Whilst paying for Google Ads can be effective (you’re paying to be at the top of the searcher’s screen), it can also become expensive very quickly, when running your ads against those of your competitors. Alongside any google ad strategy you might already be implementing or be looking to implement, the better way of becoming visible is by achieving first page search engine results organically. There’s no quick and magical solution to achieve this, it’s more the results of a joined-up online strategy. Here are some things to look at, to assist you in your quest to become ranked on the first page of Google.
How to create an effective Google business page
- Encourage more reviews
- Reply to every review as they appear
- Make sure the map shows your correct location
- Add photos showcasing your business and location
- Ensure opening hours and contact information are accurate
A good review score doesn’t mean an awful lot if you only have a few reviews. The more reviews you have, the more Google will trust your page, and more weight will be given to moving it up the rankings. As good practice, you should also be replying to every review, whether it be good or critical – again, as a trust building exercise as well as demonstrating excellent customer service.
How social media can help get you ranked on page 1 of Google
When you are trying to attract people to your brand who don’t already know or transact with your brand, the quickest way to do this is to post interesting articles on your Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter or Instagram Pages.
Your potential clients are all on social media!
Using social media platforms you can get to reach thousands of local people, and start to build relationships with them before they have even decided to sell, buy or rent. You need to ensure that you are talking to your potential audience in the correct way, this does not mean posting all your property listings, as we have established, most of these people are not in the market to buy, sell or rent – right at this moment – but could be in the short, medium or long term future. Make sure that your content appeals to all, so yes by all means, post property details now and then (you are an estate agent) but give interesting facts, how quickly you sold, or rented, show walk-thorough videos, appeal to people’s curiosity or nosiness!
Much of social media is subliminal advertising, putting your brand in people’s heads as the local experts, the people to do business with, if you are in the market. If you can get this part of your marketing right, then when your fans do need the services of an Estate Agent, you are likely to spring to the top of their mind first.
Facebook and Instagram
These two platforms are the most active places for your audience and are both owned by Facebook which also makes sponsored advertising on this platform very effective.
Facebook users in United Kingdom 2019
Facebook is the older platform with 45 million users. Individuals aged 25 to 34 years made up the users by age largest group of in the United Kingdom, as of December 2019.
Instagram users in United Kingdom 2019
21,960,000 users accounting for 32.6% of its entire population. The majority of them were women – 56.2%. People aged 25 to 34 were the largest user group (7,000,000).
These social platforms will also hugely affect your social ranking on Google (Google loves Facebook) and whilst most agencies haven’t quite woken up to the power of social there is much room for improvement on most of their pages giving you a great opportunity to utilise your page more productively, build a much greater following, and use this advantage to propel your brand up the Google Search pages.
Instagram is a great social platform for lifestyle photos, iconic buildings, landmarks, testimonials and is powered by the #hashtag. It is really important to utilise it correctly, to use your highlight tabs and to follow trending & popular hashtags to grow your following.
By focusing on photos of beautiful rooms and dreamy views, you can really evoke emotion in your audience and ask them to imagine themselves living in the property you’re showcasing. Even homes which are ‘do-er up-er’ projects have a huge appeal on Instagram.
Twitter & LinkedIn
These platforms are still important for SEO purposes and also great for any B2B marketing to local businesses, or for recruiting.
The importance of posting on Linkedin is to ensure that all of your team share the company posts to their networks, because ultimately, people connect with other people on this platform, rather than following company pages. The latter happens slowly over time because people like the posts being shared. It is a really good place to source Landlords, so any Lettings Market information should be posted on here & shared by the employees to their connections.
Twitter is the perfect place to follow local hashtags to start interacting with people who are tweeting about your location. It’s a very immediate platform, so won’t be effective if you are only publishing scheduled tweets with a message you want to get out. Instead it’s about interacting, reacting to current noise, and having conversation.
Blogging & Website SEO
The SEO on your website and, in particular, the blogs / articles you write using your key search words and phrases that will be picked up to get you ranked on the first page of Google is of huge importance to your rankings. You should make sure your blog posts and your main blog page are optimised correctly for what search engines like.
- Post regular content
- Make sure it adds value to your reader
- Ensure that it’s shareable
- Optimise your website for search engines, especially your blog
Sponsored Ads on Facebook & Instagram
Once you have established your organic traffic and increased your Google ranking without spending money on advertising, you can explore Google Ads and Social Targeted Ads. In the first instance you need to ensure that you have specialised Landing Pages for your potential customers to ‘land’ on and these are like web pages but without lots of navigation features and one very specific message, to encourage the reader to take the action you would most like them to.
For social media advertising, a pixel code is placed onto your current website in order to track people who already know your brand and visit your site. Facebook then looks for those people on their site and examines their interests and behaviours over a period of time, so that an audience can be built for your ads to run against and also a ‘lookalike’ audience of people who have similar traits to those who know your brand, but who have not yet transacted with you. This is a much wider audience than just age or location, it looks at the complete picture of a person, their family, home, holidays, car, what they read, political views, groups they attend, places they visit and buzzwords. It allows you to advertise your brand to really specific people, ones who are ‘house-hunting’ (they may have put that phrase into Google) or they may have recently visited Rightmove or Zoopla.
Whilst these ads will have little effect on your Google Ranking, they will have a very specific ROI and you can track them easily, to ensure you are getting the best value for money.
See some examples of ads here >>
If you have any questions, or would like to discuss strategy specific to help you get ranked on the first page of Google then get in touch with us, and we’ll be happy to have a chat.
Jane Gardner
I work all over the UK with various business owners, dedicating my creative and expert property knowledge from 35 years in the industry. I am a Level 4 ARLA Propertymark examiner, I sit on the board of Agents Giving Charity and I love everything property related! I can be contacted on 01923 627777 or by email to jane@social-angels.co.uk
