Real estate SEO: build your local visibility
For a real estate agency, local SEO should help buyers, tenants and owners find reliable information about your properties and services. Your website can explain how you work, answer questions about the area and provide a way to get in touch. Property portals and your own website serve complementary purposes.
Start with the areas you work in and the instructions you want to receive. This approach helps you prepare your 2027 plan without multiplying town pages or promising a position on Google.
1. Distinguish buyers’ needs from owners’ needs
Collect the questions your advisers receive. Buyers look for properties, their features and how to arrange a viewing. Owners may look for a valuation, the steps involved in selling or ways to choose an agency. Prepare separate answers when these needs require different information.
Property search
a 3.5-room apartment with a balcony in a municipality where you have listings.
Service search
an apartment valuation or rental management in your service area.
Information search
documents needed to sell, costs to check or the stages of a transaction.
These phrases illustrate search intentions; they are not measured search volumes. In Search Console, examine the queries that display your pages. Estimates from Google Ads Keyword Planner can support your research. Its advertising competition metric does not measure organic ranking difficulty.
Review the results for priority searches: property listings, portals, maps, agency pages or guides. Check what kinds of answers appear and what you can contribute. A competitor’s position does not guarantee that your page will achieve the same ranking.
2. Organise pages around your actual work
Describe your services and their scope: sales, rentals, valuations or management, depending on what you offer. Explain the stages, the information you need and the next action. Link these pages to relevant properties and guides so readers can continue their search.
Create a local guide when you have information specific to the area: transport links, property types, amenities or procedures. Check the data and its dates. For an average price, state the source, period, area and property type; do not apply a cantonal average to an individual building.
Avoid identical pages that change only the municipality name. Google describes pages created to capture similar searches and funnel visitors towards the same destination in its doorway abuse policies. Group areas when you cannot offer a distinct local answer.
Which page should you create?
An available property
a detailed listing with its features, authorised photographs and viewing arrangements.
A genuine local service
a page explaining the area you cover and your support, with documented references where you can publish them.
A recurring question
a practical guide linked to the relevant service.
A municipality without distinct information
mention it within a relevant area page rather than creating a copy.
3. Make listings useful and keep their status current
Provide information you can confirm: floor area and its measurement method where relevant, rooms, location disclosed with permission, price and applicable charges, availability, facilities and contact details. Explain restrictions or information still to be checked. Photographs and plans must match the property.
Test the image viewer, filters and viewing request form on mobile. Give fields clear labels and explain errors. Visitors who find a property should be able to request information without losing their selection.
Update the status when a property becomes unavailable. You can retain an informative listing with a clear notice and genuinely relevant alternatives. If you remove the page, choose its treatment according to the content: redirect to a real equivalent or return a removal response when no equivalent exists. Do not redirect every sold property to the homepage.
4. Check your Google Business Profile
Use the agency’s real name and accurate contact details. Check each establishment’s eligibility before creating a profile. Do not add towns or services to the business name to target searches. Choose a category that describes your activity and maintain opening hours, phone number and address. See Google’s guidelines for representing your business.
Publish images you have the rights to use and respond to reviews without disclosing confidential transaction information. A profile does not replace your website pages. For eligibility and measurement details, read our Google Business Profile guide.
5. Check languages and technical details
If you serve clients in French and English, translate the journey: descriptions, terms, filters, forms and confirmations. Link equivalent pages and update both listings when the price or availability changes. Read our hreflang and canonical guide for technical annotations.
Check that search engines can access important pages, internal links lead to the right URLs and images do not needlessly slow browsing. Accurate structured data can describe some content; it guarantees neither ranking nor a rich result. Choose an appropriate type and check its conditions before adding it.
6. Connect visibility to useful enquiries
Track impressions and clicks on priority pages, then viewing, valuation or agency instruction requests that your team can qualify. Distinguish portal enquiries from website enquiries. More visits to a guide do not demonstrate more instructions.
Configure useful events in your analytics tool and compare them with your commercial records, respecting applicable data protection requirements. Document the limits: you will not be able to attribute some calls or journeys with certainty. Our marketing indicators guide explains this distinction.
Fictional example and a 2027 plan
An agency operating in the La Côte region of Vaud wants more valuation requests. It chooses a service page, a guide to the documents owners need and up-to-date property listings. It links these pages, checks the form on mobile and records qualified enquiries. This example illustrates a way of organising the work; it reports no client results.
For 2027, assign responsibility for availability, language versions and guides. Schedule reviews according to changes in your services and the rules you cite. Keep content that remains accurate and fix observed obstacles before creating new pages.
Frequently asked questions
Can an agency compete with property portals?
Your website can answer questions about your properties, your support and your local knowledge. Choose those answers based on your actual work and observed searches; no method guarantees that you will outrank a portal.
Should you repeat the town name in every paragraph?
State the location when it helps readers understand the property or service. Use your clients’ words and avoid mechanical repetition. A local page needs distinct information.