The 117 Best Real Estate Keywords (+ How to Use Them & Find More)

Having trouble finding real estate keywords that actually drive qualified leads to your blog posts and YouTube videos? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Choosing keywords for your agent website is hard if you don’t know what you’re doing.

That’s why we decided to put together this guide with 117 real estate keywords that buyers and sellers commonly search for. Perhaps more importantly, we’ll show you tools to find more keywords and show you how to customize and use these keywords in your blog posts and YouTube videos.

What Are Real Estate Keywords?

Real estate keywords are words or short phrases that Google and other search engines use to categorize content. Generally speaking, the real estate keywords used in an article will represent the main subject of a blog post or webpage. 

Over the last few years, Google’s algorithm has gotten smarter. Much smarter. Today Google uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver hyper-specific answers to the questions people search for. Increasingly, those answers are targeted to the searcher’s geographic location. This is why tailoring your keywords to specific local audiences is crucial. 

Before you dive in, you should understand that keywords are only one element of an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. If you’re brand-new to SEO, check out our in-depth guide here:

The Best Real Estate Keywords for 2024

Here is our list of the best real estate keywords for 2024. You can use these keywords to plan which articles to write for your blog. Always remember that your main goal here is to educate your reader first and show up on Google second. In fact, if your article is spammy or overstuffed with keywords, it won’t rank on Google for long.

We included both short-tail keywords (single words and phrases) and long-tail keywords (short sentences and questions) in this list. Generally speaking, long-tail keywords will have a smaller audience searching for them, but their specificity makes them more relevant. Most of the SEO content you create should use long-tail keywords, which are generally more critical than short-tail keywords.

Keywords for Your Farm Area

It is much easier to get your content to rank for local real estate keywords since there is much less competition. For example, tens of thousands of people might search for “closing costs,” but only a few hundred might search for “closing costs in Phoenix.” So whenever you are planning an article or video, make sure you come up with local long-tail keywords to answer questions for a specific audience in a specific location. 

For example, let’s say the keyword is “how to buy a home.” In order to tailor this to your geographic area, you might change it to “how to buy a home in Charlotte.” Or you can make it even more specific, if there’s search volume, and focus on a neighborhood.

How to Find Your Own Real Estate Keywords

As noted above, while our list of real estate keywords is a great starting point for your content, you will likely need to pinpoint more specific keywords to reach buyers and sellers in your farm area. In order to make your life easier, here are three ways to determine important keywords for your content.

1. Use SEO Tools to Find More Keywords

The best and most accurate way to find new keywords is to use dedicated SEO tools. These tools analyze millions of search engine results pages (SERP) to estimate important data like how many people search for a keyword per month (also called search volume), and crucially, how hard it is to rank for that keyword (difficulty). They also help analyze your competitors’ websites to see which keywords they’re ranking for. Here are three of our favorite SEO tools:

Ahrefs

Moz

Semrush

2. Hire a Freelance Keyword Researcher on Fiverr

3. Research SERPs for Your Keywords

How to Use Keywords to Generate Traffic & Leads

There are two basic steps to using keywords effectively to generate traffic and leads. First, you need to tailor your real estate keywords to target local buyers and sellers. After all, ranking number one for “luxury homes” won’t be as helpful for your business if you can’t target people actually buying luxury homes in your farm area.

Second, you need to write blog posts or create videos that provide the best answer to the questions local buyers and sellers are searching for on Google. Here’s a quick breakdown of this process: 

Determine Search Intent

Once you have a list of local long-tail keywords, the next step is to figure out which questions your local buyers and sellers want answered when they search Google for them. This is known as search intent and should be the driving force behind all content you create in order to rank on Google. 

Think of it like Jeopardy: If your keyword is “homebuying tips for Phoenix,” the question being asked is pretty straightforward: “What do I need to know about buying a home in Phoenix?” However, if your keyword is something like “closing costs in Phoenix,” your local buyers and sellers will likely have more than one question. 

• How much are closing costs in Phoenix? 
• Who pays closing costs in Phoenix?
• How can I save money on closing costs in Phoenix? 

Write Blog Posts or Create Videos to Answer Questions Local Buyers & Sellers Are Asking

OK, now that you have a list of local long-tail keywords and understand the search intent, it’s time to provide answers that can rank. There are three key places you want to add keywords to your blog posts. In order of importance, they are the title, the meta description, and the main headings of your article. Try to use the keywords naturally in all three places.

Write a Snappy Title

Your title should include your keyword (ideally as close to the beginning as possible), and should be written in a natural style that will make people want to click on your article. Here are some title ideas to target “closing costs in Phoenix”:

• Closing Costs in Phoenix: Myths vs Facts
• Closing Costs in Phoenix: The Ultimate Guide
• What Every New Buyer Needs to Know About Closing Costs in Phoenix

Remember that, generally speaking, it’s a bad idea to write more than one article targeting the same keyword. 

Write an Introduction That Draws People In

Your introduction has two purposes: to make people curious about your article or video and explain what they will get by consuming it. Using real estate keywords in your introduction is crucial. Just make sure you do so in a natural way. Here is an example of an introduction for an article about closing costs in Phoenix:

copy to clipboard

One of the most common questions I get asked by new buyers is how much closing costs will add to the price they pay for a home in Phoenix. There are a lot of myths out there about closing costs. That’s why in this article, I will explain how closing costs…

Create an Outline for Your Content & Start Writing

When you have search intent figured out, writing your content is easy. All you need to do is create an outline for your article or video and use the questions people want answered as your primary headings and subheadings. If you’re making a video, use the questions as chapters.

Don’t worry about using keywords in your content. If you are focusing on answering buyers’ and sellers’ questions, they will come up naturally as you write.

copy to clipboard

How much are closing costs in Phoenix?

• Loan origination fees
• Credit report fees
• Appraisal and home inspection fees

Who pays closing costs in Phoenix?
How can I save money on closing costs in Phoenix?

Be sure to link to your new blog post from older blog posts. Tying your posts together can help you rank better as it helps Google “read” and categorize the content on your site. 

Finally, if you want to rank on Google long term, you need to update your blog posts at least once a year. Go back and change the date, add relevant new information or news, and try to make your article more readable and useful for your readers.

Create a Great ‘About Me’ Page

Since you want your articles to signal EEAT (experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness) to Google, you should always include references to these factors in your articles. At a minimum, your author bio or YouTube “about” page should have your credentials, including designations, and your experiences.

Use Keywords in YouTube Videos 

For YouTube videos, you can use the same basic formula when you write your video’s title, description, and tags. You can also use keywords in your video’s channel. Click on Channel and find your settings where you’ll have the option to add keywords. You can also put keywords in your chapters, but only if they are relevant to what you are talking about. Don’t forget to use these same keywords when promoting your video. 

If you need more ideas for blogs or want some expert writing tips, check out our guide to real estate blog ideas below:

Bringing It All Together

Have any additional tips or questions related to researching and using real estate keywords? Let us know in the comment section.