Real estate marketing is the work of making an agent, a team or a brokerage the name a seller or buyer finds and trusts in a particular place. Real estate SEO is the part of it that earns unpaid positions on Google’s map and in its results for searches such as an agent in a neighborhood or what a home there is worth. Both run inside rules most businesses never meet: fair housing law, the state’s license rules on advertising, and ad platform policies written for housing.
Advernation is a marketing agency in New York, started in Queens in 2007 by Christopher Maddaloni, a former electrician, and working from 1115 Broadway in Manhattan. We are not lawyers and this page is not legal advice. We build Realtor marketing that a supervising broker can approve line by line.
Tell us the neighborhoods you work and whether you want sellers, buyers or renters. We will show you who holds those searches now.
Who this page is for
This page is for licensed agents, teams and brokerages, residential or commercial, and for property managers who fill their own buildings. It suits an agent who wants to own two or three neighborhoods more than one who wants to be seen across a whole metro area, because search rewards being specific.
How sellers, buyers and renters search
The three kinds of client search differently, and an agent’s own site can win only some of those searches.
- Buyers and renters looking at homes search for listings: bedrooms, price, neighborhood. Those results are held by the large listing portals, whose inventory no single agent can match. We do not spend a client’s budget trying to outrank them for listing searches.
- Sellers search before they call anyone: what a home is worth, how long sales take in the neighborhood, what an agent charges, whether to sell now. They are few, each is worth a commission, and they read closely over weeks. This is where an agent’s site can win.
- People choosing a neighborhood search for it by name: schools, commute, what a building or a block is like. An agent who truly knows the place can answer better than a portal can.
- Everyone searches the agent’s name. A referral, a yard sign or an open house sends someone to Google, and the profile, reviews and site either back up the introduction or undo it.
Real estate is a considered purchase made over months, much of it at a desk. One call from a seller is worth more than a hundred visits from people browsing kitchens, so the keyword research is sorted by which client a search belongs to.
Fair housing and license rules come first
Federal fair housing rules apply to every word and picture in a housing advertisement and to where it is shown. The regulation makes it unlawful to make, print or publish any notice, statement or advertisement for the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin. It covers words, phrases, photographs and symbols, and it also names selecting media or locations for advertising that deny particular segments of the housing market information about housing opportunities. States and cities add protected classes of their own.
The ad platforms have turned that into settings. In the United States and Canada, Google does not let housing advertisers target audiences by gender, age, parental status, marital status or ZIP code; a radius or a city may still be used. Meta’s advertising standards require anyone running housing ads aimed at the United States to identify them as a Special Ad Category and to use the approved targeting options.
State license law adds its own list. In New York, the Department of State’s regulation counts websites and e-mail as advertising, and it says, among other things:
- Only a real estate broker may place advertisements for the sale or lease of property. A salesperson, associate broker or team may do so only for property listed with their own broker and with that broker’s approval.
- An advertisement that names a salesperson, associate broker or team must also print the name of the broker or brokerage.
- The license type must be stated correctly. The titles “sales associate”, “licensed sales agent” or simply “broker” are prohibited.
- An agent or team website needs the supervising broker’s authorization, every page must carry the required information, and the homepage must link to the brokerage’s website if it has one.
- An advertisement that places a property in the vicinity of an area must also name the area where the property is actually located, and using a name for an area that would mislead the public is prohibited.
- Advertisements shall not guarantee future profits from any real estate activity.
Other states have their own versions. We write to the rules of the state where the agent is licensed, and the supervising broker approves the site and the ads before they go out.
Real estate SEO on the map: agents, teams and offices
Google ranks the three results on its map mainly by relevance, distance and prominence, and says a better local ranking cannot be requested or bought. What a real estate business may list is narrower than agents expect. Google’s eligibility rules exclude rental or for-sale properties such as vacation homes, model homes or vacant apartments, so a listing cannot have a profile. Lead generation agents or companies are excluded too.
Agents can have profiles. Google names real estate agents among individual practitioners, who may have a profile if they are public-facing and can be reached directly at the verified location during stated hours. Where an agent is the only public-facing practitioner at a location of a branded organization, Google’s format for the name is the brand, a colon, then the agent’s name. Where several agents share an office, the office has its own profile and each agent’s carries only the agent’s name. We set profiles up that way, with the brokerage shown as the license rules require.
The website and its pages
An agent’s site wins on the pages a portal cannot write. Listing pages are not among them, since the same listing data appears on many sites in the same words. The pages that earn their place are these.
- A page for each neighborhood the agent works, written from knowledge: the housing stock, the buildings, the blocks, what has sold and how fast, using public records and the agent’s own experience. Neighborhood names are used accurately, as the license rules require.
- Pages for sellers: how the agent prices a home, what the process and the costs are, what to do before listing.
- Pages for the kinds of property the agent knows: co-ops, condos, townhouses, multifamily, retail space.
- The agent’s own page: license type, brokerage, experience and the areas served, stated plainly.
We do not produce a page for every town in a county from one template. Google’s spam policies call pages made to rank for similar searches and funnel visitors to one place doorway abuse, and a thin neighborhood page tells a seller the agent does not know the neighborhood.
