How to make Real Estate Ads? | Placester

Did you know that 2.7 million people search the term “realtor” on Google every month? The opportunity to capture leads using Google is enormous—and lots of people know it. Ranking for those search terms organically is incredibly difficult, and it can take years to build up your website’s SEO to do it.

There’s a faster way to get your business name to the top of Google search results: Google Ads. The sponsored search results can capture a ton of traffic if you understand what your clients are searching for and how to create an ad that grabs their attention.

We’ll walk you through the basics of Google Ads for real estate agents and brokers.

How Do Google Ads Work?

First, it’s important to think about how most people use Google. It’s not like social media, where people go when they’re bored to kill time and catch up with friends. When you open a tab to Google (or an app on your phone), you want to learn something specific.

Google Ads are the sponsored results that show up when a user searches for a specific keyword on Google. They usually are placed at the top of the page, above the organic search results, giving you the opportunity to show your ad to (potentially) a significant number of visitors—if you’re willing to pay.

Google Ads assesses how much it costs to place an ad based on a pay-per-click (PPC) model. Depending on how many other people are bidding on the keyword and what their “maximum bid” is (the most they’d be willing to pay), Google can recommend a budget for you, and you can also decide how much you’ll spend daily on ads and cap your spend that amount.

In essence, Google Ads are an auction. You’ll bid against competitors for the available “real estate” on Google, which is going to vary depending on the search volume for the term (how many people are looking up those specific keywords on Google) and how many other people are placing ads for it.

How Do You Create Google Ads For Real Estate? 

First, you’ll need a Google account. You may already have one through your real estate brokerage or personal email account.

Next, you’ll need to determine what your goal is. Do you want to drive more traffic to your website? Do you want to generate more phone leads by providing your phone number?

When you have an idea of your goal, you’ll have a better sense of what keywords you want to target. There are a number of keyword research tools you can use to determine a keyword’s search volume and understand how popular it might be. Generally speaking, the more targeted a keyword is to your specific neighborhood and area of expertise (for example, “condos in Cherry Park” or “midcentury modern homes in lake central”), the better quality leads you’ll get.

Depending on what kind of ad you place, you’ll want to potentially write some copy for it. An ad like the ones above, for Google-screened real estate agents, just requires an agent or business name, the number of years in business, hours of operation, and a few more details. As you can see, you can also link those ads to your Google reviews.

For a Google Ad like the ones shown below, you’ll want to consider what a buyer (or seller) is hoping to find based on the market and your own business. Engel Property Group in Denver is promoting “listing updates every 15 min” in its headline, and short, simple descriptions of some of the buyer services offered at the group’s website. The point of this ad is to get buyers to visit search.engelpropertygroup.com, where they’ll probably be encouraged to create an account so they can save homes they like … and connect with an agent when they find one they really like.

Finally, you’ll need to set a budget. You should probably start with something close to $10 per day and track your results for different keywords. One might be a lot more lucrative for you than another, but you won’t know that until you experiment and analyze what you’ve learned!

Different Bidding Strategies For PPC Advertising

It’s important to understand your overall goal for your Google Ad before you land on a bidding strategy. Most real estate businesses are going to want to focus on either clicks (website traffic or visits) or conversions (generating an action on your website).

Google’s Smart Bidding helps you understand which keywords are best for converting leads on your website, while CPC (cost-per-click) bidding is probably a better strategy if your overall goal is to simply generate traffic to your platform.

How To Run Google Ads For Real Estate 

If you don’t already have a Google account, set one up for yourself, or create a new business account just for real estate. You can do that at https://myaccount.google.com.

When you’re signed in, visit https://ads.google.com/home/ and click “Get Started.” You’ll need to fill out some basic information about your business and your ad goals, including the keywords you’re targeting and the specific type of ad you want to run.

You’ll be asked to provide a budget and a payment method, including your bidding strategy. And then you’re ready to start taking in leads!

Why Google Ads Are Totally Worth It For Real Estate

The searchers on Google are trying to find the information they need to buy or sell a house. By the time someone gets to Google, they’re pretty serious about making a step forward in their home sales journey, and you can put your name and website right in front of them.

Plus, Google’s optimization and analysis tools can give you an advantage over social media ads by specifically targeting the keywords that give you the very best traffic or conversion rates, whatever your goal is.

If you’ve never set up a Google Ad for real estate before, our experts at Placester can help support you through the process—we know you have other things to do (like sell houses!).