Pay-per-click (PPC) ads can be a powerful tool, no matter what industry you’re in. To get the real estate leads with PPC Google Ads, you need a targeted strategy that uses location-specific keywords, compelling copy, strong landing pages, and ongoing optimization.
Real estate is a unique industry driven by referrals and timing, and paying for search advertising can be a powerful and scalable tool. No matter the size of your operation, PPC can get your services and brand seen by high-intent customers exactly when they need to see it.
The power of Google Ads is that they can be applied both broadly and specifically. Google Ads for real estate agents use the same mechanisms as for other businesses, but need to be optimized differently.
Local Service Ads
Local Service Ads (LSAs) are an alternative to PPC we should discuss before diving in. Google Ads are driven by keywords provided by the businesses. This isn’t the case with LSAs.
For these ads, which appear in Google search results, you simply report the kind of service you offer and where. This means these ads take less work, but because they’re so heavily automated, you aren’t able to control the details that are needed for the most effective campaign.
Keywords Are Key
Intent
As with any business, you want users to engage with your ads and follow through. One of the ways to get this is by focusing your keywords. For starters, you can think about three categories of keywords: high, medium, and low intent.
High Intent
Homes for sale in [neighborhood]
Condos for sale [zip code]
Buy house in [city]
These keywords indicate more interest on the part of the user and try to meet them where they’re at.
Medium Intent
Best neighborhood [city]
First-time homebuyer [neighborhood]
Medium intent keywords show the potential customer doesn’t yet know where they want to live or what kind of real estate they’re trying to purchase. This level of intent can be helpful to cultivate clients, but often has little conversion.
Low Intent
Rent versus buy
What is closing cost
Low intent keywords are often used when a person is still researching; they may be years away from a purchase or never even make one. Use this ladder to target clients closer to a purchase and invest more in high intent keywords.
Location
Even people who don’t work in real estate know the expression ‘location, location, location.’ Of course, this applies to prices, availability, and market health, but it also applies to hooking potential clients.
You can vary the specificity of terms you use, but you can use extremely specific keywords to zero in on audiences. Here are three examples of how location keywords can get your ads in front of the right people:
Zip codes: Add a zip code to any combination of words in the vein of ‘[zip code] homes for sale.’
Neighborhoods: Add a neighborhood name to similar terms, like ‘condos for sale [neighborhood name].’
Schools: Find a school near your properties and add it, such as ‘homes near [high school name].’
Too much specificity can narrow your search away from potential buyers, but if you can get your ads in front of high intent searchers and present information on the part of the city they’re shopping in, you can cover a lot of ground that gets them closer to a purchase.
Going Negative
With so much focus on trying to figure out what your audience will be looking for, you can forget that it can be helpful to weed out some searchers by using negative keywords. Negative keywords work by not accidentally catering to an audience who may not be looking for your product but use related words to search for it. For example, if you sell eyeglasses, you can include ‘wine glasses’ as a negative keyword to make sure your ad isn’t served to people looking to stock their kitchen rather than adjust their eyesight.
You can increase your online real estate leads by carefully using negative keywords. For example, it can be helpful to remove educational terms like 'real estate license' or 'real estate classes.'
It can also be helpful to try to focus on the budget you’re targeting by using terms like 'free homes' or 'houses under 50k' as negative keywords. You can also use negative keywords to adjust intent by using terms like 'how to buy a home.'
The Next Step
Now that you know the step-by-step process of using PPC ads in real estate, take your business to the next level with BERK Labs. Reach out to us today to see how we can help you use the above techniques (and more) to get you leads and scale your business!