If you build it, they will come? Not necessarily! Just having a website to send your clients and sphere of influence to is a great thing, however, if you want to generate new leads you should consider one or more of the following advertising methods.
SIGNS, CARDS, LETTERS, BILLBOARDS
You need to get into the habit of including your website domain everywhere you'd normally include your name and phone number. Business cards, letterhead, brochures, signs, listing advertisements, you name it, your domain name needs to be there.
LISTING SYNDICATION
You can use your listings to drive traffic to your website! By advertising your listings on Craigslist, Zillow, Trulia, Local Classified Sites, etc. you not only provide exposure for your seller you can also drive traffic to your site!
When adding your listing to these sites only provide enough information to leave them wanting more. Just upload one picture, include some basic facts like price, beds, baths, square feet. Add the text: 'To see the complete home tour for this property and over 20,000 other homes please visit www.YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME.com.'
There are plenty of services out there who will help you with Listing Syndication. They offer syndication to literally hundreds of websites. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, keep in mind that the lions share of clicks from national sites will be from one place, Craigslist. Our experience shows that Craigslist will account for over 90% of all clicks from national syndicators. Given that, you should concentrate on Craigslist first.
We provide you with an easy to use syndication tool for Craigslist. You simply cut-and-paste the advertisement we create for you into your Craigslist advertisement. You can find our Craigslist syndicator by logging into the 'Edit Your Site' tab then clicking on 'Listing Syndication'.
Sample Craigslist Advertisement
Visit
YourDomainName.com for the complete home tour and thousands of other homes for sale.
3982 W 8730 S West Jordan, UT 84088
To see this home in person call..
Your Name, REALTOR
Your Broker
801-555-5555
For Maps, Street View, Tour, Dozens of Home Facts on thousands of UT homes please visit
YourDomainName.com
Don't forget about local sites! In many cases TV Stations, Newspapers, etc. have sites which allow you to post your listings.
If you don't have any listings talk to your Broker about the possibility of helping your peers by providing FREE advertising for their listings.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
I've had my site a week now, why can't I find it on Google? I wish I had a dollar for every time I've been asked that question! The first question I then ask is what do you mean by 'FIND IT ON GOOGLE'? What keyword phrase are you looking for your site under? What are you typing in to find your site on Google?
Our web servers are scanned (spidered) by Google, Yahoo and Bing on a daily basis. Your website will be indexed very quickly. To see if Google has indexed your site simply go to Google and search for your domain name (ex: YourHomeUtah.com) . If your website comes up first in the search results then Google knows who you are.
While it's great that you can be found on the search engines by typing in your domain name it probably won't result in much traffic to your site. Your next task should be to determine which keyword phrases are important to your business. What are your potential clients going to be typing into the search engines to meet their real estate needs? Let's say you're a REALTOR located in Portland Oregon. Chances are your potential clients will be searching on keywords such as 'Portland Real Estate', 'Portland Oregon Condos', 'Portland Luxury Homes', etc.
When trying to decide which keyword phrases to target keep in mind that the most popular phrases will have the most competition for the coveted page one search results. For example, it will be exponentially more difficult to come up on page one for 'Portland Real Estate' as opposed to 'Portland Lofts for Sale'.
Wonderful Google Keyword Analysis Tool
Once you've identified the keyword phrases you'd like to target it's time to modify your website to support those phrases. The process of modifying your site to support your chosen keyword phrase is called Search Engine Optimization. Optimizing your site can be a timely, confusing process. Fortunately we provide you with all the tools you need to start the process.
Click here for our Advanced SEO Tools and Tips.
PAY PER CLICK ADVERTISING
SEO is all about getting your site to the top of the UNPAID advertisements on the search engines for a given keyword phrase. But what about PAID advertising. You know, those advertisements that show up in the shaded area at the top and right side of the Google Search results.
There is no faster way to get traffic to your site then by paying for it. Google Adwords Pay per Click is very effective at driving traffic. Yahoo and Bing also provide paid advertising. Our experience shows that if you target the right keyword phrases, have a decent advertising budget and tweak your paid advertising correctly you can reasonably expect to turn a profit.
Just like SEO, you start by identifying the Keyword Phrases you want to advertise under. You then establish a daily budget and enter a bid amount which you're willing to pay Google/Yahoo/Bing for each click received. Based upon the popularity of the advertisement you create and the amount of money you bid per click, the search engines will include your advertisement when the search results for the targeted keyword phrase are displayed.
The search results below were displayed on Google for the keyword phrase 'Denver Real Estate'. As you can see 'www.ZipRealty.com' is in the #1 PAID spot while 'www.DenverRealEstateOnline.com' is in the #1 UNPAID spot. If a person were to click on the ZipRealty.com advertisement, ZipRealty.com would be required to pay Google for the click.
I'm sure it's as clear as mud at this point! Don't worry, the search engines provide excellent tutorials to help you learn the ropes. And you're in total control over your advertising budget. Start small until you feel more confident then ramp up your spend. Here are some links to help you get started.
Google Adwords Tips and Techniques
Google Adwords Learning Center
Yahoo Search Marketing
Bing Search Marketing
Let's say that you do want to pay to drive traffic to your site however you just don't have the time to learn Pay-Per-Click advertising. There are some good alternatives out there but be VERY, VERY careful! There are dozens 'companies' who prey on REALTORS lack of technical expertise and are basically nothing but rip-offs. Always require that they provide some referral clients who you can call to ensure they are legit. If they can't or won't provide referrals then don't do business with them.
One company that we have no trouble recommending is HomeGain.com. They will work with you on a city by city basis to provide traffic to your site. They have an array of products however the only one we can recommend at this time is called 'BuyerLink'. You can learn more at..
HomeGain.com Buyer Link
