This can be very prohibitive for real estate professionals looking to develop a website. When looking in from the outside, most aspects of real estate search engine optimization seem manageable if not a little daunting. The major barrier comes in the form of history. Doing some very surface real estate SEO research will uncover the cumulative effect of having a history: time to build extensive content, time for search engines to really delve into the site, time for loyal visitors to bookmark the site, time for worthwhile partnerships to form. These are all elements that a new webmaster has to catch up on in order to be effectively competitive in search engines. For many this task simply proves to daunting. Many real estate professionals simply to choose to not compete on this ‘new’ frontier for precisely these reasons.
This attitude is less of a cop out and more of a truly unsound business choice. While for many, taking the easy route out simply makes sense because it makes life easier. In effect, this has a positive immediate effect, more time can be spent focusing on closing deals, meeting clients and hunting for sales. Where this approach starts to fall apart is after the initial real estate SEO effort is put forth to push a new site on its way up the search rankings. While the new sites owner may be worn a little thin, may be a little tired and may have typed more then they ever have in the past, they are now the proud owner of a rapidly climbing real estate website. They will very quickly start to see the effects of online lead generation. Online leads will start to rival their off line leads. These leads will be highly educated and highly motivated buyers; people who know what they want, where they want it and know the market well. For any agent this gold because they can focus on the clients definitive needs quickly close the deal, making the process much more efficient. Meanwhile, the real estate who shied away from the internet because of the effort involved, put off by the overbearing sense of history, is still working hard, drumming up leads the traditional way. Yes, it works. Yes, it will continue to work. Yes, it will cripple their growth. Yes, they will be at a disadvantage.
Heres where it gets really poignant. Every year, every month, every week that the off line real estate professional stays off line, the harder it is going to be for them to get online and to become competitive. The shocking thing is how fast the field is moving forward. The REALTOR association has put out two really good surveys about technology and the difference between the 2005 and the 2006 report is stunning.* The bottom line is that the internet is becoming a vital part of real estate.
History, the wall that stops many a real estate professional from embracing real estate websites, only grows as a barrier as time goes on. So the moral of the this story is simple. You can choose to stick with the status quo now, and pay the price later, or you can choose to get set up now with a real estate website and start building your own history. The key is to get in now, set up shop, put the time, effort and resources in and get your own site moving. If you don’t one of your competitors will.
*Both reports can be found here http://www.realtor.org. For more SEO information please check out my group Active SEO.
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