Internet Marketing Ideas for Real Estate Listings

Reader Question: What are some Internet marketing ideas I can use to get more people to see my real estate listings online?

Somebody asked a similar question a couple of weeks ago, regarding real estate listings. But that question wasn't Internet specific like yours, so I'm happy to take another crack at it.

There are plenty of Internet marketing ideas you can implement to drive qualified traffic to your online listings. In this context, "qualified traffic" refers to people who are using the Internet to search for homes for sale in your area (i.e., the best kind of web traffic).

Here are some online marketing strategies for real estate listings that you can start working today:

Search Engine Marketing for Real Estate Listings

I just did a quick experiment using Google's keyword tool. I started with the phrase "Austin homes" and then ran a query to get some search history on that phrase. According to this tool, there were approximately 246,000 searches for this phrase in September alone! There were also plenty of searches for other versions of this phrase, such as "Austin homes for sale" and several others.

When you add it all up, that's a lot of potential website traffic for anyone who ranks well in the search engines for such phrases. Let's say you're a real estate agent in that city, and your website ranks within the first five Google listings for those phrases. You would have a steady (and significant) stream of web traffic. Each day, hundreds -- possibly thousands -- of people would visit your site looking for information on homes. So your real estate listings would receive excellent exposure thanks to the Internet.

You could also use that as a selling point for potential clients: "Your listing will receive maximum exposure on a top-ranking website..." Only a handful of your competitors would be able to say the same thing. Talk about differentiating yourself!

This is why I stress the importance of search engine visibility as part of your overall real estate Internet marketing strategy. If you succeed in this area, you wouldn't have to do much else in terms of marketing. You'd have a constant stream of leads, courtesy of Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. So this is one marketing idea for real estate listings that every agent should pursue.

When it comes to search engine marketing, you have two options for increasing your website's ranking and visibility:

• Search Engine Optimization -- This is the act of improving your website for better "organic" or natural rankings. These are the main listings on a search engines, and they rank websites in terms of content, link popularity, and other factors. This is the long-term approach to search engine visibility, but it's well worth the effort. The Austin homes example above clearly explains what you stand to gain. We offer SEO services to help in this area, and the Top Ten Agent book offers step-by-step instructions.
  
• Sponsored Search / Pay-Per-Click -- This is the quicker path to search engine visibility, but you'll pay for the privilege. With this option, you would bid on certain keywords or phrases related to your business, and your bid would partly determine your ranking for the phrase. These are the sponsored listings that appear down the right column (and sometimes the top) of search engine results. You pay a certain amount each time somebody clicks through to your website.
  

Both of these search strategies can help you drive traffic to your website and the real estate listings it offers. The first one, SEO, is the long-term approach to Internet marketing and visibility. The second one, PPC, is the short-term (but paid) approach to search engine visibility.

Submitting Your Listings to Other Websites

The Internet marketing strategies listed above will increase the exposure of your real estate listings on your own website. But you can also submit your listings to other high-traffic websites for even more exposure. This is an Internet marketing idea used by many agents.

There are dozens of websites that allow you to add your listings, but the process is usually the same across the board. You pay some kind of listing fee in exchange for the exposure it brings you. In other words, you are paying to leverage the traffic of a popular real estate website. The NAR website offers services like this, as do many of the big real estate search websites like Trulia.

Try it for yourself: Feature your listings and your brand on Trulia.com. Get Trulia Pro today.

Other Internet Marketing Ideas

These are by far not the only ways to showcase your real estate listings online. They are just two of the most popular ideas among modern agents. In truth, any Internet marketing strategy designed to increase web traffic can be adapted for real estate purposes.

For example, online press releases can drive targeted traffic to your website. And if your site offers real estate listings, then you've just increased the number of "eyeballs" on those listings as well.

Are You Ready for Internet Traffic?

This is a good time to touch on another important aspect of real estate Internet marketing -- website usability. If your site is difficult for people to use, then it really doesn't matter how much traffic you generate. Many of your visitors will leave in frustration if they can't find your real estate listings, or if the listings don't offer enough information (property details, photos, virtual tours, etc.).

So keep this in mind when using any of the Internet marketing ideas presented above. Make sure your website is easy to use, and your property listings are easy to find. You'll get even better results when you work from both ends of the spectrum like this.

Internet Marketing Newsletter - Sign Up Today

The Advice for Agents website has been reborn with a new purpose. The website is now built around an email newsletter of the same name. You can subscribe for free. Twice a month you'll receive expert advice on real estate Internet marketing. Topics include blogging, search engine marketing, website lead generation and more.



The current issue (for August) just went online, so you can preview the type of information you'll receive every other week. As with any legitimate newsletter, we have a strict anti-spam policy. When you sign up for the newsletter, your email address will only be used for that purpose. Likewise, we never release your personal information to any third parties.

If you'd like to get more business from the Internet, but you're not sure how, this free newsletter is for you! See for yourself

A New Blog Directory for Real Estate Bloggers

I know that many readers of this blog have real estate blogs of their own, so I wanted to let you know about a new blog directory we have created. The directory is for business bloggers in particular, and there is a category for real estate blogs as well.

If you're like me, then you are always on the "hunt" for quality directories and linking opportunities to improve your search engine rankings. So I'm happy to share this new directory with you. The main website where the blog directory resides is a popular business blogging website with many inbound links of its own, so a listing in the blog directory will contribute toward your blog's visibility as well (as the new section gets crawled by search engines).

A listing in the blog directory is very affordable too, at only $29 per year.

