SEO is a good first step toward building your real estate business’ online presence. But it could take time to produce actual conversions. You want to reach your target buyers when properties are available and “ripe for the picking,” so to speak. Pay-per-Click advertising can get you closer to your market sooner.
For buyers of products and services, including real estate brokerage, over 87% of their journeys start with search. However, creating a website for your real estate business doesn’t automatically put you in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), much less its first page of results. Apart from using proper digital marketing and SEO techniques, you need Google Ads.
What are Google Ads?
Google Ads are advertisements that the search engine displays with its results. They look exactly like organic results except they’re marked with an “Ad” icon next to their links. What’s useful about this advertising method is that it lets you target audiences according to their demographic data and interests. Only your target audience will see your advertisements.
Another useful thing about Google Ads advertisements is they’re published on top of related results. This is the reason real estate search engine optimization (SEO) companies use Google Ads together with their SEO services. Though it does give you first dibs when it comes to getting your clients’ attention, it doesn’t guarantee a visit to your site. So, what can you do to maximize your ad listings?
Keep Your Keywords Relevant
Like organic SEO, you need to create a proper keyword strategy for your search advertisements. After all, Google pairs search results with relevant ads. Stay on top of your keyword strategy game.
Feature Your Premier Services
When customers search for services that they’re ready to buy, they may search for specific keywords. In real estate, they may search for terms like “townhouses for sale” within a specific location. If you specialize in selling such properties, include that keyword in your ad copies and headlines.
Use Keyword Research Tools
If you’re looking to maximize the keywords you implement, use keyword research tools. These help you find keywords relevant to your business. You can also determine which ones get the most search volume. This way, you can identify keywords relevant to your business that get a lot of searches.
Identify Negative Keywords
Negative keywords help you weed out visits from people who aren’t interested in your products. For example, the keyword real estate services could get your ad displayed on search results for estate planning services. The latter is a negative keyword.
Negative keywords are basically close variants of your keyword but are actually about a completely different product or service. Google Ads allows you to list down 5,000 negative keywords to make sure you are aligning your ad with the right one.
Bid Smarter
Even if you do place ads on Google, you can’t always guarantee a first-page placement.
You must bid for your result ranking. The more clicks an ad or keyword gets, the more you pay. Fortunately, Google offers automatic bidding for beginners like you. If you want to make the most of your bid, you need to do manual CPC (cost per click) bidding.
A benefit of Google Ads is that it follows a pay-as-you-go scheme. It means that you only pay for the resources you use. To help you customize your bidding, the platform offers further customization of when and where your ads will be displayed. For example, if your data shows that people visit your site most from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, you can set your ads to only show up during that timeframe.
If you want to be competitive with your bids, bid for a first-page appearance. Google Ads automatically estimates how much you should bid to get a spot on the first page results. All you need to do is to meet or exceed that value. Consult with your real estate SEO firm to guide you through manual bidding to ensure you won’t make any crucial mistakes.
Target the Right People
As mentioned earlier, Google Ads lets you target specific segments of people. You need to figure out who your audience is. One way to do this is to gather data from your existing clients. As a real estate professional, you have profiles of each client, with information about how old they are, what their gender is, how much they make in a year, and more.
Use the data you gather to develop a comprehensive profile of your audience. Look for similarities in their demographic information. Are they mostly couples or individuals? What’s their age range? How about their yearly salary? Where are they moving from? Input this information when you’re targeting your ads. This way, you show your ads to people that you know are interested in your real estate services.
Know When to Focus on Benefits or Features
Feature vs. benefit is a classic challenge in creating marketing copy. It’s an important question to ponder for your Google Ad headlines and copies, too. It depends entirely on your audience. If you mostly deal with families looking to buy a home, focus on the advantages of your services and properties. The ordinary person doesn’t only want to know about features; they want to learn how those features benefit them.
If you sell properties to businesses and investors, on the other hand, ads highlighting features will be better. Business owners and managers want to look at the specifications of a product or details of a service, apart from its benefits. They want to know, for example, whether their equipment will fit the property you’re offering and what changes they may need to do to bring in their entire operations. They want details.
Boost Your Real Estate Company’s Online Presence
If you’re looking to boost your company’s online presence, learn how you can leverage search engine advertising on Google Ads and use it to complement your real estate search engine optimization. Fill out our form to talk to a Google Ads expert or explore our Pay-per-Click advertising services.
