our area like I do (obviously) but BC is a huge area (we only serve Vancouver island) so anything that says “Vancouver cottages” or “cottages for sale bc” is either too broad, or out of area. And some of the terms, well they are just super random.

BUT

One of our favorite towns to service “Lake Cowichan” is on the list (and it’s 2nd highest) - for this one, we’re not ranking well at all (we’re at 63.8) but that makes sense since we have literally no content for “lake cowichan cottages” at all on here.

But since I’m ranking with literally no effort, and no content, how hard would it be to significantly increase the rankings for this keyword? The theory is not hard at all (if you’re good at SEO that is)

So that’s what I’ll do! Create a page for lake Cowichan cottages, add some FAQ’s, add lake cowichan listings (there aren’t any cottages for sale, but I’ll post listings as an alternative) and then I’ll come back here and beg for a few backlinks to the page. (Hopefully, some of you will appreciate this tip enough to throw Carly a link and help me test my theory!

There’s your real estate SEO tip of the day. Use your OWN data to mine for keywords that you may already be able to rank for.

If you found this helpful (and want to help me test this SEO post) please find a place on your site (your blog, or somewhere) to shoot carly a link - the code you want is `<a href="https://www.carlycarey.com/lake-cowichan-cottages.php">Lake Cowichan Cottages</a>`

Feel free to post questions below

[Morgan]

Update - in only 15 mins, I have already created the page: You can find it at Lake Cowichan Cottages For Sale - Lake Cowichan BC Cottage Info (now let’s see how long it takes to get indexed / rank)

I used the copy feature in REW CMS to create it quickly (from my lake Cowichan main page) I’ll swap out FAQ’s, and pics later, but really it’s that easy. Make sure you change headings, meta desc, H1 and top content out right away, and make it unique.

If you found this helpful (and want to help me test this SEO post) please find a place on your site (your blog, or somewhere) to shoot carly a link - the code you want is <a href="https://www.carlycarey.com/lake-cowichan-cottages.php">Lake Cowichan Cottages</a>

Any link helps

[Morgan]

For posterity, sharing that we only have 1 keyword currently, that has brought us any impressions and it’s ranked 66.3 in Google as of today. (We’re going to change that)

[mattleicht]

this is great!!
On my search console, I do not have the “position” column. Any advice on how to view that?

[Morgan]

I sure do!

Go up to the top (looks like this)

Make sure you click inside the checkbox so it lights up (fills in with colour)

Then you should be good to go.

(Note, you need to be looking at “performance” on the left-hand side.)

[mattleicht]

thank you!!

I am not ranking for any keywords that are related to real estate… guess I really need to focus on my real estate content rather than community content.

Matt Leicht - Sarasota Real Estate

[Morgan]

@mattleicht

I am not ranking for any keywords that are related to real estate… guess I really need to focus on my real estate content rather than community content.

they can be one and the same (with some minor edits to page titles, headings etc)

But yes, you should be creating pillars as well. So if you have main pages (which you do) for community, then you should have sub pages and blog posts for “community homes” “community condos” that sort of thing and pay particular attention to Pillar linking.

[mattleicht]

Awesome thanks!!

Are there any pro tips to having great page titles? I feel like mine are pretty good as of now.

[Morgan]

@mattleicht

Are there any pro tips to having great page titles? I feel like mine are pretty good as of now.

Hey Matt, you’ve got a decent start on concepts, but there is quite a lot you could improve on.

You asked specifically about page titles (the “title tag”) which is not actually an on-page element, but rather it is what Google uses as the main link on their SERPS.

While I can’t audit your entire website (that’s what the SEO team is here for at REW

I did look at your very first community page in your navigation which is “Siesta Key”

Specific to the title:

This is your title today:

It is great that you have included your main idea/topic (your main keyword) for the title. But there is a lot of missed opportunity here.

You see with Titles, you have up to 60 characters to work with (that is how many Google will show over 90% of the time in the SERPS)

And so you’re encouraged to use them!

And it’s not just about adding/stuffing more keywords. That is generally not the way.

Instead, try to focus on CTR (click-through rate) by grabbing the users’ attention and focusing on their intent.

Ask yourself a few questions:

What segment of the people that type in “Siesta Key Real Estate” do you want to appeal to?

I’m guessing buyers right? (Since it’s a very buyer-heavy phrase)

Ok, and what do buyers also care about (what’s on their mind, or what would pique their interest) as they are searching? What’s the hook? Try to grab their attention or offer them some extra value

Would you rather click on

Siesta Key Real Estate

Or

All Siesta Key Real Estate (Updated Every 5 Minutes)

See the difference?

I let the user know that they could find “all” real estate, and also gave them a quality indicator that the site has updated listings constantly.

