Realtors and Real Estate Agents - Establish Your Brand Online - Internet Marketing
By: Jim Warholic President of Professional Web Services, Inc.
As a real estate professional, the image you present online is one of the most important items in establishing an online identity. With just about every real estate agent having a website online today, what is it that is going to set yourself apart? And, can new customers find your website in the search engines by the local real estate areas you specialize in? Are you adapting to the new real estate Internet technology?
Understanding Internet Marketing and SEO Services for Realtors
Internet marketing and Search Engine Optimization, SEO Services go hand-in-hand. Simply placing a website online today is not going to make the marketing impact desired for producing optimum sales results. Spending money on printed brochures, local newspaper advertising, flyers, and other types of traditional advertising outlets will not produce the same sales results as it did five or ten years ago. A portion of the marketing and advertising budget that was used in the traditional media outlets must be positioned to the very lucrative Internet market place. The facts are that in 2005, 77 percent of buyers are using the Internet to search for a home. Source: National Association Of Realtors®. The question for you is, what percentage of home buyers are using you and your website to find their dream home?
Internet marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services are all about getting your brand image in front of the people searching for homes and property in your local community. As the name implies, Internet marketing means promoting a Realtor's website using all the available online tools, Web 2.0 technologies, and marketing skills available.
Search engine optimization, or as it is known in the Internet marketing industry as SEO services, is the skill set used to optimize a website for a particular set of keywords for the local communities that a Realtor specializes in for buying and selling homes. Proper optimization of a real estate professional's website will help in getting the website to start showing up in the search results for Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Search and an increase in visitor traffic. However, just optimizing the website for your keywords is not likely enough to get the kind of search engine exposure you would like. There are other things, when combined with website search engine optimization, that can really help in having your website show up in the top search results pages. For example: quality link building is a prerequisite in building an online presence. There are a number of factors that are important to consider when building quality links. Ideally, the links should be in the right markets and with the keywords used for your target markets. This is known as the anchor text, or the text that is seen when clicked upon. For example Folsom Real Estate is the anchor text for the website www.CalHomeNet.com. Notice that both of these links go to the same location, but the first one is showing the keywords of the local area, and the other is displaying the website url. Both of these are helpful from a search engine perspective. Quality link building is just one of the many important jobs an Internet marketing specialist has to consider when promoting a real estate website online.
MLS searches are one of the keys to a Realtor's website. As the Internet has progressively changed and expanded with new technologies, it is important to make it as easy as possible for people to do a search from your website. There have been two conflicting opinions regarding MLS Homes and IDX Property searches.
One group has indicated that they want to get as many quality leads as possible and will make sure to use the MLS home search, where every home is included in the search results. While true MLS searches usually require registration, and usually includes, in the MLS search results, just about every home and property available in a give search criteria, there is another search option called an IDX feed.
The group using the IDX feeds have felt that while not every home or property is always included in the IDX feed, the majority of real estate listings are included, and the person doing the searching does not need to sign up and register in order to do searches in the first place.
With so many free places available online for homes and property searches, in my opinion, it does not make sense forcing someone to require registration in the first place before they can ever see any properties. If they find a home, or a property search they like prior to registration, they can then register and save the search results or have the results automatically emailed, along with new property updates. The option is yours of course, between MLS, IDX, or both for your website.
Building Your Real Estate Homes Online
Building your branded real estate website home is only a part of the home building process required online today. What I mean by this is, a Realtor must think in terms of what the Internet can do for promoting their clients' homes and properties. This means thinking outside the box.
When listing a home, are you doing the same thing as every other Realtor in your local area? If you are, you are missing the boat. Not only do you need to set your branded image apart online, but you must set your clients brand apart also. This means more than just listing the home or property in the the local MLS in your area. It means you have to really promote a home in more ways than one. This requires creative marketing and advertising properties on national places like www.realtor.org and also in local outlets. Additionally, a Realtor can make a major impression with potential property buyers, by having a website built with its own property address. Think of it this way: www.748sturbridge.com with its own video tour.
Communicating With Your Clients and Future Clients
Consider publishing an e-newsletter with information for your local real estate area. Having a newsletter that is unique is key. Because the majority of people have email today, an online e-newsletter can be a great way to stay in touch with your clients. This has the advantage of reduced costs involved with printing and mailing and can easily be found in their local email boxes.
Blogs can be effectively used as an online newsletter area for publishing information on a regular basis. Information such as recent homes' sales prices, new home listings, home buyers and home sellers information, helpful real estate tips, and even local news of what is happening in your community are just a few of the items to post in your blog or blogs. Consider having a blog template designed and built for your brand, so that the search engines can have more information for you and your real estate services provided. A link can be used in the email so that a subscriber can read the online blog newsletter, or include the information directly in both the blog and the email. Encourage people to subscribe to your newsletter to stay up-to-date with properties and news in their area.
You can even include items like recent price and inventory real estate trends for your readers in your local real estate area.
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If you would like to find out more information about how Professional Web Services can help set your real estate Web brand apart and start making more of a Internet marketing and Online advertising impact for yourself and your (buyer and seller) clients, contact Professional Web Services today. We offer Internet marketing services, SEO - Search Engine Optimization of websites, Online advertising strategies, and Web branding solutions for your business.
If you would like to send an email to, or talk with Coldwell Banker Realtor®, Patrick Warholic for a reference and to see how this Internet technology has worked for him and his clients, go to CalHomenet.com and read the article: Internet Home Marketing For My Clients.
Professional Web Services provides a no obligation consultation and free site Internet marketing evaluation.
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