Check it out here:
http://www.ceoblogwatch.com/directory/

Using Online Chat to Generate Real Estate Leads

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 64 of 100 - Experimenting With Chat Programs


When it comes to generating leads and inquiries online, real estate agents need to use as many different techniques as possible.

After all, you never know where people will go when they reach your website. You don't know their personality, their desires or their motivations. So if you present them with options, there's a much better chance they will move forward.

Chat programs are an often overlooked method of generating leads online. But these programs can be very effective when used properly, so I've dedicated this entire article to the subject.

The Value and Simplicity of Chat

In order to use this technique, the real estate agent or broker must have an office manager or customer service person -- someone who is near a computer for most of the day. So if you are a true sole proprietorship with no from of customer support, you might want to put this technique on the side burner for now.

For those al estate agents who are lucky enough to have an office manager or customer support person, let's move on to this useful technique for lead generation.

You've probably visited a website in the past that had a button encouraging you to "Get live help" or "Click to chat." These tools are a great way to get a spur-of-the-moment response from website visitors, the kind of response that could lead to a business relationship as well. Instead of sending an email and waiting for a response, people can click the chat button and have a dialogue with a live person.

How the Process Works

Here are the nuts and bolts of installing and using a chat program on your website. It's actually pretty simple, thanks to some handy software programs that are available these days. Here's an overview of the steps involved:

1. Choose a program to use.
2. Complete the setup process.
3. Put a chat button on your website.
4. Train the person handling the inquiries.

Step 1 - Choose an Online Chat Program

For starters, you will obviously need to choose a program to use. These are third-party programs that will either be (A) installed onto your web server or (B) hosted remotely by the chat software company. I've done a little research in this area to get you started.

The best approach when comparing these programs (or any software product for that matter) is to do a free trial of the software. To the best of my knowledge, all of the companies / products listed below offer a free trial. This allows you to judge the product firsthand, before buying any software.

Step 2 - Complete the Setup Process

Once you have chosen a program that meets your needs, you will then have to complete the setup process. Depending on the company / product you've chosen, this might be a very short step. If you are hosting the program on your own server, you'll need to upload all of the files to run the program -- a downside to this approach.

On the other hand, if you're using a remotely hosted program, you can forego this step. "Remotely hosted" means the program will run from the chat company's servers. This approach has the advantage of being easier and requiring less technical involvement on your end.

Step 3 - Put a Chat Button on Your Website

This is an important step, because it directly relates to the number of people who use the tool. If online chat is going to be an important part of your lead generation program (and it could be), you'll want to give the chat button its own piece of web space.

Where you place your button will depend on the layout of your website. If you have a left-hand navigation menu, you might want to add it at the top of that menu. The main thing is to give it some space so that the eye is drawn to it, a fundamental practice of Web Design 101.

Step 4 - Train the Person Handling Chat Inquiries

When I say you must "train" the person, I'm not referring to the technical details, which are fairly straightforward. Instead, I am referring to how you want to handle the online communication process with strangers. For example, how will you move these strangers toward contacting you by phone or email? After all, when they pop up on the chat screen, you'll only have their first name -- but no phone number or email address.

So the person handling the inquiries must be trained to balance two things at once. He or she must answer the person's immediate question (which is the whole point of a customer service chat program), while also moving the person toward a more formal conversation via phone or email. For this purpose, it will help to have some copy-and-paste scripts the customer service person can use, after handling the person's initial inquiry.

The New Real Estate Directory - Example of an Enhanced Listing

In a previous post we mentioned the launch of our new real estate directory of agents in the U.S. In this post, I'd like to show you what an enhanced listing looks like.

When you submit your website to the agent directory you will have to listing options -- standard listing or enhanced. The latter option gives you (A) more room for a company description, (B) additional links to your website sub-pages, and (C) a headshot photo included with the listing. Enhanced listings will also appear above standard listings within a certain city page of the directory.

The headshot is a rarity among real estate directories these days. As you may know from submitting your website to agent directories over the yeas, most of them only allow a short description and a link to your home page. Very few real estate directories will allow headshot photos like we do. As a result, there is no way to "break out" or distinguish yourself among all of those other links.

Look at the listing for Sam Carroll on the Austin agents page of our directory. Sure, he's the first listing for that city because our real estate directory is brand new. But even when the page fills in you can see how much nicer it is to have a photo (instead of just a link).

If you have any questions about the new real estate agent directory just let me know. I will try to answer most questions here on the blog for the benefit of all.

-Brandon

Real Estate Directory for Agents - New Development

Hi everyone. I just wanted to create a quick post to let you know about the real estate directory we put online over the weekend. At the city level, the directory is still something of a "shell," but we will be filling it in with original content on all pages.

Basically, there will be keyword rich content on every city page to help draw traffic (which is good for the agents listed in the directory). This is just one way I plan to make this directory better than most real estate directories online today. Our directory is actually created for consumers, and not just for search engines. It is designed to be user-friendly and to help people actually find a real estate agent in their town.

Also, because it's part of the Home Buying Institute, our real estate directory will enjoy excellent search engine visibility in time. Those of you familiar with real estate directories will see the double value in this. Our agent directory has the potential to send direct traffic to your website, in addition to helping you boost your search engine rankings with a quality link.

I will create an information page with more details in the next day or two, and I'll post to the blog again when that page is up. But some people have been asking about the directory already, so I thought a brief mention was needed.

If you have any questions about the new real estate directory for agents just let me know.

