Challenge
A local real estate agent in Roseville, CA (a suburb of Sacramento) had a website and Google My Business listing that was not appearing on the first page of Google for their local search keywords. Although this agent had been doing real estate SEO themselves and publishing content on a regular basis the website dropped from the 1st page to the 2nd and 3rd pages in the search engines for their primary keywords and they were not able to pinpoint the source of the decline.
After a careful review, we discovered there were changes to their Google Local Map listing that may have “reset” the timeline according to Google. With no way of verifying this with Google, we assessed the tactical SEO issues we could confirm. Some of the problem areas discovered for the Google My Business (local map listing) and the website were:
- Under-optimized Google My Business listing.
- Over-optimized website.
Solution
For this case study, our first task was to understand the clients primary services offered with buyers and sellers, then to break down those services into categories. We then did careful keyword research to pinpoint all the keywords and keyword variations used by people in the geographical area to find an agent. With this data we could build-out and optimize the clients Google listing. Google had added a few big changes to their listings that we were able to utilize for our advantage, services and extended descriptions.
Next, we gathered high-quality images from the client and renamed their files and tags. For example, im1234.jpg was renamed to real estate agent city.jpg and several variations using broad match and exact match keywords.
The utilization of broad and exact is very important as to not over-optimize and appear spammy.
Once the listing was fully optimized we then did a local directory analysis to list any directories (Yelp, yellowpages, etc.) where there were listings already created, missing, or incorrect NAP (name, address, phone).
Once these listings were cleaned up, we then did the Onpoint Local Business Blast where we created high-quality listings across more than 60 authority business listing websites.
2nd phase website solution
Our 2nd phase was to optimize the website. Being that this website was an EMD (exact match domain) the real estate agent SEO was being done by the agent himself, there was a lot of over-optimization. This is a common practice when business owners take on SEO on their own.
The common mistake done by non-professional SEO’s is to build massive amounts of backlinks with the EXACT same anchor text. DON’T DO THIS. example spamming the website with a ton of keywords that are exactly the same
real estate agent
real estate agent
real estate agent
real estate agent
real estate agent
I think you get the idea.
Our first step was to confirm there was no penalty on the website, once we were able to confirm there was no penalty our clean up was fairly straightforward. Optimize the webpages with the primary keyword in the META and keyword variant in the pages H1, then remove or change the keywords to be more broad on the page.
Next, we needed to dilute the backlink profile. We focused on Branded (agent name) and naked URL anchor text. By building out better directory listings as mentioned above we were able to also dilute the anchor text because directories are usually only website.com or visit website general anchor text.
This strategy had an incredible result with the website jumping to the 1st page in just a couple weeks, some keywords in days.
Results
As seen in the first screenshot the visibility had a dramatic increase in search and map from mid-April to May. You can also see the trend for this agents visibility for the quarter was stable but much lower than the post-SEO period.
As seen in the screenshot below (keywords covered to protect the clients keywords) the website got indexed for keywords it was not previously ranking for and boosted other keyword rankings. Any keyword marked with [entered] indicates the website was not in the top 50 results prior to the SEO.
It may have been ranking beyond page 5 and in the Top 100, but if a website is not in the first 5 pages (top 50 results) there is no point in searching much deeper.
See in the screenshot above we got some amazing results. One keyword not ranking in the Top 5 pages jumped to ranking #5 (page 1), several other moved from ranking on page 2 to page 1, and the three bottom phrases that were not indexed are not indexed at positions 15, 47, 48. Although those later keywords can be improved, they were not primary phrases, and moving from not indexed to page 2-4 is a win.
This client is now in prime position to continue link-building and expand their online visibility to increase their real estate base.
Need to increase your online visibility? Contact us now and set up a strategy call!
