The Challenge
When Total Realty first came to me back in 2019, they already had some good starting positions with some solid page 1 and page 2 rankings, but were not hitting the Top 3 results that drive the lion’s share of organic search traffic – particularly on competitive real estate keywords where Google Ad competition is fierce and the ads eat a large percentage of the click share. They were growing strongly in their first few locations and were also looking to expand and open new offices.
We needed to deploy a strategy that would efficiently build rankings across existing locations, while also building overall domain authority to make it easier to rank additional branch locations as they were added down the road. This case study demonstrates clearly why long term planning is critical for maneuvering into a position where it becomes difficult for competitors to dislodge #1 rankings.
Top 3 Rankings
Across All 9 Primary Location ‘Real Estate Agents’ Keywords
The business currently holds Top 3 Google organic rankings for the ‘real estate agents + location’ term for all 9 of its office locations, with 7 out of 9 in the #1 position.
Outranking
National Competitors with 25+ Year Old Domains
Winning these spots required climbing over multiple well-known national brands like Harcourts, Grenadier and Ray White, who already had very strong domains that in some cases had been established in Google for 25 years or more.
$27.3k/mo
Saved On Advertising
‘Organic Traffic Value’ is a measure of what it would cost the client to buy the same traffic from the same keywords via Google Ads. In the case of Total Realty, their organic traffic value is currently equivalent to approximately $27.3k/month worth of paid Google Ad spend – a testament to the long term power of SEO.
The Process
At the beginning of the campaign, Total Realty was already taking market share quickly in their existing locations with a strong offer and had a lot of momentum from positive client reviews. However, we had some big challenges, with several big national brands with long-established, high authority domains to catch up to and overtake. This kind of situation requires a careful split between dedicating resources to areas where quick wins can be achieved on specific keywords, and making long term investments in building domain authority that would allow for a) ranking #1 on highly competitive terms and b) achieving faster rankings on new locations as the business expanded.