First of all, if you don't have a website, get one!
(If you have one already, skip the next paragraph.)
What are you waiting for? All your marketing dollars are not being used to their fullest without a website for your potential customers to visit and contact you. If you're an agent, your broker site is not good enough. You need a personal site so you know that when you give out the address, you will be the person they contact. We know that over 80% of real estate buyers use the internet to research their purchase before talking to an agent, by not having a website you may be limiting yourself to only 20% of the market!
If you are buying print advertising, but not web advertising you need to get your priorities straight!
Web advertising is cheaper, easier to track your return on investment, and it's where your customers are. As mentioned previously, over 80% of real estate buyers go to the web before talking to an agent. If you own a website but you are not taking advantage of web advertising you are not reaping the full benefit of having a website. (note: I am not saying to stop all print advertising, only that web advertisement should be part of your budget)
Fish where the fish are.
As a web markeintg specialist I can tell you where real estate buyers are looking. They're looking at REALTOR.com, your local Newspapaper's Real Estate website, google, yahoo, bing, and some are on trulia, that is primarily where you need to advertise.
Banner Ads 101
I recently spoke to an agent who asked me why they weren't getting any results form their website marketing. They had set their own banner ad up on their local paper's real estate section. It had no animation and mainly featured their website address in large bold letters. They had almost no clicks in the past 3 months.
Don't rely on cheap static banner ads. I once saw a 400% increase in clicks on banner ads simply by replacing them with animated versions.
You need a credibility statement. Just putting your face and real estate title isn't going to make you appeal anymore than the 500 other agents on the same website. "Over 25 Years Experience" or "Specializing in Condo Real Estate" are good examples. If you can just make yourself slightly more appealing than the next guy, it makes a difference.
Finally, you need a call to action. Tell the viewer what they'll get if they "CLICK HERE NOW". "To talk to a local expert today, CLICK HERE" or "Get a free Market Analysis CLICK HERE" are some examples.
Other places to advertise.
Google, Yahoo, and Bing all have pay-per-click advertising that is very economical. You are only charged when someone actually clicks to visit your website, and you can set your own budget. However you do have to create your own ad text, and select your target keyword phrases which can be tricky and make all the difference in the effectiveness of your campaign.
Smart Media Can Help
We are real estate marketing veterans. We can simplify the process for you, eliminate the learning curve, and give you peace of mind that everything was done right. We can also review your traffic reports to make sure your marketing dollars are being spent in the correct location.
If you are adventerous or a little more on the techy-side and want to create your own web marketing campaign, please consider Smart Media for your animated banner design.
I'm still seeing some rather obsurd SEO advice on the web. Here are two direct quotes from a fairly well respected web design blog, and they are fairly common beliefs about SEO that are just wrong.
“You’ll already get a slight increase in rankings from a validated site, without even taking content into consideration.”
If you watch this video you’ll see that around 1:30 Google’s spokesperson very clearly says there is no boost whatsoever for having a validated website:
A better statement would have been “Poorly designed flash sites are invisible to Google” if you convert text to shapes in flash, then yes, your site will become invisible to Google.
Another common misconception about SEO is that the most important factors are on-sight optimization, and that simply is not true. On-site optimization only helps Google know what your website is about. If you want to rank higher, more important factors are the quantity of in-bound links and the nature of the websites that are linking to you.
I hope this helps you real estate webmaster out there in your endeavors. Thank you.
Sending out an email newsletter on a monthly basis is a great way to keep your name in the back of the minds of your clients. It can also be a great way to keep people coming back to your website.
Add a newsletter sign-up form to increase the effectiveness of your personal website.
When you go to networking events, enter all the emails from the businesscards you pick up. Those prospects may not be in the market right now, but 6 months from now they may be, and your email newsletter might pop-up in their inbox at just the right time!
The best thing about email newletters is they're cheap!
If you would like to know more about setting up an email newsletter call Smart Media today! 352-240-9109x355
Being in web marketing, I get asked this question a lot. The simplest answer is it's all about customer service. Talk to your customers using the medium they prefer.
Social Websites Are All About Communication
I know many people that would rather chat on Facebook than email! It's becoming a very common method of communication. By having a presence on Facebook (for example) you also increase the likelyhood of being the chosen Real Estate Agent over other hopefulls for someone who prefers using Facebook to communicate.
