Are You a Real Estate Agent or Online Marketer?

I'm an online marketer. You're a real estate agent. Sounds right, right? Unfortunately for you, it's not that clear-cut. In these days of Web 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever .0 we're on now, to be a successful real estate agent, you have to ALSO be a successful online marketer.

You have to syndicate your listings across the web. You have to participate in forums like those on Zillow, Trulia, ActiveRain, and RealTown. You have to have a Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter account. You have to maintain an attention-grabbing informative website. All of these online marketing tasks probably take up almost as much time as your strictly real estate tasks and it can be overwhelming,  especially when you don't know which of these marketing tasks are working and which you're wasting your time on.

For most online marketing campaigns, you refer visitors back to your website. For example, you might post an interesting story on Facebook and then you link it back to your website for more information. Your website is the center of all other online marketing initiatives. As such, your website is the best way to track the performance of your marketing campaigns.

Your website needs to have a powerful tracking and analytics program. You can use it to track how many visits your site is getting, where the came from, what pages they viewed, how they got there, and more. Google Analytics is a truly awesome tool because it gives you tons of information - and it's FREE! You will easily be able to see if your traffic spiked after you posted that Facebook article and more importantly, which of your online marketing techniques are working.

One caveat: Google Analytics requires  you to add the tracking code in the header tag. Not all real estate websites allow you to access this section, so check with your provider first! iHOUSE ELITE Websites provides an easy way to add Google Analytics to your website. If you're interested, Take a Free Test Drive!