Whether you are running a Google ads campaign or doing SEO for a real estate website, your efforts and investment will be completely fruitless if you target wrong keywords.
Optimizing for wrong keywords is in fact one of the worst mistakes most Realtors make.
In this guide, I will explain how keywords work and also provide you with a list of real estate keywords that I stumble upon every day when I do SEO and manage PPC campaigns for my clients from all over the world.
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4 tips on finding the best real estate keyword ideas for PPC and SEO
When you search for new keyword ideas, keep the following four things in mind:
Search Intent: Most important aspect of real estate keyword research
Even before you start searching for real estate keywords, you need to understand one of the most important concepts behind how people make searches online and how it influences the ranking of content in search engine results.
This concept is Search Intent.
According to Yoast, search intent has to do with the reason why people conduct a specific search. Why are they searching? Are they searching because they have a question and want an answer to that question? Are they searching for a specific website? Or, are they searching because they want to buy something?
Over the years, Google has introduced many changes in its algorithms to become better at determining the search intent of people. Google has started ranking content the highest that fit the search term as well as the search intent of a specific search query. It is for this reasons that it is extremely important to keep in mind the search intent when you write content or ad copy.
What it basically means is that you need to visualize how a prospective home buyer or seller – will perform a Google search according to the stage of buying or selling journey he or she is in.
Let’s try to understand search intent with an example. Take a look at the keywords below and guess what makes them different from each-other:
- Sell my home fast
- How to sell your house
As you may have already guessed all these keywords are used by home sellers. Both are extremely competitive keywords. While ‘how to sell your house’ generates about 3300 visits per month, ‘Sell my house fast’ drives about 4700 unique monthly searches in the United Sates every month.
So let’s say you want to write a blog or launch a PPC campaign using these keywords.
Can you guess which keywords will be the most expensive or most difficult to rank for?
While the keywords such as ‘how to sell your house’ is in the initial stage of selling his or her home (may be planning to put it on the block in the near future), the keywords such as ‘sell my home fast’, indicate that the person is in an advanced stage (has made up his or her mind and is actively looking for professional help).
Now see the difference in the cost-per-click (at the time of writing this article) between these two types of keywords.
While ‘how to sell my house’ costs about $37 per click:
Whereas, ‘sell my house fast’ costs about $52 per click
(I am using an SEO tool to get this data. This cost-per-click (CTC) is for the United States. City- or neighborhood-specific CTC cost per click will be substantially lower – for example, sell my house fast in Broward County).
As you can see there is a huge difference in the CTC and you have probably already guessed the reason. The cost difference is because of the search intent.
Now how does search intent affect your PPC management or SEO strategy?
Well, if you are trying to rank for ‘How to sell your fast’, you will need to provide the visitor educational content, while, you can be a bit direct in your marketing message and promote a to-the-point sales page when targeting ‘sell my house fast’ keyword.
Take a look at the screenshots below to understand how search engines honor the searcher’s intent:
When you type in ‘how to sell your house’, the first result is a blog post as shown in the screenshot below:
However, when you search for ‘sell home fast’, you will get a Google My business page result on the top as shown in the screenshot below:
As machine learning is enabling search engines to better understand the intent of the searcher, search intent has become one of the most important aspect that you need to keep in mind whether you are advertising on Google or doing SEO for real estate keywords.
Target long tail keywords
With a growing number of people typing questions and long sentences when doing searches on Google, the concept of Long Tail Keywords is the latest buzzword in the SEO industry. The following are a few things you should know about long-tail keywords:
- They contain 3 or more phrases
- They are very specific as far as the search intent is concerned.
- They are less competitive than primary keywords
- They cost less than primary keywords
So let’s understand this with an example:
‘Homes for sale’ is a generic keyword. It’s has a high search volume. The average cost-per-click is over $1.
Now let’s say you are a real estate agent in Channelview TX and want to target people looking for homes for sale in that area. The keyword though has a low search volume cost almost 50% less than the primary keyword. And better still, the search intent is more focused.
Optimize for local searches
When it comes to real estate industry, local search phrases are a form of long-tail keywords. When you add a location to a primary keyword, it automatically becomes a long-tail keyword. So in a way, local keywords and long-tail keywords are more or less the same thing.
If you are running a PPC campaign, it makes sense to use as many local keywords as possible in different ad groups. However, try to reduce your ad cost by showing your ad to people relevant to the target keyword.
Let’s say for example you are a Florida-based real estate agent. People from anywhere in the world can buy real estate in Florid, so when you are creating content or ads for buyers, you can target a larger geographical area, but if you are creating content or researching keywords for a PPC campaign targeted towards home sellers, there is no point showing your ad to people in other markets.
Use Keyword Planner for real estate keyword ideas
There are many SEO tools which help you do a keyword research in a few minutes, but most are expensive. Well, you can start off with a free tool provided by Google itself.
The tool is Keyword Planner tool.
To access Keyword Planner Tool, you need to have a Google Ads account.
Once you sign up, go to Tools & Setting > Planning > Keyword Planner
Here type in any real estate keyword idea. The tool will give you a lot of data including the average number of clicks, CTR (Click through rate), CTC (cost per conversion) etc.