Now, the science of SEO is all about playing with these things. The 2nd title is already 52 characters, but I “could” play around with it a bit to try to include a secondary keyword “for sale”

But: " All Siesta Key Real Estate For Sale (Updated Every 5 Minutes) is 61 characters…

DOH!!!

So I could do several things. Do I remove “all” (no I like that) what about truncate “minutes to mins” << that works or I could consider removing the brackets (which do help it stand out, but take 2 characters.

I would probably go with: All Siesta Key Real Estate For Sale (Updated Every 5 Mins)

58 Characters! Boom!

As for the rest of the page: You have several issues (some are aesthetic and some are SEO).

For instance, you have some odd feeling gaps in your side nav (pictured below) < But I do like where you’re headed with CTA’s for sub-pages of property types, that could be cleaned up but it’s good thinking)

Further down there is a large strange white gap (and you’ve missed an opportunity in an H2 to include a real estate qualifier) instead of “Siesta Key” why doesn’t that say “Siesta Key Real Estate Listings”?

Take a look at our Youbou Real Estate page for inspiration on page layout.

Content can be well designed (look great), robust (lots of it), and still be well SEO’d

Appreciate the engagement on the forums my man, keep up the good work on your site.

Hope this helps

[mattleicht]

This is so good Morgan! Thank you for taking the time to write that out for me. I’ve been with REW for about 7 years now and I clearly haven’t leveraged out my REW site to it’s fullest potential.

Part of that is I generate 300-400 leads per year via my youtube channel. But I think SEO and great websites are truly how you can build sustainability within the real estate industry. So I’m trying to focus more attention on building that side to my business.

[MariaG]

Hey Matt. If you need any help with making changes on your site and need some refreshers on the back end stuff, reach out to the CSM for your account who is @Laura

She is amazing and can help walk you through how to make some changes.

[mattleicht]

@Morgan here is my attempt to follow your coaching with Pillar page, sub page and now I’m working on blogs that will have links back to those.

Waterside Lakewood Ranch - Everything you need to know

What are your thoughts on this?

[Morgan]

@mattleicht

@Morgan here is my attempt to follow your coaching with Pillar page, sub page and now I’m working on blogs that will have links back to those.

Waterside Lakewood Ranch - Everything you need to know

What are your thoughts on this?

Are you trying to rank for generic community terms? Or Real Estate Terms for this page?

[mattleicht]

I’m wanting this Pillar and sub pages to rank for “Waterside Lakewood Ranch”

[Morgan]

Ok and what are these areas?

[mattleicht]

these are communities/neighborhoods within the “Waterside Lakewood Ranch” area.

[Morgan]

Great, let me grab a coffee and I’ll dig in (give me 15 mins to review)

[Morgan]

Ok, so let’s talk about organizational structure first:

You have a main page at Waterside Lakewood Ranch - Everything you need to know it has it’s main keyword in the title and a bit of a hook (that’s good) since it’s a pillar page it should promise the user “everything”

You then are using “subpages” to associate neighborhoods with the area:

Example Lakehouse Cove at Waterside Lakewood Ranch

And you’ve included an embedded hyperlink back to the main page from your text. That’s awesome! (Though technically not required for sub pages, as that is the purpose of the breadcrumbs) - do keep up this habit though (where it makes sense, especially in blogs).

And now you’re planning on writing blogs, that’s great! Remember, write them for the users (not for search engines), they are there to prop up your main pages with interesting / compelling content.

I would suggest for example - “The history of the 7 lakes of Waterside at Lakewood Ranch” (or some other interesting thing that focuses on a high point of Waterside)

You can also use the people also ask as a topic guide.

Ok so that’s structure, I think you have that mostly down.

[mattleicht]

thanks for diving in! So I’m doing the pillar page approach correctly then! Now as I write more blogs and link back to “Waterside Lakewood Ranch”. Eventually, my page should start to rank on google.

Is that the overall idea?

[Morgan]

Now onto content… I really do hope you take this very first quote to heart because you are making the same mistake everyone does when they are obsessed with their SEO. You are focused on rankings instead of consumers.

This is the quote: “Never think about search engines when writing your content. Always think about the best content you can write for your visitors. That matches your visitor’s intent. And then write that. Think of this as an interview with a seller where they have asked you to discuss the depth of your knowledge on an area.”

How do I know you’re obsessed with SEO right now? (Other than your REALLY awesome questions and enthusiasm here on the community?)

This screenshot tells me everything I need to know…

If you’re writing: My keyword is the best keyword of all the keywords in keyword. You know you’re obsessed with SEO

And it’s addicting right? But honestly Matt. Less is more here. A few well placed headings and keywords will fair far better than spamming them all over the page.