With the high ROI of organic marketing tactics, it’s no surprise that 63% of Realtors promote listings on social media, and a similar percentage have a website.
To stay competitive in the real estate market, it’s important to do your marketing correctly. That does not only include paying for advertising. Instead, you should work on organic, non-paid marketing, which builds relationships with your audience and your reputation over time.
By the end of this guide, you will learn about organic real estate marketing, its forms, and what you can expect if you choose it as your strategy.
What Is Organic Real Estate Marketing?
As opposed to paid marketing (e.g., Google Ads), an organic (also known as inbound) real estate marketing strategy relies on unpaid, long-term efforts to build brand awareness and generate leads for real estate businesses.
It includes subsets such as email marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, and SEO, focusing on step-by-step tactics to build a basis for the brand.
So while paid marketing allows you to appear in front of your audience with an ad campaign, organic real estate marketing allows you to educate your audience about your services and develop relationships with potential clients over time.
Is Organic Marketing Effective for Real Estate Business?
Organic marketing is an effective solution for real estate professionals as it makes the audience acquainted with their business before they need it, usually through educational content or other means of providing value.
Once a prospective client decides to, for example, start the selling process, they’ll know who to hire as they will already know about your brand.
A real estate agent can reach their target audience using several channels, their website, social media, email, and offline media such as local magazines. Here are the benefits of organic real estate marketing:
More qualified leads – With good real estate SEO, you could reach potential clients who are more interested in your services, increasing conversion rates.
Building trust – It establishes credibility and allows real estate agents to position themselves as industry experts.
Cost-effectiveness – Not as expensive as paid advertising.
Website traffic – Social media, SEO-optimized blog posts, and mail marketing can increase traffic and, consequently, increase your reach.
Market research – Engaging with your audience and seeing how well your posts and pages work in analytics can improve your understanding of what they need.
Effective Organic Real Estate Marketing Strategies
No company can buy a relationship with its audience, so real estate companies, just like companies in other businesses, have to build them through time and consistent effort. Here’s how.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO helps you improve the ranking of your real estate website so it appears higher in organic search results — that is, the unpaid results on search engine results pages. It helps users find you on Google or other search engines when your pages rank for relevant keywords (for example, “who pays the real estate agent fee”).
It brings in traffic, makes you easier to find in local searches, and real estate SEO rules help you make a high-quality website.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO focuses on improving everything on the web page itself. These include content structure, meta descriptions, page titles, keyword research, internal links (linking between multiple pages on your own website), and creating relevant content optimized with naturally inserted target keywords.
On-page SEO helps you bring more organic traffic to your site, discover your audience’s search queries, and develop insights about your competition. To get keyword ideas, you can use tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs. Google Analytics and Google Search Console help you understand user behavior and site performance.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is connected to everything you do outside of your websites. This includes other websites (in the form of guest posting and link building), promoting your website on social media, and email marketing. That is, it is deeply connected to other forms of organic marketing.
Its most important aspect is link building. Every time another relevant website links back to a page on your website, it is as if it cast a vote for you in front of Google. High-quality backlinks help you rank higher, while the process helps you build industry relationships.
Local SEO
Local SEO helps you show up high in the SERPs when someone in your local market searches for real estate services — it’s everything, as 46% of searches look for local results. This part of SEO includes creating a Google Business profile, adding your real estate business to local directories, and ensuring consistency in your NAP (name, address, phone number).
Given their business’s character, real estate industry professionals should also learn about creating localized content, encouraging customer reviews, verification, and, as this guide to organic & local real estate SEO shows, building connections in the local community.
Technical SEO
Search engine rankings are also affected by your site’s technical aspects and how easy it is for Google’s search bots to crawl, index, render, and rank your website. Some issues are easier to fix without a developer, such as broken links or optimizing media.
However, issues such as optimizing site speed are more difficult to solve without a developer or an experienced SEO. Given that real estate websites require plenty of features, such as property listings, images, videos, and advanced search options, technical SEO is best left to a professional.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is an essential organic marketing strategy as it helps and educates your audience about the real estate market, industry, and your services. In other words, your content answers potential clients’ questions about the market or the home-buying process.