Now that we have learned how search engine works, let me provide you with a list of most profitable keywords for realtors and real estate investors:
Real estate keywords that target home sellers
Seller keywords with ‘Informational Intent’
- how to sell your home
- ways to sell your house
- cost of selling your home
- staging home to sell
- how to stage your home
- house staging tips
- home selling tips
- tips for selling your home
- marketing your home
- house prices in my area
- How much is my home worth?
- my house price
- Do I need a Realtor?
- Pricing Your Home
- Best time to sell your home
- Improvements that increase home value
- How long do homes stay on the market in [add city, zip code or neighborhood]
- Closing cost for home sellers
- Capital gains tax on real estate
- Best time to sell a home
Seller keywords with Commercial Intent
- sell home fast
- sell a home fast
- Sell my home fast
- fastest way to sell a home
- sell your own home
- list my home
- selling a home
- selling your home
- sell my home
- sell home
Seller keywords with ‘Transactional Intent’ (it lies in the middle of Commercial Intent and Informational Intent)
- Is it free to list on Zillow?
- List my home on Zillow
When you set up a PPC campaign you can use a combination of ‘Broad March Modifier’ and ‘Exact Match’ keyword match types depending on the search intent and search volume. For example, ‘sell home fast’, ‘sell a home fast’, ‘sell my home fast’, and ‘fastest way to sell a home’ are the variation of the same search query. The same goes true when you are writing a piece of content targeting all these keywords because they mean the same thing.
Real estate keywords that target home buyers
Buyer keywords with ‘Informational Intent’
- home buying programs
- home buying process
- how to buy a home
- steps to buying a home
- home buying checklist
- home buying tips
- renting versus buying a home
- buying a hud home
- how to buy your first home
- buying a home with no money down
- Closing costs for buyers
- [neighborhood, zip code or city] restaurants
- [neighborhood, zip code or city] parks
- [neighborhood, zip code or city] schools
- best schools in [school district, neighborhood, zip code or city]
- Best neighborhoods [add city]
- Best time to buy a home
- mls
- mls listings
- mls real estate
- multiple listing service
- mls real estate app
Buyer keywords with ‘Commercial Intent’
- new houses for sale near me
- new listings houses for sale
- houses for sale near me
- houses for sale
- condos for sale
- townhomes for sale
- tiny houses for sale
- Houses for sale [add the name of the big real estate brands such as Zillow, Trulia, Realtor etc for United States]
- house for sale in [neighborhood, zip code or city]
- buy real estate
- [neighborhood, zip code or city] houses for sale
- open house in [neighborhood, zip code or city]
- relocation Realtor in [neighborhood, zip code or city]
- [neighborhood, zip code or city] real estate
- [neighborhood, zip code or city] houses for sale
- apartments [neighborhood, zip code or city]
- cheap houses for sale
- villas for sale
- 2-bedroom condo for sale in [neighborhood, zip code or city]
- buy a lot
- waterfront land for sale
- rural property for sale
- new construction homes for sale
- houses with pools
- Homes under [Price range]
- big homes for sale
- beachfront property for sale
- historic homes for sale
- high rise apartments
- house and land packages
- big houses for sale
- new homes for sales in [neighborhood, zip code or city]
- first time home buyers
- first time home buyers programs
Real estate keywords for property investors
- How to invest in real estate
- how to sell house fast
- we buy houses
- we buy homes
- cash home buyers
- fast home buyers
- sell vacant house
- sell house without an agent
- sell without a Realtor
- foreclosure
- short sales
- foreclosure or short sale
- foreclosure vs short sale
- short selling
- short sale process
- cons of a short sale
- short sale process
- what is a short sale
- short selling your home
- foreclosures
- foreclosure houses
- foreclosure listings
- HUD foreclosures
- pre foreclosure
- buying a foreclosure
- how to buy a foreclosure
- house foreclosures
- short sale homes
- bank foreclosures
- free foreclosure listings
- bank foreclosure listings
- foreclosures for sale
- for sale by owner
- homes for sale by owner
- fsbo
- houses for sale by owner
- houses for sale near me by owner
- land for sale by owner
- home for sale by owner near me
- buying a house for sale by owner
- for sale by owner listing
- for sale by owner mls listing
- listing homes for sale by owner
- cheap houses for sale by owner
- how to list on MLS for sale by owner
Generic Real Estate Keywords
- best Realtor in [neighborhood]
- top rated Realtor in [area]
- realtor
- Realtors
- real estate agent
- realtors near me
- real estate agents near me
- real estate agents
- commercial real estate agent
- top real estate agents
- find a realtor
- find a real estate agent
- local real estate agents
- how to find a realtor
- what do real estate agents do
- best real estate agent
- best real estate agents
- list of real estate agents
- best realtor
- how to find a good realtor
- top real estate agents in [city, neighborhood or zip code]
- real estate agent
- best real estate agent
Final thoughts
Now that you have got your list of real estate keywords and learned how to get new keywords idea with the help of Keyword Planner, you can start running a PPC campaign or write content for SEO with confidence.
Keep in mind keyword research may be boring or time consuming, but it’s actually the foundation for any successful pay-per-click or SEO campaign. Don’t skip this step and if you don’t have time or resources to do keyword research, hire a professional.
Let me know in comments if you have any questions or feedback about the real estate keyword tips outlined in this article.
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