Reviews for agents
An agent closes few transactions a year next to a shop’s sales, so every review counts and the habit of asking has to be exact. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help a local ranking, requires that reviews reflect a genuine experience, and prohibits incentives in exchange for them, which rules out a closing gift offered for a review. We set up a request sent after closing, with a link, to every client, and draft replies that thank the client without giving the address or the price.
Realtor marketing beyond SEO
A real estate marketing agency has four other tools, and in this field social media is a larger one than usual.
- Search ads reach a seller at the moment of the search. We build them within Google’s housing policy, by city or radius, and run them under Google Ads management, from $500 per cycle.
- Pay-per-lead ads. Google’s program has a category for real estate agents and brokers and requires license checks for each agent in the firm.
- Social media. Homes and neighborhoods are things people like to look at, and a steady record of real listings and closings is what a referred seller checks. Paid social for housing is built in the special category. See social media marketing.
- The website and AI search. The site has to show the broker information on every page and load fast on a phone at an open house; we rebuild it under web design if it cannot. Google says its AI features need no special optimization beyond indexed pages, which favors the agent with real neighborhood pages. See AI search optimization.
We do not sell real estate leads. The profile, the site and the ad account belong to the agent or the brokerage, and the calls go to the agent’s own number.
What we do, month by month
| When | What we do | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| Month one | Audit of the site and profiles, including a read against the license rules and fair housing wording. The searches sellers and buyers make in your neighborhoods and who ranks for them. Call and form tracking. | The plan, the neighborhoods chosen, and what has to be corrected. |
| Months two and three | Neighborhood and seller pages written with you, approved by the broker, published. Agent and office profiles set up. Listings on other sites made consistent. Review requests tied to closings. | Approved pages live and inquiries counted by source and by type of client. |
| Months four to six | More neighborhoods and property types. Links from local organizations, press and the brokerage. Ads for seller searches, if wanted. | Positions moving for neighborhood and seller searches. |
| Every month after | Pages kept current with what has sold, review replies, new neighborhoods as you grow. | One report: calls, requests, positions, traffic. |
What it costs and how to judge a quote
Judge a quote against closings. Take your average commission after the brokerage split and your costs, and divide a year of fees by it. The answer is how many additional closings a year the work must produce. If that number is one or two, the question is simple: over a year, can the site and the profile bring that many sellers who would not have called otherwise? Be wary of any quote priced on visits or “leads” counted by form entries alone.
We quote monthly SEO plans for agents and brokerages after the free audit, with no contract. Get a quote.
The SEO audit is free. Google Ads management is from $500 per cycle; a cycle is one test of a campaign and you set its length: a day, a week or a month. Re-targeting is from $400, where the platform’s housing rules allow it. The pricing page has the rest.
What we need from you
We need access to the website, the profiles and any ad account. We need your license type and the brokerage’s name exactly as licensed, and the supervising broker’s approval to build and to publish. We need the neighborhoods and property types you want, what you know about them that is not on a portal, and a count of the inquiries that became clients.
What we can and cannot show
We have not published a result for a real estate agent or brokerage, and we will not present another field’s numbers as if they were. What we have published is on the case studies page. For an agent we show the audit, the pages and the first reports. We will not promise a ranking, since Google says no one can guarantee first place, and we will not promise listings.
Related pages: local SEO services, the New York SEO company page, and the other industries we work with. Businesses that live off a move or a sale have pages too: SEO for moving companies, remodeling marketing and construction marketing. Real estate lawyers should see SEO for law firms.
Ask for the free audit, or call and tell us which neighborhoods you want to be known in.
Questions people ask
What does a real estate marketing agency do?
It makes an agent or brokerage findable and trusted in chosen neighborhoods: SEO, Google profiles for the office and the agents, reviews, the website, search ads and social media. For real estate all of it has to stay inside fair housing law and the state’s license rules.
What is Realtor marketing compared with real estate SEO?
Real estate SEO is the part that earns unpaid positions on the map and in the results. Realtor marketing is the whole: SEO plus ads, social media, the website and reviews. Most agents need the profile and neighborhood pages first.
Can an agent outrank the big listing portals?
Not for listing searches, and we do not try. An agent can rank for searches the portals answer poorly: a specific neighborhood, a kind of building, a seller’s question, and the agent’s own name.
How long does real estate SEO take?
Three to six months for the first clear movement in most markets, longer in a dense one. Profile changes show sooner. Google’s guidance is that some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months.
Can a real estate agent have a Google Business Profile?
Yes. Google names real estate agents among individual practitioners who may have a profile if they are public-facing and reachable directly at the location during stated hours. A property for sale or rent cannot have one.
Can housing ads be targeted by age or ZIP code?
Not on Google in the United States and Canada. Its policy bars housing advertisers from targeting by gender, age, parental status, marital status or ZIP code. A city or a radius of at least one kilometer may be used.
Does my broker need to approve my website?
In New York, yes. The Department of State’s regulation permits agent and team websites when the supervising broker authorizes them, requires the broker information on every page and a link to the brokerage’s site on the homepage. Other states have their own rules.
Do you sell real estate leads?
No. We do the SEO, the profiles and the ads for a set fee, and the inquiries come to your own number and inbox. The accounts stay yours.
Do you work with agents outside New York?
Yes. Federal fair housing law applies in every state, states and cities add to it, and the license rules are the state’s, so we ask which state licenses you and have your broker confirm our reading of its advertising rules.