SEO for Home Builders: 13 Proven Strategies to Get Leads

You may have a local business, but you can still use the internet for marketing your company and getting more clients. To do this, you need to know some home builder SEO strategies to get those results.

Here are a few strategies you can use alone or together when working on your business website’s search engine optimization.

1. Research Your Competitors

If you haven’t used SEO on your website before, you should check out your competitors. Find other home builders in your area and other cities and see what their websites look like. You shouldn’t copy them, but you can get an idea of the topics and phrases they use to build SEO.

Start by searching Google for other home builders and see which sites come up first. You can ignore any results with the tag Ad because those companies paid to rank well. Look at the websites and pages that come up first.

Figure out if they use specific terms, like “home builder” or “local home builder,” for example. You may not be able to learn their entire SEO strategy, but you can get an idea of what could work for you.

2. Research the Market

Next, you can figure out what people are searching for to find home builders. You can use Google for this, and you can check out the “People also ask” section to find similar questions. That can give you an idea of what people search for and things you can cover on your site.

You can also use social media to do market research. If you have a following for your business, you can ask for feedback from new home buyers. Facebook and Instagram let you post, and followers can comment. If you have a following on Instagram, you can use polls and question stickers in your Instagram stories.

You can use questions potential customers have asked to create content. Then, you can make sure people will search for it and find value in it.

3. Choose and Include Keywords

Once you know what people are searching for to find home builders, you can tackle the right keywords. You can find some suitable keywords by searching for relevant topics on Google.

But tools like the Google Keyword Planner are more useful for keyword research. You can input a keyword or phrase you want to use on your website. The tool will show you how many people search for that term, and it will suggest similar terms.

You can then write blog posts or create web pages based on keywords that aren’t too competitive but get a decent amount of traffic. You can also vary your keywords to attract more people and improve your SEO.

4. Start a Blog

Another excellent option for home builder SEO is to start a blog. A blog adds more pages to your website, so it gives Google and other search engines more chances to find your site. When that happens, you can increase your chances of ranking well in search results.

You can write a blog post each week, and after a year, you’ll have over 50 new pages on your site. All of those pages can help with search rankings on Google and Bing. If you don’t write a blog, you will only have three to five pages to help your SEO plan.

A blog also gives you a chance to showcase client projects and display your expertise. You can send clients to a blog post where they can see what you can do for them, and the blog post could help with your marketing strategy, too.

5. Create a Content Calendar

If you want to start a blog, you should create a content calendar to plan your posts. You can hire a content marketing company to help with your strategy. Perhaps you want to do some online marketing based on an event or holiday.

You can write a blog post to market that promotion, and you can publish it just before the promotion starts. If you use keywords like “home building sale” or something similar, you can target new visitors.

A content calendar can also help you stay on track with your website and SEO efforts. If you know what you plan to post, it will be easier to go through with it, and you can see the SEO benefits sooner.

6. Optimize Images

Whether you have a blog or not, you can add photos to your website. The pictures can showcase your prior home construction work, and you can give clients a look at who you are.

But when you add an image to your site, you can use SEO. When editing an image on your site, you can edit the alternative (alt) text. You can include the keyword or the page title, so people can find your site when doing an image search.

As long as your images are high-quality, homebuyers may find your site through photos. Overall, images can help you with on-page SEO, which helps your overall SEO.

7. Use Local SEO

Home builder SEO should also emphasize local search results. Since most of your clients will live within a few miles of you, there’s no need to target someone in a different state or country.

You can sign up with Google My Business to create a more advanced search result. When someone searches for a local home builder, your site can show up. The business listing can include your location, hours, and even client reviews.

You can also join other online directories for local businesses, such as Yelp or LinkedIn. Then, when someone searches those directories, they can find you. Having more listings can also tell Google you’re a real business, which can help you show up in more Google searches.

8. Add Google Analytics

Once you start using an SEO strategy, you’ll need a way to track how well you’re doing. Google Analytics is a popular tool that you can install on your website to track visitors. You can see how many people visit your site per day or month, and you can see what refers visitors the most.

If your SEO strategy works well, you should get more visitors from Google and other search engines.

While Google Analytics is the most popular, most website hosts have a way you can track views. These website analytics tools work similarly, so you can use one that works for you and your site.

9. Review Analytics and Trends

You shouldn’t just install Google Analytics and let it do its thing. Every month or so, check your analytics. Review how many views you got in total and see where each view comes from.

You should be able to see how many people came from a search engine. Some tools even tell you what search terms people used to find your website. That can be super helpful because you can know to focus your next SEO campaign on specific topics.

Regularly checking your analytics can also show you trends. If you do have time with fewer views, you can see if that happens consistently at the same time each month.

10. Speed Up Your Website

While more technical, having a fast website can help with your SEO. If it takes a long time for your site to load, that can encourage visitors to leave the site. But if you can make pages load more quickly, you can increase the time people spend on a page.

People leaving or staying on your site won’t necessarily make or break your SEO. But if it happens a lot, it can hurt your ranking on Google. The search engine can tell how fast your pages load, and that plays a role in how it ranks different pages.

You can look at upgrading to a faster hosting plan. But if that doesn’t work, you can compress files so that they aren’t as large, which can slow down your site. You can also get rid of unused files and plugins to speed up your site and improve the user experience.

11. Get an SSL Certificate

A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate is another technical change that can improve your SEO. Google has started to prioritize sites that use the encryption tool. While a lack of an SSL won’t prevent you from ranking well, it’s crucial.

You can get a free certificate to install on your website, or you can pay for one with more advanced protection. SSL can encrypt client data to make everything more secure, including any eCommerce sales you get.

You can tell if your site has an SSL certificate by looking at the address bar. Website pages with an SSL certificate will have a padlock next to the address in the address bar.

12. Link to Other Pages

You can also improve your home builder SEO by linking to other pages on your site. Linking to pages within your site shows Google those other pages exist. If you add a new service to your home builder business, you can link it to your main page.

That will tell search engines about the new page, so it can start to show that new page in search results.

You can also link to your blog or other new pages on your homepage or about page. Linking to other pages on your site can also keep visitors on your site, getting people to book your services.

13. Get Backlinks

Links can also help your SEO when they come from a different website, called backlinks. If you can get a link to your site on a blog that does well on Google, it can tell Google to check your site, too. Perhaps you get a chance to share your link in a local newspaper article.

Odds are Google trusts that newspaper, so they show the paper’s website in search. When the article linking to your site goes live, you can piggyback off that newspaper’s success on Google.

With this sort of link building, you won’t have to worry about building authority over the course of a few years. If you can get a few links on different websites, that can help build your SEO.

Home Builder SEO Tips

Home builder SEO is similar to that of other local businesses. You can use business directories to show Google you’re a legitimate company. But market research and analytics tools can also help your SEO strategy.

Keep these tips in mind to help improve your ranking in Google searches. Soon enough, you may be the first result for a given search term. Of course, hiring expert help can’t hurt, either.