Most Expensive Keywords for Commercial Real Estate in Florida

The 10 most populated cities in Florida add up to nearly three and a half million inhabitants, according to the latest U.S. census data – a figure that represents about 15% of the total population of the state.

Miami-Dade County alone is home to about a third of Florida’s total population.

We analyzed the data for the ten most populated cities in the state, in terms of monthly search volume, competition, and CPC (cost per click) for the most popular keywords in the commercial real estate industry.

We carried out a search for terms that included the following keywords + [city name]:

• commercial real estate
• industrial real estate
• office (space) real estate
• retail (space) real estate

All data for SEO keyword research came from Ahrefs and refers to average monthly searches in Google.com in the U.S. market. Data may result in slightly different numbers if checked with other digital marketing tools, as SEMRush.

All data for paid search CPC are from the keyword planner tool from Google Ads.

This difference is due to the different ways each tool estimates the search volume (for Ahrefs, for example, it is an average based on annual search volume) and their database.

20 Most expensive Commercial Real Estate keywords for the Florida market

To estimate the cost-per-click of the keywords in our study, we used Google Ads’ Keyword Planner tool, which is much more effective than Ahrefs at calculating expected CPC.

Again, we can see that eight of the ten most expensive keywords in Google Ads (high range, for top of page bid) are related to the Miami area, with Tampa covering the rest of the top 20 chart.

The overall competition index value, according to Google Ads, is 45.7, with some keywords reaching peaks over 80 in the index, like “commercial real estate for sale in Jacksonville fl” (competition index value of 83) or “commercial real estate for lease Miami” (80).

Top 20 Florida Commercial Real Estate SEO keywords by volume

From a SEO content strategy point of view, there are many opportunities lying in the keyword study we did fo this digital market audit. In fact, there are dozens of terms with low KD (*) that can be ranked solely on SEO content and proper on-page optimization,  and many more that would be possible to rank for with just a few good inbound links.

(*) KD, or Keyword Difficulty, is a metric from the Ahrefs software that estimates how hard it will be to rank in the top 10 results for a given keyword.

The top 20 keywords featured in the above table are, of course, within the most competitive, as they are targeting more generic terms, with the highest monthly search volume. There are, however, other keywords with a low KD, which generate an interesting monthly search volume. This is the case, for example, of “retail space for rent Miami“, which has an average monthly search volume of 150, with a monthly traffic potential (considering variations, synonyms and long tail keywords) of over 700 organic searches.

Florida CRE market

According to the Commercial Real Estate Market Condition Index, Florida lead the U.S. CRE market in the last quarter of 2021. The index is calculated for each metro area and is based on economic and demographic conditions (Gross Domestic Production growth, employment and unemployment rates, etc.), as well as commercial market indicators which take into consideration net absorption (the amount of occupied space at the end of a period minus the amount of space occupied at the beginning of the same period), rent, ongoing construction, vacancy rates, etc.

The commercial real estate market in Florida is definitely growing, with a very  low vacancy rate, all the while experiencing a greater growth in rent compared to the rest of the U.S. states. In fact, nine of the top fifteen metro areas with a population of 250,000 or more inhabitants are located in Florida.

Top 10 Florida cities by population

Jacksonville is the most populated within all the cities of Florida, although it is not the biggest commercial real estate market within the state.

Our SEO analysis on top keywords by search volumes shows that Miami (which only accounts for about 2% of the total population of Florida), achieves more than 40% of the total monthly search volume of commercial related keywords.

Top 10 Florida cities by monthly search volumes (CRE related keywords)

As mentioned the order of importance of cities is upset when we sort them by monthly search volume of keywords related to commercial real estate in Florida, as we can see in the graph below:

From a perspective of digital marketing opportunities, Miami is leading the Florida’s market, with many conversion-driven keywords that can be targeted and included in the organic and paid acquisition strategy of a CRE firm.

Final thoughts

The study we carried out, based on the keywords with higher search volume, higher CPC or that represent interesting opportunities (taking into account their KD), confirm what is indicated by the Commercial Real Estate Market Condition Index.

The CRE market in Florida remains one of the hottest in the U.S. both from a digital marketing point of view and in terms of lead acquisition opportunities through this channel.

If your firm operates in the commercial real estate market in Florida and you are looking for a partner who can help you define and implement an effective digital acquisition strategy, get in touch with InMotion Real Estate Media.

We are a commercial real estate marketing agency with over 15 years of experience, that provides marketing and creative solutions to leading real estate companies.