If you run a real estate business anywhere in the world, you will know that the key to success is visibility. Unless your company is well-known in the areas you operate, any investment you make in other aspects of your business -- prime office space, fancy stationery, a cute secretary or even a nice car to take your clients around in – is only as good as the business it brings in. But for really effective and cost-efficient advertising, the internet is the way to go.
SEO for Real Estate, and the Real Truth about Search Engine Success
Success on the internet is all about web presence, and a truly effective real estate marketing company is what you need to get things rolling. First of all, you need your name out there showing up in search engine results for people looking to buy in your area. So before that, you will need to list out your specialty areas and the types of homes you deal with - this is the key to your future success.
As a next step, you may consider hiring a professional who specializes in SEO for real estate agents. While the basic concepts of SEO techniques are fairly simple to understand, you probably don't know how to implement expert strategy. Real estate basics are simple to understand -- it's just buying and selling properties -- but you learned a whole more than the average person when you studied for your real estate agent or broker license. So a pro player is what you really need. An expert will be able to position your website so it will rank high on Google, Bing and other search engines. Oh, did I mention you need a rocking website first??? But more on that later.
Once your real estate SEO expert gives you the best marketing strategy for your site, you can focus on web development. Why SEO planning before your website is up? Here’s why: unless the content on your website is like that on custom real estate websites that are already popular and ranking high on Google, etc., the whole exercise is pointless. It’s the keywords on your site that are used by the SEO expert in the first place, so that’s where you would begin.
If you’ve chosen a professional who uses all the best real estate SEO tips, then you’ve practically hit the jackpot. Google ranking studies like those conducted by Neil Walker show that 46.37 per cent of search engine users click on the first site that appears on the results page; second place only gets 29.43 per cent. Still, if you’re placed in the top two, then you have a 3 in 4 chance that a home buyer searching for property in your focus area will click through. If there are 1,000 searches in a month for those specific keywords in terms of area, home type and price, then you potentially have 750 new clients every month! But once people get to your website, how user-friendly is it?
Why Your Website is Your Calling Card
Now we get to the website part – the exciting part! Your website should have functionality as much as visual appeal – probably more so. Visual appeal is much like curb appeal: though it will bring people inside, it’s what’s in your kitchens and bathrooms (or the website equivalent) that will excite the buyer and touch their senses. Is your site like top real estate websites with IDX/MLS? Does it have the kind of usability that will make people stay, look and then contact you? These are the main objectives of a great real estate website.
After you’ve SEO’d yourself to pole position and created a website to die for, you need to think of other promotional avenues. The same professional may advise social media marketing targeting your neighborhood; or creating a real estate blog to bring additional traffic; or better yet, installing a lead gen software such as Property Power. All of these things will contribute to your success, so leave no stone unturned. In time, your popularity will soar sky-high, as will your commissions as you laugh your way to the bank thinking of the thousands of dollars real estate agents used to spend on flashy billboards and expensive ads in the local daily. Good luck, and come back for more tidbits on how to make your real estate business a roaring success. See you at the Ferrari dealership a year down the road!
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