5 SEO Essentials for 2023 and Why You Need Them
Marketing in real estate continuously evolves, and that is same for real estate SEO marketing. The Google algorithm is considerably more sophisticated than it used to be, and now, more thought is needed to have your website rank well for keywords. To stay at the top of search results, you must grasp current SEO trends and how they affect your marketing plans. Content Is Always Needed You can dive into the finer details of statistics all day, but you won't have data to examine if there's no content for an audience to consume. Fresh and updated content is essential for real estate SEO, but it doesn't end there. Visual content is necessary. Using images, videos, infographics, and other media will increase traffic and make your site more user-friendly, enhancing engagement and accessibility. Google's search algorithm also appreciates when you constantly update your website with high-quality material that provides value to users. Marketers can also benefit from the power of video content. Video is more compelling than text and images. A captivating video on your website can entice visitors to stay longer, which Google rewards with higher search ranks. In addition, videos provide an excellent opportunity to share your videos to social media platforms like YouTube and more to market your business. Know Your Audience To master real estate SEO, you need to be interested in learning as much as possible about your customers. Understanding user intent and valuing user experience, like what users are searching for and how users think after using your website, is highly crucial in 2023. Make a Dynamic, Mobile-friendly Website Optimizing for mobile search goes hand in hand with optimizing for voice search. The number of phone searches is likely to rise in 2023 and beyond. To optimize your site's performance on mobile devices, ensure that you build it with responsive coding and a framework that adjusts how it looks based on the device used to view it. It would be best to use caching, a content delivery network, and compressed pictures to improve page loading times. Always Use Structured Data Structured data is essential for search engines because it allows web crawlers to comprehend what information is accessible on your website. They can only effectively index your site if you provide the necessary information. Analytics Is Required Marketers can use Google Analytics to gain SEO insights, such as monitoring mobile traffic to collect data on bounce rates, engagement, and other metrics. You can use site search bar tracking to determine what users are looking for when they visit your website and whether there is a content or service gap that you could address. However, the sheer amount of information can be overpowering at times. Fortunately, some systems will automate data collecting and analysis, so you won't manually have to monitor your stats. Automating SEO duties with technology or with SEO specialists can significantly simplify your campaign and free your team to focus. To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.

Basic Branding Tools for REALTORS: Getting Started with a Brand in 2023
What is your brand and how do you use it? Like any other business in any other industry, the best real estate agents are also branding experts: They know how to find clients by presenting what they do and how they can help in an alluring, interesting, trustworthy way. They grow a local following and become the go-to expert about all things real estate for at least one population niche. And it seems impossible to assess exactly how they did it, let alone follow their example. Well, here's some good news: Real estate branding actually is like many other businesses in many other industries, and that means you can do it, too. Successful branding involves identifying and speaking to your target audience, researching the competition, creating a brand identity, distributing your brand information, and then refining your brand so it remains fresh and relevant. Here's how to get started with some basic branding tips for agents. Who's your target audience? The essence of a target audience is simple but pinning it down can be a challenge for many. First ask yourself, "Who do I work for?" If you can't come up with a direct and targeted answer, then this is a step you need to work on before you can start refining your brand. Some agents believe that their target audience is "everyone," or slightly more marginally, "everyone who might want to live in this specific area." The problem with such a broad focus is that it's not actually possible to market to everyone or even everyone who might be interested in buying or selling a house in a neighborhood. That kind of branding is generic and easy to ignore, which you don't want. Beyond focusing on a geographic area, you'll want to think about how to further target your audience. Amy Cesario specializes in downtown Denver, and even more specifically, she's an expert on downtown condos in certain desirable buildings and developments. She's built her website, www.downtowndenver.realestate, around those properties and interests. Suzanne Hawken has a very different area of expertise: She helps clients buy and sell homes in Napa, California. You might have heard of Napa, but did you know that it has more than 20 different neighborhoods, each with its own unique twist on the region? Hawken's website, www.livinginnapacalifornia.realestate, helps buyers understand the differences between each option and determine which one will work best for them. PRO TIP: Instantly connect your brand to your local market! Get 20% off your .realestate web address through the end of June. Grab your city, neighborhood, or niche before someone else does. Plus, all .realestate web addresses come with a professional website that can be launched in minutes! Use promo code CITY20 Learn More Do some research When you've identified your target audience, it's time to dig into the competition. The first two things to explore will give you the basic competitive landscape: Are any other agents in your area targeting the same specific audience that you're hoping to tap? And what does their messaging look like? Ideally, you'll be able to find some kind of niche or target audience that's currently unexplored in your area, whether that's dog-loving aspiring homeowners or empty nesters hoping to downsize. But if someone else is already targeting your audience, then you have two choices. You can revisit the target audience exercise and see what other options are available to you, or you can try to differentiate yourself from the competition. Whatever you decide, you'll have a lot more information about what gaps exist in your market and what kind of opportunities they might present for you. Building your brand identity There's more to creating a brand than creating a name and a unique value proposition (UVP), but those are two of the first steps. The UVP will help you shape your messaging, and the name should be recognizable to and resonates with the client base you work with most regularly. Branding is both an art and a science. Some of the best-known brands in the world represent companies like Coca-Cola, Apple, Nike, and other behemoths of business. While they sell very different products, each of those companies has been very successful at creating a set of feelings and associations with their products. That is what a brand is. There are agencies and freelancers specializing in helping startups and entrepreneurs define and create their brands, and if you're not entirely sure