A helpful blog post is a classic example, but real estate agents also use videos, real estate news, infographics, webinars, and more. Here’s how to build a content strategy:
Define your audience – If you’re an agent specializing in sales or a type of property, define your audience to understand their needs. For example, if you’re aiming for a younger demographic, you can promote your content on Instagram instead of Facebook.
Find content ideas – Find high-search-volume keywords, related keywords, frequently asked questions, or explore Google Trends to choose topics.
Define channels – Websites are the usual option, but you can also distribute content through social media posts, video platforms, and email.
Define KPIs – Using tools such as Google Search Console, analyze the visitors’ search intent, behavior on the site, traffic, bounce rate, and SERP rankings.
Create a content calendar – Posting regularly is important for SEO, engaging with your audience, and building a brand.
Create content – Hire content creators and writers or create your content yourself. Use tools to publish and distribute the content automatically.
Build backlinks – Work with a legitimate SEO agency to build industry relationships and get quality links from high-authority sites.
Update content – Ensure your existing content is optimized, and up-to-date with information on the market and industry practices.
Utilizing Social Media
Social media platforms can help you promote your website and your business, as the algorithm will bring the content to people who are interested in it — it is the top lead generation method for 46% of Realtors. Here’s how to implement social media to create a loyal audience:
Post regularly and consistently – Have a content calendar for your social media posts, too.
Utilize visuals – Real estate requires stunning visuals. Social media, especially Instagram, works great for showcasing listings, drone footage of neighborhoods, amenities in a local market, promotion posts for your blog, or even stunning 3D interior and exterior renders.
Be human – Authenticity, humor, and personal commentary can help you in the process. Maintain some degree of professionalism, but give your brand a face.
Build a social media community – Start with your friends and colleagues, invite other people, use call-to-action to encourage following you, and engage with your community.
Participate – Follow others, engage with relevant people in the industry, and build relationships and collaborations.
Follow platform rules – Learn about optimizing your content for the platform you’re working with.
Email Marketing Campaign
Email marketing has the highest ROI of all channels and increases brand awareness quickly and affordably. With online tools, you can create and segment audiences, set up campaigns, and automatically send emails out at a chosen time.
Implementing email campaigns as a part of your overall strategy can increase your chances of success in all aspects of organic marketing. For example, using SEO to understand which pages receive the most traffic can tell you where to set up a newsletter pop-up form.
Keyword research helps you understand what topics to cover in your emails, while email campaigns help you promote new blog posts and increase traffic to your website.
Referrals and Affiliate Programs
Referrals and affiliate programs increase your clients’ incentive to engage with your business. By implementing referrals, you reward your existing clients for introducing new clients and build brand loyalty for your real estate business.
Affiliate programs can also help your organic real estate marketing efforts by featuring your website’s page on other websites, for example, through guest posting. They can help you reach new customers and expand your reach. Consider pairing with local businesses to create a mutually beneficial relationship.
Niches that are great candidates for this type of real estate marketing include:
- Lenders
- Mortgage brokers
- Insurance brokers
- Attorneys
- Home inspectors
- Home repairs and design contractors
- Local businesses
While it may seem overwhelming at first, organic real estate marketing builds solid relationships with your customer base and helps them trust you as an industry leader.
You may worry about your budget and the need to hire professionals, which is real if you want the best results. However, you can still set up email campaigns, use social media, and write simple blog posts on your own, widening your reach and establishing your real estate agency as a reliable local partner.
Can You Leverage Search Engines for Organic Lead Generation?
Absolutely. Researching what users search for can help you provide them with content that will increase your website traffic and grow brand awareness. Consequently, you will rank higher and be noticed by more qualified leads who are searching for information a real estate professional can answer best.
Should Real Estate Agents Choose Organic Marketing Methods?
Yes, organic real estate marketing helps professionals develop brand awareness, reputation, and gain trust over time. Moreover, real estate agents depend on relationships and trust to run their business, and they are often their own personal brand. This means their audience will already be educated about their business before they need real estate agent services, increasing the agent’s chase of being hired.
However, organic marketing methods require time to work, as the relationship with the target audience cannot be built overnight. For immediate results, there is more to be gained from paid marketing.
