As an industry, we spend thousands of dollars building and decorating beautiful model home complexes that create emotional experiences that connect with buyers. But if we can’t get buyers to our sales office, this opportunity and investment is lost. Or is it?
Leveraging model home photography to re-create that experience for buyers who are searching online is what optimizing photos for SEO is all about.
Here’s a three-step guide to optimizing your photos to increase search engine ranking to increase home builder website traffic sales office visits:
Step One: Buy the Best Photography Your Budget Can Afford
More than anything else that you do on the web – more than home builder social media, more than blogging, more than SEO or advertising – your photos will determine how successful you are in moving buyers from their computer to your sales office.
Photos are very influential for buyers who are narrowing down their choices online, and poor quality photos can communicate a poor quality product (the online equivalent of chipped paint in your models or dirty spec homes). Buyers that experience a positive emotional response to your photos when searching online are more likely to visit your sales office. Simply put, better photos = better sales office traffic. For home builders marketing on the web, good photography a high ROI line item that pays dividends in the form of traffic and sales throughout the community sales cycle. Hire the best that your marketing budget will allow.
(Yes, please do feel free to tell your CEO I said so… You’re welcome.)
Step Two: Optimize Photos for Real Results (& Real People)
Photos that are optimized for search are prospecting tools that bring new leads to your home builder website and into your sales funnel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Optimize every photo (on your website, in your blog, in social media and online press releases) with high volume keywords that potential homebuyers type into the search engines. You can use a keyword tool such as this one by Google to find the right words and phrases for your community.
Here’s a sample of how changing a photo title can increase search engine visibility:
Instead of this: “The Elmwood Plan”
Use this: “Austin new homes featuring The Elmood Plan by Acme Builders.”
Buyers are more likely to use a search term such as “Austin new homes” or “Acme Builders” depending on where they are in their buying process. By optimizing your photos based on the same keywords that buyers use to search, you can increase your chances of being found online by potential homebuyers.
See more examples of how home builders can select keywords to optimize photos for search:
(Video) Home Builder Blog Basics: Optimizing Photos for Search
Step Three: Dominate the Web
Successful home builder SEO is not just about appearing is search engines. It’s about saturating the search engines to attract a greater share of online home shoppers to your website (and not your competitor’s).
Cross posting your optimized photos (and other content) to social media websites such as Facebook and Flickr can increase the number of times that your photos appear in search engine results, creating a stronger saturation of your presence on the web.
Optimizing photos is not a magic bullet that will boost your website to the top of the search engines overnight, but when used as a consistent best practice for all of your Strategic Online Marketing it can expand the effectiveness of your online presence and increase traffic and sales.
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