how to start, enlisting help from them is likely a smart first step. Branding includes the entire look and feel of the company, including the logo, typography or fonts, colors used, and other elements that provide a sense of cohesiveness to all your materials. When your brand is ready to share, how do you go about making it part of your business? Here are some critical ways that you should start using your brand as soon as it's ready. First and foremost, you'll need a website. Not because you're trying to compete with real estate portals for web traffic, but because serious clients will want to look you up and learn more about you. If you have a website, that gives them a professional window into your business that you control. Along with your website, you'll want an email address that aligns with your brand. Your social media handles should also reflect your brand, so you might want to change your social media back-end if you can — or start new accounts that align with your new business. While your brokerage might provide listing presentation materials or signage for homes, it's a good idea to create your own materials that incorporate your brand. Ask your broker what your options are for spreading your brand through these forms of displayed marketing. PRO TIP: Get a FREE professional Website FREE WITH EVERY WEB ADDRESS PURCHASED: It's never been easier to launch your real estate brand online. Within minutes, have a website that is custom designed for you and is free for the life of your web address! Lead generating Multiple templates to choose from Pre-optimized for Google search Learn More Growing and refining your brand When you've built your brand, or at least feel like you've gotten a decent start on creating a brand that seems to reflect you, then your work is done! … Just kidding! The most effective brands try to continuously engage with their target audience and to constantly seek out new members of that audience. You can do that as a real estate agent if you commit to growing and refining your brand after launching it. One important step to take is to create a brand style guide. Your brokerage probably has a guide that explains the aesthetic, and if you make your own, you can use it to hire freelance designers and other professionals to help you manage your marketing. A brand style guide should include any brand colors or typefaces, the logo, and details about your "voice." That way, someone who's posting on social media for you can create content that sounds and feels like yours. Speaking of social media, another good way to build your brand is to consistently engage with your followers. Post often, but don't spam people — make it interesting for your audience. Be sure to reply in some way (even if it's just with a "like") to any comments that people are kind enough to leave on your posts. Asking for client reviews is another way you can grow your brand. Many people are happy to give a review; it's a common ask these days, and if you prepare your clients by letting them know upfront that you'll be requesting a review after the transaction closes, they'll be ready for the ask when it comes. Last but not least: Are there any certifications or designations that would resonate with your target audience and help bolster your brand, but that you haven't yet earned? The National Association of REALTORS® offers several accreditations for agents who want to refine their skills and demonstrate an elevated level of expertise in a certain area.

Asian and Pacific Islander-headed households face higher housing payment burdens than any other race
SEATTLE, May 26, 2023 -- A new Zillow® study finds Asian and Pacific Islander (API) families, despite relatively high income levels, bear the highest housing payment burdens among all races, highlighting the unique financial strains many within the communities encounter. Many Asian and Pacific Islander (API) homeowners are heavily concentrated in expensive markets nationwide, so the homes they purchase are typically priced higher than homes overall. In 2022, the typical value of a home purchased by Asian mortgage buyers was $575,000, while Pacific Islander mortgage buyers purchased homes valued at a median of $465,000, surpassing the overall median of $405,000 for all U.S. mortgage buyers. Primarily for this reason, API homeowners stretch their budgets to achieve homeownership more than other races. "Many API-led households live in pricier coastal metros like New York, San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles, which possibly helps drive up demand and thus the price home buyers can expect to pay," said Nicole Bachaud, senior economist at Zillow. "Residents of these communities tend to prioritize living in these areas because they offer a strong sense of community, access to cultural amenities and proximity to ethnic enclaves where they can find familiar cultural and social networks that often help facilitate area jobs." Over the past decade (from 2011 to 2021), Asian homeownership surged by 5.1 percentage points, reaching a record high of 63.1%, outpacing all other racial and ethnic groups. Pacific Islanders followed closely with a 4.6 percentage points increase. However, despite these gains, both communities allocate a substantial portion of their household income to mortgage and rent payments. Nationally, when comparing across similar income levels, Asian-headed households allocate a higher percentage of their income towards housing payments than all other races except for Pacific Islanders. Although Asian mortgage applicants have the lowest mortgage denial rate among all races, they are disproportionately burdened by a high debt-to-income (DTI) ratio. According to preliminary 2022 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data, 41% of Asian applicants and 39.2% of Pacific Islander applicants who were denied a mortgage had their denial attributed to a too high DTI ratio, surpassing the 33.6% of denials for all races being based on DTI. They also face a higher proportion of denials due to insufficient funds to cover closing costs and lack of collateral compared to other racial groups. While some signs point to housing gains, it's important to note that the API community is a diverse landscape of several different nationalities. Significant disparities in homeownership, household income, and mortgage denials exist among different Asian and Pacific Islander populations, with these gaps widening over time. Each subgroup presents unique challenges that need to be addressed. "High incomes and homeownership gains may overshadow the significant housing affordability challenges still faced by many API households," said Bachaud. "Expanding housing inventory and implementing policies and solutions to enhance affordability are crucial for promoting homeownership and advancing housing equity in the United States." Share of Income Spent on Housing Payments Across the U.S. U.S. Homeownership Rates About Zillow Group Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make home a reality for more and more people. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow and its affiliates help people find and get the home they want by connecting them with digital solutions, great partners, and easier buying, selling, financing and renting experiences. Zillow Group's affiliates, subsidiaries and brands include Zillow®; Zillow Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans℠; Zillow Closing Services℠; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+℠, which includes ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, and dotloop®.