Real Estate Internet Marketing - The Big List of Ideas

Are you a real estate agent trying to attract more clients online? If so, you've come to the right place. This is one of the largest collections of real estate Internet marketing tips available anywhere, and we add new lessons on a weekly basis!

Note: I am currently rebuilding this page to better serve you. It was long overdue. The original version of the real estate Internet marketing library contained a lot of outdated information. As of November 15, 2011, I am replacing it with fresh new content!

This page is something of a repository. It's where I "jot down" my real estate Internet marketing ideas and experiences. Most of the items on this list are techniques that I've used in the past, and with some degree of success. I will continue to add ideas to this page for the foreseeable future. I hope you find it useful.  

Real Estate Blogs and Blogging

If don't have a real estate blog, you should seriously consider starting one. A blog is basically an easy way to publish information online. You write the content and click the "publish" button. The blogging program handles all of the technical details for you. What could be easier?

Blogs can be an effective part of your real estate Internet marketing program, if you know how to use them. Here are some blogging tips, strategies and ideas I've picked up over the years.

• Use WordPress as your blogging platform. It's the best tool for real estate blogs, hands down. You can spend hours researching the pros and cons of different blogging system, or you can trust me. I've used them all. Nothing else comes close to WordPress in terms of flexibility, sophistication and stability.
• Create a publishing plan for yourself. It will make your life easier and your blogging more productive. Start by creating a list of keywords and topics, as discussed in this article. Then do some brainstorming to create a list of topics you'd like to cover on your blog.
• Strive to create substantial, in-depth blog posts. Google rewards "useful" content, and useful generally means longer as opposed to shorter. Short "fluff" pieces and "snippet-style articles do not perform well in the search engines. Your real estate Internet marketing program will be more successful if you build a large volume of "beefy" articles. 
• Update your blog often. This benefits you in several ways. It keeps it from becoming stale, which is a big turnoff for readers. It also keeps the search engines coming back to index your new content. A frequent publishing schedule also helps you create a larger volume of content, and this gives people more ways to find you when researching the local real estate market.
• Don't forgot to include your city name several times in each blog post. Instead of writing "our housing market," you should write "the San Diego housing market" -- or whatever city you live in. Remember, your target audience will include the city name when doing Google searches. They won't be researching national trends. They'll want to know what's happening in your local real estate market. (Agents forget this a lot, so I had to emphasize it.)
• Customize the design of your blog to make it unique, easy to read, and professional in appearance. If it looks like every other "plain vanilla" blog design out there, it shows that you don't care much about it. So why should the reader care about your blog?
• Don't forget to incorporate the fundamentals of lead generation on your blog. Real estate Internet marketing is much more effective when you give people multiple ways to connect with you. Make your contact information prominent. Link to your Facebook and/or Twitter page, if applicable. Let readers leave comments on your blog.
• And speaking of blog comments, be sure to use a spam filter like Akismet. This has nothing do with real estate Internet marketing -- but it will help you avoid being flooded with spam comments from Internet scumbags.

Real estate Internet marketing calls for a diverse but unified response. You need to use multiple channels to increase your chances for success -- blogs, social media, online PR, etc. But those channels should all support a single, unified goal. In most cases, the goal of a real estate marketing campaign is to produce leads from potential clients. The tips and ideas outlined above can help you accomplish this goal.

We Offer Real Estate Internet Marketing Services

We can help you with some of the things mentioned on this list. For instance, we can develop high-quality content for your real estate blog or website. We can also consult with you about search engine optimization (SEO), which is one of our specialties. Need help customizing a WordPress blog for your business? We've got you covered there too!

Please contact us if you have any questions about these services.

Note: Please see the update notice at the top of this page. We are currently expanding and updating this list to include other forms of real estate Internet marketing. The new-and-improved list will be online by November 15, 2011.