In an ever-growing world of "Search" on the Internet, marketing your company, your listings and yourself has never been more important. With more than 77% of all homebuyers searching for housing online, marketing to these individuals has clearly become the focus for most real estate agents. So, where do you start? How do you take the next step in Internet marketing? Below is some advice on how to kick-start your Internet marketing campaigns and pull way ahead for 2007.
The first step to grab some attention on the web is to find your niche, and promote your expertise within that niche real estate component. Who are you marketing to and what are your clients ‘searching' for on the web? For example, you may specialize in the luxury condo market in Chicago and maybe you further specialize in particular neighborhoods such as the Loop or the East Village. Whatever it may be, focus down to your geographic location and niche of expertise and make a list of all of the search terms people may look to find what you are offering. [Luxury Chicago, Luxury Condos, Chicago Condos, Luxury Chicago Condo, Loop Condos, East Village Chicago, Loop Real Estate, Chicago Luxury Real Estate, etc.).
After you focus your niche and you have your target market aligned its time to create your platform for both short-term & long-term search engine optimization. (No you don't have to be an expert to get the basics done.) Assuming you already have a website, we are going to concentrate on 3 basic but powerful topics: Vertical Search Partners, Rich Content & Email Management. (If you don't have a website yet, don't sweat it, you will read about Blog's, "the new website," later in this article.)
Vertical Search Partners
There are many great real estate search engines and housing specific classifieds sites most of which are highly visited by homebuyers and free for agents and brokers to post listings. Take advantage of this. Some sites are very easy to use and you can upload individual listings or bulk feeds. These sites include Craigslist, Google Base & condoDomain.com which specializes in condos and new condo developments nationally. Find resources that are specific to your niche and be on as many websites that fit info your vertical. Now you want to start posting your listings and contact information, including links back to your website or Blog. Some websites will even do this for you and condoDomain.com is a great example of that. When you upload a listing to condoDomain.com, they ‘push' your listings to all of their real estate partner sites like Trulia, Propsmart, Google Base, Real Estate Advisor and many more real estate search engines, so you only have to post on one site and they then duplicate your posts and advertisements on many other real estate partner sites. Remember, many of these companies spend thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars per year investing in Search Engine Optimization, ride their coat tails, even if its free, there is significant value for you and your listing.
Rich Content
What is rich content? Well, remember those words we used above (Luxury Chicago Condos, Chicago Luxury Real Estate) all of this is your rich content pertaining to your niche campaign. We need to tell the Internet (the search engines) who and what you are all about. The best way to do so is to write a lot of rich ‘customized' content on your website (and I mean a lot - the more the better). You need to think and write like a search engine. Many successful real estate agents who are well placed in search engines get their exposure via their Blog because it is quick and easy to update and post more rich content. A Blog is a website that you can administer without having any web or HTML experience at all, you just login, type a post and click submit. So whether you have a website or not, start a Blog today. Many Blog are free and very easy to use, we use both www.Blogger.com and www.WordPress.com.
Ok, so you got a Blog now, what do you do? Create a post; promote your knowledge of your vertical, yourself & your listings. You are the expert...tell the world. In doing so make sure to utilize plenty of ‘rich content' (Luxury Chicago Condos, etc). We recommend writing at least one post per day on your vertical and you will watch your webpage and or Blog rise to the tops of search engines gaining more exposure and growing your client base. Get creative, provide great information, and build your personality online, this will drive repeat visitors.
Email Management
Still the #1 source of Internet traffic is email and there is no close 2nd place. People use it and people like it. Build an email campaign for your prospective buyers & sellers and keep them updated on your market. Email is an easy way to touch all your clients and point them back to your webpage and/or Blog where they can learn more about you and your listings on their own time and schedules. You can manage an email database pretty easy through your contact manager software on your computer or utilize an email manager like Constant Contact, which allows you to have colorful templates and HTML emails.
At the end of the day utilizing these tools will improve your reach online. Get listed with Vertical Search Partners, use Rich Content (and lots of it) and maintain a constant Email campaign and you will be way ahead in 2007.
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