SEO for Estate & Letting Agents
Property is the hardest local category to rank in, because the portals have taken most of page one before you start. The ground you can win is the searches Rightmove is bad at: valuations, local area guides, and the agent-specific questions a portal cannot answer. That is where the instructions come from, and it is where we point the budget.
A £1,000 deposit, then 11 monthly payments, or £5,500 for the year. That buys up to five target keywords, a named consultant, and a monthly roadmap you can read in ten minutes.
See all three packagesHow your customers search in this sector
Portals own the head terms. Long-tail local and service intent ("free valuation Doncaster", "landlord letting fees") is where an agent actually competes, and where the enquiry is worth having.
Do not fight the portals head-on
Ranking for "houses for sale in X" against Rightmove is a budget you will not get back. Valuations and landlord services are winnable, and they are where the instructions come from.
Area guides that are actually useful
Schools, transport, average prices, what it is like to live there. Portals publish thin versions; a local agent can do it properly and reach movers six months before they list.
You will not beat the portals, so stop trying
Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket own the head terms. "Houses for sale Sheffield" is not a search an independent agent can win, and any agency that takes your money to chase it is selling you two years of disappointment.
The portals win because they have the inventory and the domain authority, and because Google has decided that someone searching for houses for sale wants a list of houses rather than an agent. That is not going to change.
What the portals are bad at is everything that is not a property listing: the agent-selection searches, the local service questions, and the landlord and vendor research that happens before anyone lists anything. That is a real market, and it is where an independent agent actually competes.
Where an agent can win
Four clusters, in rough order of what they are worth to you:
- 01
Valuation intent
"Free house valuation Doncaster", "how much is my house worth", "estate agent valuation near me". This is the highest-value search in the sector. Someone asking what their house is worth is someone about to choose an agent, and the portals compete on it only weakly.
- 02
Agent selection
"Best estate agent in Rotherham", "estate agent fees Sheffield", "no sale no fee estate agent". People genuinely research this, and publishing your fees is a real differentiator because so few agents do.
- 03
Landlord and lettings service terms
"Letting agent fees", "fully managed letting Doncaster", "do I need an EPC to rent". Landlords are repeat, high-value clients, and they research far more thoroughly than a vendor does.
- 04
Local area guides
"Best areas to live in Sheffield", "is Kelham Island a good place to live", "schools in Harrogate catchment". These reach people six months before they move, which is exactly when they start forming a view about which agent knows the area.
Area guides are the one thing you can do better than anyone
No national portal can write convincingly about what it is like to live on Ecclesall Road, which streets flood, where the catchment boundary actually falls, or why one side of a suburb sells faster than the other. You can, because you sell there every week.
Done properly, an area guide is the strongest content an independent agent can publish. It ranks for a genuinely competitive informational term, it proves local knowledge better than any "why choose us" page, and it reaches people at the research stage rather than the transaction stage, which is when they decide who to trust.
Done badly it is a page of Wikipedia facts and a stock photograph of a park, and it does nothing. The test is whether someone who lives there would read it and think the writer knows the place.
Compliance shapes what you can say
Property is a regulated market and the marketing rules are real. Fees must be displayed clearly and inclusive of VAT, letting agents must display their redress scheme and client money protection, and the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations govern how properties and services are described.
This affects SEO more than people expect, because the pages you most want to rank (fees, services, valuations) are exactly the pages with mandatory disclosures. Getting them right is not a drag on the campaign. A fees page that is genuinely clear tends to outperform a vague one anyway, because it is what the searcher wanted.
Mortgage advisors and conveyancers: a different shape
The financial side of property behaves differently. Search volume is lower but intent is far stronger and each client is worth more, so a campaign can work on a fraction of the traffic an agent would need.
The dominant pattern is question-led: "can I get a mortgage with bad credit", "how much deposit do I need for a buy to let", "how long does conveyancing take". People research these at length and choose the adviser who answered the question, so content is what wins the client rather than a supporting activity.
FCA rules on financial promotions apply to everything you publish, and they are stricter than most agencies writing this content realise. MortgagesRM has been a client for nine years, which is where much of what we know about this was learned.
What a property campaign costs
Campaigns start at £497 a month plus VAT after a £1,000 deposit. A single-branch agent competing on valuation and lettings terms in one town fits the Local package. An agent covering four towns with a lettings arm and area guides will want National, and we say which before you sign.
The value sum in property is unusually kind: one instruction at a typical fee covers several months of campaign, and a landlord on fully managed is a relationship that lasts years. That changes what a sensible cost per enquiry looks like, so work it out before you compare quotes.
Four steps, then round again
SEO never finishes. The work runs on a loop, and you see the report every time round, good month or bad.
- Step 1Keyword research
We start with the terms that show buying intent, not the ones with the biggest numbers. Alongside those, lower-competition terms that rank sooner and bring early results.
- Step 2Competitor analysis
Then we look at who outranks you and why. Once we know what they are doing, we know what it takes to beat it.
- Step 3Implementation
The team does the work: on-page fixes, new content, links and local signals. Every item is listed in your monthly report, not buried in a dashboard.
- Step 4Reporting & revision
Each month you see what was done and what it moved. When something is not working, we change it rather than wait for it to come good.
Three packages. Prices included.
Pick the one that matches where your customers are. Pay for the year, or a deposit and eleven monthly payments. Either way, the number on this page is the number on the invoice.
- Up to 5 keywords per campaign
- Up to 5 URLs included
- GMB post every 14 days
- 1+ new landing page or article
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
- Up to 10 keywords per campaign
- Up to 10 URLs included
- GMB post every 7 days
- 2+ new landing pages or articles
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
- Up to 20 keywords per campaign
- Up to 10 URLs included
- GMB post every 4 days
- 5+ new landing pages or articles
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
Every package includes keyword analysis, heading tags and meta description optimisation, image alt tag analysis, duplicate content checks, sitemap creation, mobile responsiveness reporting, citations, load time testing and search engine reports. All prices are subject to change. Budgeting for the website too? Here iswhat a website should actually cost.
Need something fixed this week?
Unexpected deadline, site down, or let down by another agency? Call and we will tell you straight away whether we can help.
SEO for other sectors we know well
- SEO for Retail & WholesaleWholesalers and trade suppliers · Florists and same-day delivery · Independent shops and boutiques
- SEO for Garages & AutomotiveIndependent garages and servicing · MOT test centres · Car, van and auto dealers
- SEO for Gyms, Studios & Personal TrainersGyms and health clubs · Boutique and boxing studios · Personal trainers
- SEO for Nurseries, Schools & TutorsNurseries and pre-schools · Childminders and wraparound care · Independent and prep schools
- SEO for Hospitality & EventsCafés · Restaurants · Caterers
- SEO for Professional ServicesAccountants · Solicitors and law firms · Funeral directors
Ready when you are
Tell us what you are trying to rank for and we will look at the site and the search results before we reply. You get a straight answer, including if SEO is not the right spend for you yet.