-Brandon

Real Estate Internet Marketing on CNN Money

I recently contributed to an article on real estate Internet marketing that you might like to read. It was a piece for Fortune Small Business (part of CNN Money), and it was a question-and-answer series about reaching homeowners via the Web.

In truth, I misunderstood the nature of the question when I was interviewed by the FSB journalist who did the piece. I thought the question came from a real estate agent, but it actually came from a real estate advertising company.

At any rate, I thought you might like to check it out. Michael Russer also contributed some good advice to the article.

Read the full article here

Real Estate Marketing Online - Introducing City Pages

Coming soon to a city near you, City Pages are a unique approach to real estate marketing online.

I've recently begun to revamp a website of mine that, up until now, had just been "hanging out" online with no real purpose. In its new form, the site has plenty of purpose. It will be an online encyclopedia of U.S. cities, from a real estate and lifestyle angle.


You can see the groundwork here

And, because all of the City Pages can be sponsored by real estate agents, it's also a new way to approach real estate marketing online (for additional exposure, web traffic, etc.).

Here's the gist of the program, and how you can use it for real estate marketing online. Each City Page will be designed for good rankings in the major search engines such as Google. But even more importantly, the pages will be very informative and useful for people researching the city from a real estate angle.

By following a "one agent per city" type of rule, the website will offer premium placement for the real estate agent who chooses to sponsor a particular City Page. Thus, it's a nice addition to any online real estate marketing program.

Also, because we are spending more than 40% of site revenue on additional site promotion, it's a marketing investment with increasing returns year after year. (The City Pages will enjoy increased visibility and traffic levels over time.)

This will all make a lot more sense if you see it for yourself:

• Here's an example of a sponsored City Page for Georgetown, Texas.
• Here's an example of an available (not sponsored) City Page for Birmingham, Alabama.

Here's some additional information on the benefits of the program.

Being a newly revitalized program, there's obviously a lot of work to be done. Now that the site's redesign is complete, my focus will be on (A) creating new City Pages, and (B) pouring resources into the site in order to increase its search engine ranking and traffic levels.

Note: We are adding new cities / pages at a rate of two per day. If you are interested in sponsoring a City Page, please let me know and I will put your city at the top of the production list. This will give you "first dibs" to lock down your City Page for a year ... or longer!

Real Estate Lead Generation Online - Tip #63 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 63 of 100 - Increase Your Onsite Conversions

A real estate website that doesn't make conversions is a real estate website that serves very little business function. So let's talk about (A) what a conversion is and (B) how you can increase conversions across your real estate website or blog.

By way of definition, an "onsite conversion" takes place when somebody goes from being a website visitor to something else as well.

For example, if a person visits your website and signs up for your email newsletter, an onsite conversion has taken place. The person has "converted" from a casual website visitor to a newsletter subscriber.

There are many kinds of conversions, and they differ from one website to another, and from one organization to the next:

• A non-profit website might seek donations or volunteer registrations. Those conversions are valuable to them.


• A service-related business like real estate might seek website conversions of a different nature. Maybe they want people to sign up for a newsletter list or call to learn more about a property listing. Those are valuable conversions for these business models.


• A product-based website like Amazon.com seeks one type of conversion above all else. They want people to purchase products, plain and simple. So that's the most important type of conversion for them.
  

Increasing Conversions Across Your Website

So we have talked about the importance of onsite conversions, and how they are the end-product of your online real estate marketing efforts. Now let's look at some of the ways you improve your onsite conversions to help grow your real estate business.

1. Define Your Conversions in Advance

This might seem like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised by how many deer-in-the-headlight expressions I get when I ask real estate agents, "What are your top three conversion goals on this website?"

Some will scratch their heads and say, "To get clients, I guess." That's not a specific goal for website conversion. It's the end-goal of all real estate marketing efforts, sure. But it's not a clearly defined conversion goal.

Other real estate business owners have it figured out better. For example, they might say something like, "I want my visitors to do one of three things ... download our featured report from the home page, click on the chat button to get in touch with a representative, or contact us by phone or email."

In the example above, the hypothetical real estate professional has clearly defined the conversion points on her website. And from the sound of it, other members of the company are knowledgeable about (and engaged in) those conversion points. Customer support, for example, is ready to connect with site visitors through the website's chat tool, anytime somebody clicks on the button. That's much more specific and achievable than the first conversion goal of "getting clients."

2. Be Visible Online

People cannot contact you (or purchase your products, etc.) if they don't know you exist. So you must strive to make your business visible, online and off. Internet visibility is a big part of this. After all, the more visible you are online, the more likely people will be to find you.

That's why I've written an entire book on the subject, to serve as your guide to online visibility.

But there are other ways to increase your visibility as well. You can publish articles in your local newspaper, syndicate articles and press releases online, be active in your community, conduct free seminars, and many other aspects of PR. Visibility and awareness are the first steps to generating real estate leads online.

3. Increase Usability Across Your Website

Picture this. You're on one side of your real estate website, and a potential client is on the other side of the website. This person is looking for an agent to represent them in buying a new home.

The problem is, you don't know the potential client is there. How could you? They haven't contacted you yet. So in order for a connection to take place, the person must first enter your real estate website, navigate their way through it, like what they find on the site, and then contact you in some fashion.

But what if they find the navigation menu confusing? Or maybe they can't find the property listings on your site? Or what if they have any number of problems related to a lack of usability? That's right ... they'll leave as quickly as they came. After all, there are plenty of other websites within your industry that they can visit.

