The Ultimate Guide to SEO Property Marketing

What is SEO property marketing? 

This encompasses any of the methods that are used to help a website appear in search results on Google, Bing, Google Maps, other search engines, AI and others similar sites using the SEO best practise principles and not providing money directly to search engines paid media platforms such as Google Ads.    

SEO at Space & Time encompasses technical SEO, content, digital PR, and local search. With the advancement of AI we also provide generative engine optimisation help for businesses. In this respect we are a full-service SEO agency and we take this full-service approach with our property clients. 

Why SEO is an essential channel for property? 

Many housebuilders have relied on variety of marketing methods for years including door drops, TV, paid media another channels.  However, SEO as a channel must not be ignored as SEO is often one of the most used mediums via which users find brands, engage with the sites and ultimately convert. Additionally, working on the technical aspects of the website such as page speed can further help convert those users that have come in by other online mediums.   

While it’s a competitive marketplace appearing in the top few search results of Google, there are many ways that the property industry online actually makes this a more viable marketplace for brands that are not the giants of the industry such as RightMove and Zoopla. This is because of the prevalence of local search. If a user is in Norwich and searches for ‘new homes near me’ they only going to see providers that sell homes in Norwich because search engines know the IP location.  Therefore, the search results are not simply dominated by the same top ten brands in the industry each time.  

Furthermore, if you are a house builder you also have the opportunity to appear on Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business), or Bing Places for Bing. Using this platform, you will bypass the brand equity that the large search portals have as they do not have the physical locations you have i.e. the actual developments themselves. Due to the local intent of searches Google commonly shows a selection of 3 locations (known as the ‘local pack’) in the top 3 results.  

What SEO content considerations are needed for property marketing? 

Keyword research 

Keyword research is a bedrock of SEO work. It helps a brand understand what terminology they should appear for in the industry. With the large increase in multiple word searches (long tail) many SEO experts have started to say keyword research is less important. I agree to this in some extent, but, when you are starting out in SEO, or working with a new provider it is important to do the research initially as this is the first time to really gain a sense of understanding about the marketplace online and user search habits as a whole.  Therefore, I do not believe that it should be discarded completely and rather it is a less all-encompassing metric when it comes to measuring performance long term. 

In the housebuilding industry, we have conducted research around important keyword terminology for Google. It shows that if you are selling only new build houses using the terminology “new” is essential in key places on your site such as meta data, headers of pages and internal links.  You can read more about our SEO intent in the housing industry study here. 

Locations and local areas 

Another insight we have found through our experience in this industry is that creating the development pages alone is not enough, even for those who are using commercially focused terms such as ‘new build homes in Derby’. This is because, search engines will often prefer to provide pages that have multiple developments within them in the Derby area.  Therefore, if you are selling multiple developments in an area you should also be creating a local area page for new build developments e.g. in Derby. This pages then contains the different developments you have on sale currently in that area, much like a category page for ‘Black Jeans’ in ecommerce. When users are searching for a broad commercial term like ‘black jeans’ they are expecting to see a range of options when clicking through to an organic listing, not just one product. 

Using this methodology for our clients has helped reach those that are further up the purchase funnel but are still commercially minded i.e. know that they want to live in a certain rough location and are keen in looking for a new build home but do not know the very specific location they want to live or do not know the name of a development or house builder they are looking for, searches as granular as these examples are considered ‘transactional’. 

Example of local area page appearing in Google

Why local SEO is so important for property marketing

Local SEO is integral to property marketing because people searching for a place they want to live there will always be a locational intent on the search. People are not searching for ‘new build house somewhere in the UK’ and even if a location is not set in the search query itself Google knows where the user is based on the based on the local IP of the searcher to provide localised results even when the location isn’t specified.

Furthermore what makes this industry unique is that, while there are many new build properties being sold throughout the UK, new build developments are not thing on every corner of the country so unlike searching for pizza restaurant, house builders operate in a broader target market.

To appear in different local search spaces there a few crucial steps you need to take

Google Business Profile

From my opinion ensuring your Google Business Profile is accurate is the most important local search element when you are selling a new build development. Creating a local listing on the Google Business Profile platform and optimising that listing to ensure you appear when people are either searching directly on Google Maps or they’re searching on Google search and a box with the Google Maps functionality appears directly within the search results.  A key benefit of this is that the local pack generally appears in the top 1-3 positions in the search results and it can easily elevate a brand who may otherwise be ranking outside the top 10 by showing them in this local pack. This allows brands in the local pack to often appear above Rightmove and Zoopla.

