Tricks to Boost SEO by Customizing Your KCM Blog

 

Tricks to Boost SEO by Customizing Your KCM Blog

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Did you know 90% of homebuyers use the Internet when searching for a home? In fact, 44% of buyers look for homes online first, according to this report from the National Association of Realtors.

Online competition in the real estate industry is fierce, so you want to make sure you’re nailing SEO when it comes to your website. As potential homebuyers and sellers search online for answers to their questions, SEO will increase the chances they will land on your pages first. This could be the difference between a homebuyer or seller finding the answers they are looking for on your site, versus your competitors’ sites.

You may be familiar with the term SEO, but you might not know all the tactics that go into driving more traffic to your website. There’s a ton of information (and misinformation) out there on this topic and the algorithms to improve search results are constantly changing, so we’re going to focus on some ways you can customize your KCM blog to help improve your SEO.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” Simply put, SEO is the ongoing practice of improving how your website ranks in search engine results, with the goal of increasing the quality and quantity of organic (free) website traffic.

The first step to understanding SEO is knowing your online audience. What questions are your potential clients searching for on sites like Yahoo!, Google, and Bing? What keywords are they using? What type of content do they want to consume? Knowing the answers to these questions first will not only help you connect with your audience, but will provide you the solutions you need to offer them.

Keep in mind, the longer visitors stay on your pages and the better your content is, the higher visibility Google will give your website. The better your content is, the more people will want to share it, which will also help improve your SEO over time.

It’s extremely important to understand that this is not something you do once and then forget about. As mentioned above in the definition of SEO, this is an ongoing practice and one that requires some time and effort on your part. In order to stay top-of-mind with your audience, you must make sure your content is unique, fresh, and local.

If you’re like most agents, time is most likely not on your side. So, how do you produce quality, rank-worthy content that solves the issues your potential clients have on a time crunch?

Customize Your KCM Blog

KCM creates a brand-new blog post for you every day so you don’t have to do any legwork to find the right content – winning! Yes, you’ll have fresh and relevant content for your website daily which is a huge plus and a step in the right direction, but be mindful that sharing or automating the blog to your website as is will not improve your SEO game.

Google isn’t a big fan of duplicated content and their definition of it is:

“Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.”

All KCM Members who sign up for the blog will receive the same daily post, so if your goal is to increase your SEO, here are a few, easy tactics you can follow.

Use Local Terms

Most homebuyers are searching for homes based in a specific location/neighborhood. If you want to grab Google’s attention, start by adding a local spin to the title of your blog before posting. Ideally, you want to focus on keywords that don’t have a ton of competition, so just putting in your city works, but adding a specific neighborhood is even better.

Here are some examples:

“4 Reasons to Buy a Home This Summer in La Jolla, San Diego, CA.”
“2 Things You Need to Know to Properly Price Your Home in La Jolla, San Diego, CA.
“4 Tips for Making a Competitive Offer in La Jolla, San Diego, CA.”

Use Keyword Phrases

Apply this keyword method to all areas of your website so when someone searches for “reasonably priced homes in La Jolla, San Diego, CA” or anything similar with a mix of those keywords, the search results will start to pull from your pages.

Some examples include:

“About Your La Jolla, San Diego, CA Realtor.”
“Living in La Jolla, San Diego, CA.” 
“La Jolla, San Diego, CA Real Estate Testimonials.”
“La Jolla, San Diego, CA Homes for Sale.”

You can sign up for Google Keyword Planner to search for terms you’re interested in. This allows you to view the volume of searches per day/month for various keywords. The more targeted your website can be throughout, the better.

Add an Intro & Outro Post

Now you have your content, your customized title, and your keywords ready to go. Before you hit post, you can really set yourself apart from your competition by adding a personalized intro to your blog. This provides you the opportunity to showcase your local market knowledge about that particular topic, making you the trusted advisor. The KCM blog content is based on national data, so it’s always helpful to educate your audience on both the macro and micro level.

A best practice to live by for any post you make is to provide your audience with a call-to-action (CTA). An easy way to do this in your blog post is to include an outro post, written by you, to entice your readers to take one step further. For example, if you’re targeting your homebuyers, you could link to a search for homes that reflect your keywords. If you’re targeting your sellers, you could link to your “What’s My Home Worth?” page.

Remember to always reference your keywords in both your intro and outro posts.

Pro-Tip

Everyone is talking about video right now, and that’s not going to stop any time soon. If you want to take this one step further, add a mix of different types of media to help you reach more people. Consider creating a short video on YouTube about the post, add your own description, and include a link to your blog post in that description. It’s always better to show people how to do something versus tell them, so why not give it a try?

KCM Member- Tip

KCM Member, Al Cannistra uses all of these tactics and more to up his SEO game. In fact, if you search “San Antonio Real Estate Agent,” his blog is the very first one that appears in the organic search results on Google. He uses a mix of a little bit of everything in his blog, but one thing he does very well is personally customizes each post he makes. Check out some of the ways he puts his own spin on the KCM blog and videos to make them his own.

Al wants to help out and invites YOU to be a guest poster on his blog. Not only will this benefit your business, but it will increase your website ranking and position yourself as a thought leader in the industry. Guest posting helps you gain traction to your blog, gain quality inbound links to your content pages, and drive organic traffic to your website. If you become a regular guest poster while also maintaining your own blog, your online audience will begin to come to you for advice. Thanks Al!

Bottom Line

There are many other strategies you can use besides focusing on your blog to increase your website SEO. If your ultimate goal is to have your pages ranked, ideally you should implement as many strategies as you can. Solely focusing on blogging will not provide immediate results, but you should start to see improvements if you continue to customize your blog utilizing the keywords you choose as often as you can.

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We’re happy to answer any specific questions you have about increasing your SEO. We can’t claim to be experts, but our team is happy to help as much as we can.

Just reach out to us at support@keepingcurrentmatters.com if we can help!