Website usability is crucial to making onsite conversions. The two concepts are inseparable, because if a person can't use your website, you have no chance to connect with them or to make a sale. You don't have the luxury of personally guiding them through your website -- they are completely on their own.

4. Minimize Distractions Across Your Website

This is another element of website usability, but it deserves special focus. On a real estate agent website, the goal is usually to lead visitors down a certain path. You can't control where people will go or what they will click on, but you can at least offer your preferred path and make it easy to follow.

But when you overload your web pages with too many items, you end up dividing the reader's attention, creating unneeded distraction, and increasing the likelihood visitors will leave your website altogether.

Visit your home page and ask yourself, what is the most desirable action you want people to take? What is the second most desirable action? From a visual standpoint, does the placement and prominence of these two paths support their importance? Or do they battle for attention with a dozen other distractions?

5. State (and Restate) the Value of Each Conversion Point

In real estate web marketing, there is a direct correlation between value and response. If you want people to take a certain action on your website, you have to convey the value of that action. In other words, tell people what they get out of it. It's a simple rule to remember. If you want action, you have to explain the reason and value behind the action.

Instead of saying, "Click here to join our newsletter," say something like this:

"Join our newsletter for access to hard-to-find property listings, plus a wealth of money-saving tips and advice!"

6. Increase Traffic to Website Conversion Points

Want the opportunity to convert more of your website visitors into clients? Then just increase the amount of website visitors you get. Once you have some lead generation and sales-generation techniques in place, you want to get as much qualified traffic to those conversion points as possible.

The first step is to increase your overall website traffic. The second step is to increase your traffic to specific pages of your website (your purchase page, your download page, your contact page ... in short, your conversion pages). You can do this by making your conversion points / pages more prominent and easy to find. See the following items for tips on doing this!

7. Increase the Prominence of Conversion Points

Once you've defined your conversion points (see item #1 above), you should try to make them visible from every page of your real estate website. Put them into the main menu, right up near the top. Create eye-catching graphics to showcase them. Put them "above the fold" across all of your web pages.

For example, let's say one of your conversion points is an email newsletter you want visitors to find and subscribe to. You could put a sign-up box in the upper-right corner of your website, a location that has been shown to increase sign-up rates. You could also create a newsletter link at the top of your main menu area, right under the links for "Home." You could put call-out boxes within articles on your site, right there in the middle of the page ("center mast").

By doing these things, you would increase the prominence of your newsletter sign-up forms (conversion points) and most likely increase subscription rates as a result.

8. Minimize Website Attrition

Marketing attrition refers to the number of people who do not take the actions you want them to take along the path to conversion. At each step in the marketing process, you stand to lose some people. You could also refer to this as "drop-off." The higher the attrition rates, the less successful the marketing program.

9. Increase the Interactivity of Your Website

The more ways people have to interact with your website, the better your chances of converting them into customers. You can increase interactivity in a number of ways. And these days, there are all kinds of software products to make it extremely easy for you!

Here are a few examples of interactivity you could build into your website:

• Real estate blogs work great because readers can leave comments on the various blog posts. That's a form of interaction, and it's also the start of a dialogue that could lead to a sale.


• You could create some kind of Q&A forum on your website and grow your own Internet community. Forum software programs like VBulletin and phpBB make it achievable.


• You can also buy and install programs to help you create an interactive FAQ section of your website (also known as a "Knowledge Base"). Interspire's "Active KB" and Omnistar's "KBase" are two such programs.


• If you have customer support personnel, you could install a chat program on your website to encourage the all-important first contact from site visitors.
  

10. Overcome Skepticism / Encourage Trust

We are all naturally skeptical online. The reasons for this are obvious. The Internet can be an anonymous and scary place, used for deceitful purposes by everyone from con artists to pedophiles. Yikes!

Of course, these shady characters represent the minority (or so I'd like to believe). But it still poses a challenge you must consider in your online marketing program.

I encounter a lot of "faceless" websites that use a lot of pronouns like "we" and "us" ... websites that make it nearly impossible to find a person's name. You've seen websites like this, yes? What's your first reaction when encountering a mystery website? Distrust? Uncertainty? Fear? Yeah ... me too.

Take a look at your own website right now. What have you done to make the visitor comfortable in who you are? How have you demonstrated integrity? How have you encouraged trust and confidence?

Hot topics in real estate ... and how they drive web traffic

I often tell my marketing clients that they can boost their online success if they adopt a publisher's mentality. That's because the first step to Internet marketing success is to generate traffic. And nobody knows how to generate traffic like professional Internet publishers.

One of the "tricks of the trade" is to follow the news and cover popular topics on your website and blog. Media coverage increases consumer awareness, which in turn drives Internet search patterns. For example, you hear a lot on the news these days about subprime mortgages. As a result, the number of Internet searches for that phrase have risen steadily in recent months.

The media talks about ... the public picks it up ... and the public begins to research it online. It's a predictable cycle.

So if you cover popular, media-driven topics on your real estate website or blog, you stand to gain more traffic. The more traffic you have, the greater your chances for web-based inquiries and leads.

So what are the hottest topics in real estate right now, as judged by media coverage and Internet search?

1. National slowdown in real estate -- Every time I turn on the news, I hear something about the overall real estate market in the U.S. and how it's taking a dive. Is this happening in your area? How will it affect your key audience? What should they know? Tell them on your website and/or blog.

2. Mortgage foreclosures -- I don't need to tell you how popular this topic is right now. Popular in a bad way, but popular nonetheless. Are mortgage foreclosures spiking in your market area, like they are elsewhere in the country? Do you have advice for people looking to buy foreclosure properties for investment purposes? Can you help people avoid foreclosure through short-sale techniques? Share it through your website and/or blog.

