Real Estate Websites - Design, Hosting and Internet Marketing

Are You Reaching Your Targeted Visitors?

By Mike Wilton, Advanced Access Website Marketing Specialist

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Whenever I get a new client, the first thing I do is research their keywords to see if their city name is also the name of a city in another state.  Take for instance the keyword Springfield Real Estate. Sure it gets TONS of search traffic, but what market are those visitors actually searching for?  There are 34 Springfield’s in the United States. What good is a site visitor searching for real estate in Springfield, Illinois if you are actually selling real estate in Springfield, Ohio?

When considering the keywords you want associated with your site, it’s important to consider how your keywords can affect who visits your site.  In the example of Springfield real estate, we see just how broad a city name can become in terms of visitors.  The best way to remedy this is to research your keywords before you implement or update them. 

If you do a little bit of research using the Google AdWords keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal), you can quickly establish the best set of keywords to use for your area.  The tool will give you an idea of what kind of search traffic various forms of your keyword will give you and will often display keywords for other states that may have a city that share the same name as yours.

Using the Google AdWords tool with the example of “Springfield real estate,” you get a list of roughly 150 keywords that relate to Springfield.  However, if you type in “Springfield OH real estate,” you’ll get 2 very specific, relevant keywords and their traffic estimates.  Looking at the two results “Springfield OH real estate” and “Springfield Ohio real estate,” the two search terms have similar search traffic, but this is not always the case.  If the keyword tool does not show you your keyword with both the state abbreviation and the state spelled out, you’ll want to be sure to search for the missing term manually.  Often the use of the state’s abbreviation will pull more search traffic than the state spelled out.

As you can see, targeting your keywords to your specific market can be extremely valuable.  The use of such keywords in your meta tags and content guarantees that the search engine traffic you are getting is actually looking for real estate in your area.

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