SEO in the homebuilding industry demands a combination of local, on-page, off-page, and technical organic search abilities to enhance your ranking potential.
The right blend of these skills and tactics for your organization depends on factors such as:
– Targeting (regional vs. national).
– Business type (custom vs. tract builders).
– Availability of resources to execute the work.
– Growth goals.
While these factors help you customize and adjust your SEO strategy to your unique needs, a solid foundation is necessary to build from (see what I did there?).
Here are four areas marketers in the homebuilding sector should be well aware of to help your residential construction company thrive in search.
### 1. Essential On-Site Content Areas for Homebuilders
Your site should cater to both prospects and customers. Here are five areas that need the most investment for SEO success:
#### Floorplan or Home Plan Pages
The most popular sections on builders’ sites are typically the floorplan pages. A significant portion of your website investment should be directed towards making these pages rich with imagery, specifications, localized pricing/features, virtual walkthroughs, FAQs, and videos featuring the home designer or architect. These pages should also be mobile-optimized to cater to users who may not have access to a desktop or tablet.
#### Community or Sales Office Pages
For homebuilders, community or sales office location pages are key to appearing in local search. These pages should include community name, address, and phone number information. For tract builders, each community page should describe what living in the area is like and feature a gallery of homes with rich localized text descriptions. Including a map with nearby attractions, restaurants, grocery stores, and watering holes adds value. For custom or on-your-lot builders, localized information about the build process, permits, video testimonials, a gallery of homes built in the area, and FAQs (with FAQ schema implemented) should be included.
#### Featured Product Pages
Builders often collaborate with various vendors and contractors. The quality of a vendor’s material impacts the buyer’s perception of the brand. Homebuilders who display clear product information can ensure buyers feel confident about their use of premium products. These pages benefit both SEO and the sales process.
#### Building Process
Custom homebuilders need to communicate the lengthy, multi-phase homebuilding process to buyers. Creating a timeline infographic, guide, videos, or a series of articles detailing this can be beneficial. While much of this content may be documented internally, making it public-facing (even if somewhat abbreviated) can educate and qualify buyers during the sales process.
#### Blog Content
Homebuilders need a section on their website devoted to fresh, educational content for homebuyers. For tract or spec builders, this content should focus on financing and the existing home selection process. Custom home builders should cover a range of topics like finding land, preparing land, financing, collaborating with the builder, home inspections before moving in, and more.
### 2. SERP Features for Homebuilders
The high involvement and long home purchase process create multiple opportunities to feature in various SERP features.
#### Local Pack
Homebuilders’ initial steps in boosting their local SEO presence should include optimizing and verifying their Google Business Profiles at the local office or branch level, creating a profile for each (sales office or community) location. Post-optimization, focus on generating 5-star reviews through a review-building program to further enhance local SERP standing.
#### Knowledge Pack
Each community (for tract builders) or sales office (for on-your-lot builders) can appear with an individualized knowledge pack containing location information, user-generated Q&As, reviews, and associated social profiles.
#### Image Pack
The visual nature of new homes allows builders to appear in image packs, which typically contain images from the builder’s website along with reshared images from aggregators, YouTube, and local publications. High-quality photography, along with a content distribution and PR strategy, helps disseminate visual creative assets across channels.
#### People Also Ask
Frequently asked questions that your team has addressed about home buying and building can appear in the People Also Ask (PAA) SERP feature through well-implemented FAQs on your site. FAQ schema signals search engines and gives your site the best chance at gaining the PAA feature.
### 3. Off-Page SEO Opportunities
Homebuilders often have numerous low-hanging link-building opportunities due to connections with vendors, partners, and community organizations. Here are two off-page opportunities to consider:
#### Link Building
Homebuilders can leverage relationships with suppliers, trade partners, vendors, contractors, realtors, customers, media, and community members for link-building. Marketers should list potential link-building opportunities in their CRM and establish processes to gain backlinks from websites they collaborate with.
#### Review Building
Generating positive reviews on third-party sites or Google is a crucial off-page SEO opportunity. An automated system for outreach encourages satisfied customers to leave reviews on relevant platforms. Incentivizing the sales team to encourage review building can enhance outcomes. Reviews are invaluable, and rewarding sales teams for successful reviews may yield significant benefits.
### 4. Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Here are two common SEO mistakes that builders should avoid:
#### Hidden Content
Larger homebuilders with sophisticated CMS functionalities should ensure that personalized and localized content is also accessible for Google to crawl. Hiding specific content from users in certain locations could prevent Google from indexing it.
#### Content Deprecation Issues
Tract builders should carefully manage content when all homes in a community sell out. New communities often generate inbound links from local news and other sources upon public announcement. Implementing 301 redirects to relevant category or city pages can retain link equity. Alternatively, update pages to inform visitors when a community is sold out and direct them to nearby communities.
### Conclusion
Various skill sets and resources are needed for homebuilders to stand out in local and organic search. Builders with strong local and national SEO presences, robust systems for generating 5-star reviews, and a raving fan base of satisfied customers are poised for the greatest success in the SERPs.