3. Subprime mortgage loans -- Much of the foreclosure "crisis" in this country can be attributed to the subprime mortgage loans that were doled out to unqualified buyers several years back. What should the people in your area know about subprime mortgage loans? Tell them through your website and/or blog.

4. Home staging tips -- Thanks to shows like HGTV's "Designed to Sell" the popularity of home staging has soared over the last couple of years. Home staging companies are sprouting up like mushrooms, and consumers are increasingly interested in home staging tips that can help them sell their home. Can you offer advice on this subject? Share it through your website and/or blog.

If you noticed the links spread throughout this post, you'll notice that I'm following my own advice here. By creating tutorials on most of the subjects listed above, I'm able to increase the traffic levels and general success of my real estate websites. And you can do the same!

Think like a publisher, address popular topics, and watch your web traffic increase.

Starting Your Own Real Estate Forum

I would venture a guess that every real estate agent reading this blog post is familiar with real estate forums. After all, if you're active enough online to find my blog, you've no doubt found some real estate forums as well.

Forums such as AgentsOnline.net and ActiveRain.com offer real estate agents a place to share ideas and insight with others in the "trenches."

So now let me ask you this. What if you started your very own real estate forum that catered specifically to buyers and sellers in your hometown? Can you imagine the business-building potential of having your very own online community of real estate-minded consumers in your area?

I've created a free tutorial that shows you how to do exactly that. It actually started out as a few notes I was writing for a friend (he wanted to know how to create his own real estate forum). I expanded those notes into this tutorial, and I'm now happy to share it with you.

How to Create Your Own Real Estate Forum

I hope you find it helpful.

~Brandon

Address Popular Topics - Internet Marketing Tip #62 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 62 of 100 - Address Popular Topics

Generating traffic to your website is one of the first steps to success with real estate Internet marketing. The more traffic you have, the more leads you can generate. And the more leads you can generate, the more clients and business you can acquire.

Internet Marketing 101, right?

But where do you get website traffic? Well, if you've been following this series on Internet marketing, you've gained plenty of traffic-generation tips. And here's another one for you ... tap into known search patterns by offering information on popular topics.

Foreclosures, mortgage refinancing, types of mortgage loans, flipping houses ... these are all popular topics right now, topics that you hear on the news all the time. And nothing drives Internet search patterns like news coverage.

Case in point, the number of Internet searches for "home foreclosure" types of phrases has risen dramatically over the last couple of months. This is largely due to all the news coverage of the current spike in foreclosures. (Yes, I keep track of such things. And that's why I have a mortgage refinancing website within my network!)

So I ask you, why not capitalize on this to get another slice of the Web traffic pie? If people in your area are looking for local information related to home foreclosures, mortgage refinancing, mortgage applications, home sales statistics, or information about that new highway going in ... why not give it to them?

Sure, you might not be a foreclosure or refinancing expert. But you don't have to be. You're a real estate expert, and these are topics within the real estate umbrella that you could certainly cover on your website. It's just one more way for people to find you online. And these days, as competitive as the real estate industry has become, you need to give people as many ways to find you as possible.

In fact, that's the basic premise of my guide to the Real Estate Web Presence.

Have a good weekend.

~Brandon

Relieving the Marketing Burden - New Article Posted

Most agents feel a certain burden when it comes to real estate marketing. The real estate industry has gotten hyper-competitive in recent years, and there's a lot more "noise" to overcome in order to get your marketing message through.

A strong web presence is one of the things I recommend to help real estate agents overcome such challenges. I've written an e-book about it, and I've also just posted a new article to explain how such a web presence can relieve some of your marketing burden.

• Here's the new article
• Here's the e-book

Have a great weekend!

~Brandon

Real Estate Internet Marketing - Frequently Asked Questions

This blog (and its parent website) offers a wealth of information on real estate Internet marketing. Tips, articles, books, related resources ... you name it. So I thought I would gather some of this material on real estate Internet marketing and compile it into a handy FAQ format.

Obviously, you'll be more familiar with some of these topics than you are with others. But with so much advice on Internet marketing, there's bound to be something there that you find useful.

Share With Colleagues
If you find this Q&A resource helpful, be sure to share it with colleagues or coworkers who might also enjoy it!

Real Estate Internet Marketing - Questions & Answers

How do I create a website?
This is obviously a preliminary question that needs to be answered before you can tackle the bigger challenges of Internet marketing. Here are some resources to get you started.

• Real estate websites - technology guide
• 7 tips for a better agent website
• Fundamentals of real estate web design
• The Agent Net
  

How do I generate web traffic?
Web traffic is another first step in the real estate Internet marketing process. Generating traffic to a real estate website takes time and patience. You can generate traffic in a number of ways, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click, direct mail and more. Here are some resources related to website traffic.

• Increase traffic with SEO
• Experiment with pay-per-click
  
• Drive traffic with real estate postcards
• Expand your web presence
  

How do I generate website leads?
A real estate Internet marketing program that's not build around lead generation is a flawed program. Only with an effective lead-generation program in place can you capitalize on the traffic you've generated through the techniques above. Here are some tips for generating leads through your real estate website.

• Agent's guide to lead generation
  
• Previous blog post on the subject
• Generating website leads
  

How do I use a real estate blog?
Blogs can support your real estate Internet marketing program in a several ways. A blog gives you an easy way to publish content on a regular basis, which can do wonders for your online visibility and traffic. Here's more advice on integrating a blog within your Internet marketing program.