Another reason why optimising your Google Business Profile listing is so important is because when users are searching for your development directly, they will often see the Google Business Profile appear on their search as the top result. Because this is so prominent some of the common pitfalls we see when they are not optimised are:

• Unoptimised image: Google will always show a picture of your development, it should be when it is complete and by a professional photo asset of the brand. If one is not added, you may end up with local photos added by individual users that might look very amateur or even worse, have a picture of the development as a building site which we have often seen with new build developments when they’ve not been optimised.
• Incorrect opening hours: Keeping your opening hours correct and up to date is very important so that people can contact you and do not turn up to the location thinking they will be able to get an appointment to find that the marketing suite is closed!
• Incorrect phone number or website link: Both are accessible directly via the Google Business Profile platform and therefore the user does not have to go directly onto the website to be able to call your company. So, if you have not entered the correct number they may try and reach you, be unsuccessful and go to a competitor.
• Location developments not closed when sold out: This last point is done once you’ve sold all the plots on your development.  Ensuring that you do clearly mark on the listing at this development is no longer for sale and eventually closing the location completely is important other people may go to the location thinking they were still houses for sale and ultimately be disappointed in the brand.

These are just some of the possible pitfalls, but we have a detailed 40+ checklist we do of all locations we work with on clients if you want to trial for one of your locations please get in touch.

Example of an optimised location

Local intent search

Local intent search refers to Google’s organic results being automatically localised due to using a location in the search, or the users IP. At Space & Time we integrate SEO with our paid search campaigns to understand the radius within which people are searching and not just the specific town, village or hamlet, but also nearby areas that may be relevant to users.  We use this information in the content created so that people searching in one village along will still you location, along with improve Ad Relevancy for paid advertising. Applying this takes nuance an understanding of the business and the local area as well as working with the paid search team and it’s not just a board application across the side.

Apple Maps and Bing Places

Both these platforms, while much less popular that Google Business Profile still are worth considering.  Bing Places is the Bing equivalent, and this information can be automatically pushed across from Google Business Profile to the Bing Places platform.

Apple Maps has its own interface called Apple Business Connect. These profiles have to be created individually but again will help reach the smaller slice of users that use Apple Maps.

Citations

Citations are when you ensure your business is referenced across many other smaller platforms such as Yell, Foursquare and Thompson Local. Overall, these sites will bring in less traffic than a well optimised Google Business Profile listing. However, putting the correct information in helps cement the accuracy of your listing to Google as well as providing links and external references through to your website from other sources on the web.  Furthermore, they are often reference points for AI agents such as ChatGPT when looking at various sources on the web to be able to provide an answer.

How Digital PR interlinks with property marketing and SEO

Digital PR, which incorporates both building links to a brand’s website as well as brand mentions from external websites is a core part of a comprehensive SEO strategy. It is a key method that helps differentiate the larger businesses such as Rightmove from brands just entering into the industry.

Specifically in the property marketing industry digital PR can be used to help gain exposure of new developments going live and new sets of plots being released on the development. There is also the opportunity to create content that engages users or provides research in an industry.  For example, the house ownership statistics piece we have put together for Avant Homes.

Also as touched upon earlier, the implementation of citations across each development is a good consistent method of building externally linking sources from high value websites.

Property SEO and AI

It would be remiss of me not talk about the elephant in the room around the search industry which is of course AI.  The AI industry has boomed massively in 2025 but it is still a small fraction compared to the amount of traffic that is gained from Google.

In the property industry we have seen that bottom of funnel searches generally see less AI Overviews than other industries such as health or informational searches. In fact in Tom Capper’s recent talk at MozCon London  he showed that Local Packs remain one of the few search features that haven’t seen their position #1 status been superseded by AI Overviews (yet anyway).

Final Thoughts

Property remains a continuously challenging industry, high on competition while the purchase funnel can be long for users due to the high cost and commitment of buying a house.  Therefore, ensuring each stage of your buyers journey is appropriately accounted for, including:

• Buying guides
• Local area searches
• Finding third-party references about your brand
• Ensuring the development looks appealing on the local profile

All of which are influenced heavily by the SEO activity completed on and off the site.  If you are unsure your property SEO campaigns are considering all these factors please get in touch with our SEO team today by emailing [email protected]