Other Benefits
Having a presence on social websites gives the appearance to your clients that you are technologically savvy. A percieved advantage is as good as a real one if it helps you get more customers, so even if you are not using these technologies effectively, the fact you are using them can be benificial. Put it on your business cards and marketing materials.
Rapid Communication
A common complaint you may hear about social websites is they are a waste of time, but they can actually be used to save time in some ways. They allow you to communicate with a large group of people with a single mouse click, they only thing you have to do is come up with an effective message to send out. :)
Closing Thoughts...
I hope this post will help some people who have been pessemistic about Social Media look at it in a different light, and maybe even unlock some of the potential power within. Thank you.
Hey check it out. Here is a video slide show I made that will be played through a projector at our trade booth for an upcoming home show here in town. I'm still perfecting my video skills, it's a new thing I've decided to learn. I'm not sure I've got the whole web optimization aspect of it completely down. The non-optimized version isn't pixelated at all, but the YouTube version is. Perhaps there are some web video veterans out there who can give me some tips.
I previously posted about Open Source Software, well I've found an even better resource. This one outlines all major business softwares and gives the best fee alternatives. I've used some of them, and they are quite good.
In my opinion, no one should waste any money on Microsoft Office suite, Open office works just as good.
Check it out, there is tons of other great software on here. If you have used any of it, please comment with your quality review.
Everyone is being totally cliche, the term "Web 2.0" has been around since like 1999! Stop saying Web 2.0, and Real Estate 2.0!
We need to come up with some new buzzwords to describe the "new" internet, and internet real estate marketing. And don't say Web 3.0! I don't know what those buzzwords would be, but hey I'm just calling for change, not proposing any salutions here. I leave it up to the AR Collective to help with that one.
I usually try to mention an Open Source alternative whenever I reccomend someone buy some software. Though OS software isn't usually as high quality as the professional stuff, it usually works great for people who are not professionals. There is usually tons literature out there on OS Software, and great support forums where you can get any questions answered within hours or even minutes.
Oh... did I mention is 100% FREE?
Here is a great website that categorizes most mainstream opensource softwares available, and gives you a short description of what they do.
Just a little tip to young graphic designers, I once used OS software to make enough money doing freelance to buy the Adobe Suite. :) If you can't afford to buy the Adobe software, you can get by with this stuff until you can save up enough money to buy it.
There is one thing all blog readers expect to get from reading every blog post, they expect to receive some form of information or advice for free. If you are writing sales pitches or just talking about how great your product is, you are failing as a blog writer!
I am seeing this kind of behavior a lot on AR, and on outside blogs.
It's ok to talk about your product or do a shameless plug once in a while, but that should be secondary to some form of useful information that can actually benefit your target audience. Blogging is not a TAKE TAKE TAKE scenario, it's GIVE SHARE TAKE.
So here is my proposed Gold Rule for Blogging:
Post unto others as you would have them post unto you.
If you just read some killer advice or tips on a blog, would you mind seeing a shameless plug at the bottom? You'd probably even be a lot more willing to consider their product if they had just revealed a way to save you time or money.
Search engines are not mystical beings that are moved by the correct sequence of cerimonial rituals. Search engines are simply trying to bring the best results to their users for their searches. If you just use some basic logic as to how a search engine might determine the best results you can rule out a lot of common myths that people claim help you rank higher, here are a few that I've been seeing lately:
Resubmitting your web site to the search engines regularly. This helps nothing, search engines are smart enough to know how often you update your web site, resubmitting doesn't make them check more often. Resubmitting is a waste of time, submit your site once, and don't worry about it after that.
Making your web site XHTML compliant. (sorry if this one is over most people's heads, but at least you'll know about it if someone tries to sell it to you) Seeing that 99% of the internet is not XHTML compliant, search engines would have a real problem if they decided these web sites were somehow not important. Search engines are trying to get you the best information for your searches, how cleanly your code is written is not a factor.
Trading links with other people. This is probably one of the most widely practiced method of search engine optimization that doesn't help you at all. Search engines are smart enough to know that your are trading links, and they know why you are doing it. It's ok to swap links for the traffic it might bring to your site, but it's not going to help you rank higher in search engines.
Just think about it logically. If you were a search engine, and you wanted to give people the best results for their searches, what would you look at to generate your results? I bet you wouldn't care how many times they resubmitted their site that week. :)
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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