• What's a real estate blog?
• How to earn blog subscribers
  
• Real estate blogging strategy
  

What are some other online tactics I can use?
A website can serve as the central hub of your real estate Internet marketing program. But what good is a hub without spokes? You can branch out and expand your web presence in a number of ways. Here are just a few.

• Publish articles online
• Publish press releases online
• Launch a second website (advanced tip)
  

I hope you've enjoyed this Q&A on real estate Internet marketing. If you'd like more tips on this subject, check out our blog series.

~Brandon

Submit an Article to Home Buying Institute - Tip #60 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 60 of 100 - Submit an Article to Home Buying Institute

In previous posts in this series on real estate Internet marketing, we talked about the practice of publishing articles online as a way to increase the number of inbound links coming to your website ... which in turn helps with search engine ranking.

The best kinds of sites to seek links from are sites that are (A) well-established with search engines and (B) related to the real estate industry. So if you can place an article with such a website, and the website links back to your site in exchange for the article, you've just acquired a powerful link for real estate SEO purposes.

I own a website that meets this profile. It's the Home Buying Institute, and it accepts article submissions from real estate professionals. We even allow keyword hyperlinks at the end of the article, which can boost your search engine ranking for that phrase.

Of course, like any good content website, we don't just accept any article. We accept well-written articles that meet these submission guidelines. So if you can create a real estate article like the sample articles listed on the guidelines page, and you'd like a link from Home Buying Institute to your website .... feel free to send us your best work! There's an email address on the article submission page, as well as some other helpful info.

Related: Articles for SEO

Look for tip #61 soon!

~Brandon

Create a Squidoo Lens - Tip #59 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 59 of 100 - Create a Squidoo Lens

Squidoo is a website that allows its users to create pages around a particular topic, hobby or passion. What does this have to do with real estate Internet marketing?

Well, in my book about the Real Estate Web Presence, I explain the value that comes from a broad and pervasive Internet presence. If you are many places online, then your target audience has more ways to find you online (than, say, if you only had a single website).

It's simple math. If you have a website ... and you publish articles online ... and you publish press releases ... and you create topic pages on websites like Squidoo ... then you have four times the chance of being found than by publishing a real estate website alone.

Here's a friendly tip. You can link to your main real estate website and/or blog from your Squidoo page. So if you create a topical page on Squidoo about the real estate scene in your area, and then link to your main site from the Squidoo page, you will gain some relevant links to help increase the search engine visibility of your main site.

Here's another tip. Link to your Squidoo page from your blog, website, and other places. This will boost the search engine visibility of your Squidoo page ... which makes it easier to find through search engines ... which will also improve the value of the links going from Squidoo to your site ... etc.

Don't you just love the synergy of the web? Or am I just a geek?

P.S. You can see my new Squidoo lens about Austin search engine optimization. This is a new experiment page for now. I'll let you know how it goes.

Look for tip #60 soon!

~Brandon

Think Like a Publisher: Tip #58 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 58 of 100 - Think Like a Publisher

In my guide to creating a real estate web presence, I teach you how to "think like a publisher" as it applies to real estate marketing online.

In my opinion, this is a key concept in real estate search engine optimization (SEO). When you become an active online publisher, you separate yourself from most of your competitors online. You will also surprise yourself with how much you can improve the search engine ranking (and traffic) of your real estate website.

If you download a copy of the guide, you will have a blueprint of this concept. In the meantime, here are some tips to publishing your way to higher search engine ranking and traffic levels.

1. Are you serious about your online real estate marketing? Then forget the notion of a static website. To be competitive (and visible) online these days, you need to grow your web presence consistently and effectively over time. Sorry, but that’s the reality of it.

2. If you can come up with an easy web-publishing system, you will be more likely to stick with it. Hint … a real estate blog is a great way to reduce the concept of web publishing to a fill-in-the-blanks level of simplicity.

3. Venture beyond your real estate website when publishing content. Sure, you want to constantly create new resources and articles for your website. But you should also publish content on other websites. Not sure how to do this? Then get your copy of "The Real Estate Web Presence."

Related article:
5 Ways to Dominate the Web

Look for tip #59 soon!

~Brandon

Real Estate Lead Generation: Tip #57 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 57 of 100 - Understand Lead Generation

Lead generation is one of the most important pieces of the real estate marketing "puzzle." Without lead generation, you have no leads. Without leads, you have no business. Blunt but factual.

About once a week I get a call from a real estate agent who wants help with SEO [definition: search engine optimization] because they want to generate more leads from their real estate site. When ask what kind of lead-generation techniques they currently have in place on their website, I often hear silence on the other end of the line.

"But isn't that what good search engine ranking will do ... generate leads?" No, not necessarily.

If you increase traffic to a website with no lead-generation techniques in place, you will have plenty of traffic ... but no way to capitalize on it.

I won't lie to you. Real estate lead generation is hard work. It takes focus, imagination, and good old-fashioned hard work. You have to create something of value that people want badly enough they're willing to "raise their hands" in order to get it. If you'd like to learn more on this subject, refer to the article below.

Related article:
Real Estate Lead Generation - How Do I Generate Leads?

Look for tip #58 soon!

~Brandon

Online Real Estate Marketing - New Article Posted

As more and more consumers go online to conduct real estate research, so too must real estate agents venture online ... for marketing purposes.

I don't need to tell you the importance of a strong real estate web presence. You already know that, because you've already read or heard all of the statistics about Internet usage among home buyers and sellers.

