Answer engine optimization for real estate agents

Buyers and sellers ask Google questions before they choose a real estate agent: "What does it cost to sell my house with you?" "How long will it take to sell?" "What is my home worth?" Each of those has an answer box at the top of the results, and the business whose page is in that box gets the call. Answer engine optimization for real estate agents is the work of writing those answers on your site so the box is yours.

The questions your buyers and sellers ask

These are the questions buyers and sellers type into Google, and ask a voice assistant, in the days before they pick a real estate agent. Every one of them is a page or a section your site should answer outright.

What does it cost to sell my house with you?
How long will it take to sell?
What is my home worth?
Which neighborhoods should I look at?
Do you work with first-time buyers?
What is the market doing right now?

Search Console shows you which of these your site already appears for, and the People Also Ask box under a search like "how much does a realtor charge to sell a house" shows the rest.

What Google lifts into the box

Google shows a featured snippet when one passage answers the question completely: a sentence for a definition or a price, a numbered list for steps, a table for a comparison. It takes the passage from a page that already ranks on the first page or two.

For "how much does a realtor charge to sell a house", the box wants a percentage range and a sentence on what it covers. An agent who states it on the site, when most agents avoid the number, becomes the source.

The national sites that hold these boxes now hedge, because they have to cover every market. A real estate agent that answers for its own town, with its own numbers, is more specific than any of them, and Google prefers specific.

The pages a real estate agent needs

Most sites in this trade have one services page that lists everything and answers nothing. The answer box wants one question per heading and the answer in the first sentence under it. That means:

a page per town or neighborhood with what it is like to live there
a selling page that explains the process and the cost
a buyer page for first-time buyers with the programs available in your state

Each page opens with a two-sentence answer, then explains, then gives the reader the next step. FAQ structured data on the page tells Google which passages are the answers.

What it looks like in your report

Every month you see which of these questions your site holds the box for, which a competitor holds, and what each answer brought in visits and calls, all from your own Search Console and Google Analytics. The first month is a baseline; most clients hold their first boxes in the third.

Questions people ask

Can a real estate agent really win the box against national sites?

Yes, for the local version of the question. Google prefers a page that answers "how long will it take to sell" for your town with your numbers over a national page that hedges. The general question stays with the national sites; the one your buyers and sellers type does not.

Do we need a blog for this?

No. The answers belong on your service pages, where the person who reads them can book. A blog helps only if each post answers one real question.

How long before we hold a box?

Four to twelve weeks after the page ranks for the question. If your pages are not ranking yet, the search work comes first, and we run both as one program.

Want this done for your real estate agent?

Tell us about your business. We will review your site, your Google Business Profile, and what the assistants say about you now, and reply with what we would do first.

Let’s talk