In order to grow your real estate investing business, you need to find two things:
Seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it?
Today nearly 75% of homebuyers search for a home online. People who want to sell quickly do similar searches.
Wouldn’t it be great to know about how many buyers and sellers there are in your area? In addition, wouldn’t you want to know what they are searching for? In other words, when they get online, what keywords are they putting into search engines.
Google has been publishing their statistics for a while, but not many people in the real estate industry use them. They publish them in their latest tool called the Google Keyword Planner. We want to give you some tips to use the Google research to your advantage.
In order to use the Google Keyword Planner, you have to have an account with Google Adwords. If you don’t have one already, it’s easy and free to sign up. Google doesn’t make money on your searches, they make the money on your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) account.
Once you’re in Adwords, just head over to the ‘Tools’ dropdown menu at the top left and select ‘Keywords Planner.’
The Keyword Planner will look something like this:
Select ‘Search for new keyword and group ideas’ to take you to the main keyword search tool:
Now you are ready to search.
Find the Searches, Find the Buyers and Sellers
Although there are a lot of options on this search, we want to focus on just a few right now.
The first place is ‘Your Product or Service.’ You can start by putting in ‘{Your City} Real Estate.’ The tool will then pull up people searching for similar terms around your area.
Notice that I pulled up the ‘Keyword Ideas’ tab in the photo. The ‘Ad Group Ideas’ mixes stuff up pretty randomly. It does not give you as clear a picture of what buyers and sellers are searching for.
Another technique we use is to click on the title of the column ‘Average Monthly Searches’ so the keywords are sorted from highest to lowest.
As you can see, this pulls up some pretty generic searches. Searches for ‘MLS’ and ‘Phoenix’ are pretty broad, although it may definitely help you out if you target the keyword ‘MLS’ in your website, social media, etc.
To narrow your search down, you can look at the menu bar on the left side of your screen at the top under ‘Targeting.’ It has a button called ‘Locations.’ Just click on that and enter your local real estate market – in this case, Phoenix.
Now you are starting to see how many buyers and sellers you might be able to target in your marketplace. You can also see the exact keywords that those buyers and sellers are putting into Google.
Another tip that will come in handy is to put several keywords into the Planner. Think of going from ‘educational’ to ‘transactional.’ In other words, when someone is just starting to thinking about selling their house, they might put in ‘How to sell my house.’ Then when they are motivated to sell, they may want to find the best Realtor to do that.
We came up with four keywords that go from educational to transactional, and put them in the Keyword Planner:
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Sell my house
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Sell my house fast
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Realtor
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Best realtor
Remember that the location is still set to your local market, so you can see what is working around that area.
The searches produce a bunch of keywords that you can target, or load up your website or blog with, and attract the buyers and sellers in your area.
Steal Keywords from Your Competition
So far we have been trying different keywords in our local area to see what motivated buyers and sellers input into search engines. But we can also see what helps our competition rank very well when the buyers and sellers hit ‘search.’
In order to see what is helping our competition rank so well, head on over to Google and put in {Your Local Area} +Real Estate.
After ignoring the national real estate sites like Zillow and Trulia, look for a local site. Then copy the URL and bring it over to the Keyword tool.
In the Keyword tool, hit ‘Modify Search’ next to the search bar at the top. First erase any searches you did previously, and put the page of the top local real estate company in the ‘Your Landing Page’ box. Then hit get ideas.
Just like when you were searching for your own keywords, you can see what your competition is using to rank with their keywords. Take some of these keyword ideas to incorporate into your own website and moving up the google hierarchy.
As more and more buyers and sellers hop online to transact their homes, more and more savvy investors are trying to find them there. The trick to finding the good deals is to make yourself as visible as possible. Using the right keywords for your market will make you more visible to more people.
Holla at Us
Have this tech tip helped you? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
Create an Online Presence – There are so many cheap and even free ways to do it these days. It will multiply your marketing presence.
Stand Out – Make yourself memorable, whether it’s with keywords and search engine optimization, or your ability to network and help people. Be the go-to person when someone needs something done with real estate.
Learn Marketing – You don’t have to be an expert, but many investors think of themselves as marketers rather than investors, and rightfully so. Marketing is what grows your business and keeps the cash rolling in.
Learn Your Market – Besides just who is searching for what, find out the good neighborhoods, the good schools, where the crime is and isn’t, etc.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.