But what I feel I must tell you is that the "traditional" approach to real estate marketing is becoming less and less effective with each passing year. This approach consisted of putting up a profile type of real estate website, and then waiting for the phone to ring.

Those days are over. And I just posted a new article to the Knowledge Center that examines this subject in more detail.

You'll find the article here:
Online Real Estate Marketing - 3 Pieces of the Puzzle

Hope you enjoy it!

~Brandon

Differentiate SEO from Lead Generation - Tip #56 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 56 of 100 - Differentiate SEO from Lead Generation

As a provider of real estate SEO services, I get at least one call per week where the person says something like, "I need search engine optimization because my website does not generate leads."

The first thing I do is to ensure the caller knows the difference between SEO and lead generation. Search engine optimization is a traffic generator. That's it. If you were under the impression that SEO generated leads, I'm sorry to disappoint you.

Now, that's not to say that a good real estate SEO program cannot help you generate leads. It can certainly do that. But only when there's a lead-generation program in place on the target website.

In other words, if you increase traffic to a website with no lead-generation tactics in place, you will have plenty of traffic but no leads. But if you increase traffic (through SEO or anything else) to a website with effective lead generation, your increases in traffic will directly correlate to an increase in leads and inquiries.

SEO is a traffic generator, not a lead generator.

Related info:

• Focus on Lead Capture
• Minimize Marketing Attrition
• What SEO Can and Cannot Do
• Lead Generation Guide

Look for tip #57 soon!

~Brandon

Spread Yourself Over the Web: Tip #55 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 55 of 100 - Spread Yourself Over the Web

At various points during this blog series on real estate Internet marketing, we've talked about ways to expand your web presence. We talked about publishing articles online, syndicating press releases, and various other strategies to help you broaden your web presence.

What's the point of all this? Simple. By creating a broader web presence than a real estate website alone, you are giving people more ways to find you online. This concept will only become more important as the Internet continues to grow, and as traditional real estate websites become all but invisible.

I feel so strongly about this that I've written a 43-page special report to help you (A) understand the need for a strong web presence and (B) begin growing that presence today. If you'd like to see an example of just how fast the Internet is growing (relative to the real estate industry), check out the San Diego real estate example on this page.

Look for tip #56 soon.

~Brandon

Know Your Web Analytics: Tip #54 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 54 of 100 - Get to Know Your Web Analytics

If you own a real estate website, but you have no idea how to access your website analytics, you're operating under a severe handicap.

What Is Web Analytics?
Web analytics is an Internet marketing term with broad application. But it basically boils down to information about your website visitors. When people visit your website and interact with in some way, shape or form, that information can be captured. Analytics programs give you the ability to monitor the activity of your site visitors. Such data can be very enlightening and useful in your real estate Internet marketing program.

Even if you don't have a web analytics program installed on your website, your site log should give you some basic information, such as where your traffic comes from, home many visitors you get each day, etc. But if you really want to know what's happening on your real estate website, you should install some type of website analytics program.

Web Analytics Programs
If you'd like to go the free route (which is always a popular way to go), you could try Google Analytics. This product used to be called Urchin, until Google bought and renamed it. Google Analytics will give you such information as:

• Number of visitors per day
• Location of your visitors
• Key phrases people use to find you through search engines
• Top sources of traffic
• Top entry page
• Top exit page
• And more

This level of data is sufficient for most people, and the price can't be beat. But if you want to get more advanced with your real estate Internet marketing (and have the budget to do so), you might look into a company / product like WebTrends or WebSideStory.

Look for tip #55 soon!

~Brandon

Grow Your Web Presence - Tip #53 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 53 of 100 - Grow Your Web Presence

A real estate web presence is different from a real estate website. The website is one of many elements that make up the web presence. Other elements are press releases, online articles, real estate blogs, etc.

Why do I stress the web presence? Because I've been watching the real estate industry very closely for several years, mainly from a marketing standpoint. And I truly believe those agents who focus on growing their web presence (by adopting a "publisher's mentality") will be the agents who take the lion's share of real estate business in their market areas.

I am so convinced of this that I'm finishing up a 42-page special report on this very subject. You'll hear about it first through this blog.

Look for tip #54 soon!

~Brandon

Do Not Look Behind the Curtain - Nothing to See

I'm not sure if you've seen this news yet, but this strikes me as being emblematic of a certain mindset in today's real estate industry:

From Inman News:

Trulia, Zillow shown the door at Prudential Real Estate convention

To the dismay of some of the company's brokers, Prudential Real Estate apparently barred two of the biggest names in online real estate -- Trulia and Zillow -- from exhibiting at the company's annual convention in San Diego this week. [Full article]

It seems Prudential has a an existing agreement with Yahoo, regarding web leads. So they said the presence of Trulia and Zillow was some kind of conflict.

Here's my take on this.

Yahoo will charge Prudential brokers a referral fee for all web leads sent to the broker. Trulia and Zillow do not charge any kind of referral fee. Trulia and Zillow have traffic levels that rival Yahoo. So who would you rather get leads from, a company that charged you for them, or a company that gave you the leads for free? Tough decision, right?

Add Your Blog to the Inman Wiki: Tip #52 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 52 of 100 - Add Your Blog to InmanWiki

July 2008, Update to the original post: This article used to contain links to various pages of the Inman Wiki. I have removed those links because Brad Inman moved his whole damn wiki. I've never understood why people do this. You create something that people are interested in, hundreds or thousands of people link to it from their own sites, and then you move it ... leaving all of your "fans" with a bunch of broken links on their websites. Amateur move.

Anyway, here's the original article. I'm not going to include links to the Inman Wiki because who knows where it will be in six months. You'll have to find it yourself, if you're interested.

If you've been in real estate for any length of time, I don't need to tell you who Inman News is.

But did you know they now have a wiki serving as a "real estate encyclopedia"? And here's the best part ... you can add your real estate blog to the wiki. If approved, your blog will have its own page on the Inman Wiki. And every time you publish content to your blog, your page on the Inman Wiki will self-update.

You can see the value of this in terms of making your blog more visible online. The more you blog, the more posts you'll have on the Inman Wiki, linking back to your blog. Nice!

P.S. - If you're wondering what the heck a wiki is, you can learn all about it in this explanation of Web 2.0.

Look for tip #53 soon!

~Brandon

Know Your Competition - Marketing Tip 51 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 51 of 100 - Know Your Competition

You wouldn't go into a sports competition without studying your opponents. Nor should you engage in real estate Internet marketing without studying your competition.

Do you know the three top-ranked real estate websites in your area? You should. You should also know how your website stacks up against those three websites. You should determine how those websites reached the top of the search engine rankings, and what you might do to mirror their success.

How about website resources? Do your top competitors online have items on their websites that you don't have, such as virtual tours? And what about general traffic levels? Using a website traffic tool like Alexa, compare your website traffic levels to the top-ranking websites mentioned earlier.

These are just a few of the things you should look at regarding the competition. The goal here is to have a good idea what other agents in your area are doing online ... so that you can do it better.

Understanding the competition is the first step to success with real estate Internet marketing.

Look for tip #52 soon!

~Brandon

Use What You've Got - Internet Marketing Tip 50 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 50 of 100 - Use What You've Got

One of the biggest challenges real estate agents have with their marketing is how to distinguish themselves.

Now, there are actually two schools of thought on this. There are those who say the agent must brand himself or herself. And then there are others who say the agent is not product ... that you must simply focus on generating a response with your marketing.

Where do I fall on the subject? Well, I can see both arguments. When it comes to real estate Internet marketing, I've always stressed the need to generate a response from people. We know from statistics that more then 70% of people choose the first real estate agent they speak to. So if you can get them to speak to you ... that's a 70% chance they'll become your next client.

As far as personal branding goes, here's my two cents. I don't think the average real estate agent can brand themselves in a strong enough way to be worthwhile. However, if there is something really unique about you ... something that will make you truly stand out in people's minds ... something that will make you the "talk of the neighborhood" ... well in that case, use what you've got!

Here's an example. There is an agent in the Fort Bragg area of North Carolina who has found a unique way to brand himself. As you know, Fort Bragg is an Army town, full of Army personnel and their families. Naturally, the military sector creates a lot of housing turnover as soldiers transfer in and out of the area.

This agent also happens to be an Army veteran. So he has branded himself as the Army agent in town. His website is called something like "Captain Bill's Real Estate." It has a camouflage color scheme, and even an illustrated caricature of Captain Bill in fatigues and drill instructor's hat.

(I wish I could remember his actual name so I could show you his website. Anyone know who I'm talking about? It's been a couple years since I saw it.)

Now let me ask you this. In an Army town like Fort Bragg, how effective do you think this branding strategy is? I served in the military, and I can tell you that I would have called this guy over a "civilian" agent in a heartbeat. His website (and persona) are easy to talk about. "Hey, have you seen this Army real estate agent guy..."

If you have something that can set you miles apart from the competition in your real estate Internet marketing (or marketing in general for that matter) ... then use what you've got!

Look for tip #51 soon!

~Brandon

Make Your Website Inviting: Tip #49 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 49 of 100 - Make Your Website Inviting

In a previous post in this series, we talked about the importance of de-cluttering your home page, and catering to the reader by putting information they would want front-and-center.

Here's a good example of these practices in action.

This Rocky Point house rentals website has arranged their home page in a way that (A) tells reader what the site is about, (B) showcases what people will probably want to see, and (C) gives a clear call-to-action in the form of a "Book Now" graphic.

Though I don't know the owners of this website, I would venture a guess that their home page does a good job of generating leads. As soon as you land on this page, you're eyes are drawn to the featured properties. And if you are in fact shopping for rental properties in this town, then those featured properties are exactly what you would want to see.

So the owners of the site are catering to the needs of visitors and making their job really easy. Two hallmarks of a good home page!

They also offer plenty of things that will keep visitors on the site, such as video / virtual tours of each property.

Lastly, notice the "Book now" graphic on the page. For those people who are ready to book a rental, this shortcut makes it easy. Once again, the site owners are respecting the needs of their visitors.

So we have the following:

• A home page tells people exactly what it offers (beachfront rentals in Puerto Penasco, Mexico)
• A home page that showcases content people will want to see (featured properties with virtual tours)
• A home page that gives people who are ready to sign an easy way to do just that!

Look for tip #50 tomorrow!

~Brandon

Get the Real Estate Blog Book: Internet Marketing Tip #48 of 100

Real Estate Internet Marketing - 100 Tips in 100 Days

Tip 48 of 100 - Download the Real Estate Blog Book

Sure, I'm the author of the real estate blog book. But I can recommend it without hesitation because I know what it can do for your real estate Internet marketing program.

You see, a blog can add a level of simplicity and convenience to your online real estate marketing efforts. Because blogs are so easy to publish, you'll be more inclined to publish content on a regular basis. And this can help you grow your web