75 Percent of People Buy Their Home Online – Realtors – Are You Ready?

Real Estate Internet Marketing is gaining a lot of importance these days, and is very important for those engaged in selling real estate online.  According to a survey conducted by a top-rated magazine, more than 75% of people now depend on the Internet to buy their dream home.

Since many Realtors have their own sites on the web with features such as pictures of properties as well as floor plans, it has enabled the potential customers to experience hassle-free home buying.  A website not only allows a Realtor to promote listed properties, but also to promote the services they render.

But, there is such a large number of real estate-related websites that it has now become an overwhelming process for a particular real estate website to get ranked high among the search engine results.  Herein lies the role of real estate internet marketing.

A large number of proven real estate internet marketing techniques are now adopted to improve the ranking of a real estate-related website for better search engine visibility, such as search engine optimization, search engine submission, pay-per-click marketing, link analysis, affiliate marking, and e-mail marketing. Among which, perhaps the most prominent one is search engine optimization, or SEO.

Real Estate SEO contains a series of strategic and technical solutions including a selection of the most appropriate keywords, preparing search engine friendly content, linking and submitting the website to major search engines like Google and Yahoo.  All of these factors work together to enhance a real estate agents’ website ranking in the search engines for real estate related keywords.  Although real estate SEO work can be done by business owners themselves, it is better to seek assistance of an experienced SEO firm.

A reputable SEO firm conducts a detailed analysis on your real estate business as well as your target markets, apart from structuring your real estate website with appropriate search terms, synchronizing Meta title and descriptions, and formulating link popularity programs.

Any Realtor who’s serious about competing online should move forward with proven real estate marketing techniques like real estate SEO.

Until next time…

Follow Me on Twitter!

Ed

Twitter – A Follow Up – Attention Realtors!

My last post explained “Twitter, Why all this Fuss?”

Several real estate clients (names omitted to protect the guilty) emailed me to say something like:

“Twitter seems to be for purely social networking… why in the world would I waste my time with this?…”

Another real estate broker wrote in to say, “Twitter? Are you kidding me? Tell me something that can help me find more clients.”

HELLO!! Time to WAKE UP REALTORS!

Consumers are increasingly going online to look at real estate, and that’s where you’ll find the Cutting Edge Realtors, using Web 2.0 to market themselves in new and effective ways.
Watch this video!

I REST MY CASE!

Til Next Time….

twitter

Ed

How is Your Market?

In the 10+ years I’ve been doing web design and hosting, one thing has remained consistent, and that is, nothing is consistent.

 

What I’m referring to is “Market Conditions”.  Seems that everyone has a different market condition that makes predicting things “across the board” next to impossible. 

 

I have clients calling me all the time and asking, “How are things in other parts of the country with some of your other clients?”  My answer is usually the same.  Every market seems to have its own drive that moves it.  Some markets do well while others are hurting.

 

Some things, like interest rates, the cost of fuel for our cars, and other economic factors, are somewhat consistent from market to market.  Other things, like a particular markets’ job situation, vary greatly.  So as you can imagine, saying “across the board” that real estate is good, bad, or just slow, is a tough statement to make.  Just ask NAR. They have been trying to put out press releases that pertain to the industry as a whole, but it just doesn’t apply everywhere, no matter what they say.

 

So, my question to you today is…  “HOW IS YOUR MARKET?”

 

Sound off and comment here.  Tell me how your current market is.  Are you finding things slower than normal… better than normal?  What is normal anymore?  I’d really like to know… because for me… sitting here in Myrtle Beach, SC, and knowing what the market is here, doesn’t mean I know what the market is in all the other areas of the country.  But I’m interested to know.

 

So please, take 5 minutes and give me a brief synopsis here (on this blog) about your market.  I think it will be good for everyone to see how markets are everywhere… and what better way to do that than to sound off right here, right now… and just lay it on the line?

 

Is your market hot?  Does your market suck?  Are you dealing only with first time home buyers? Are people moving up? Downsizing?  What’s going on in YOUR market?  No one knows the answer to these questions better than you do… so please enlighten us all on your particular market.

 

I hope we can get a good overall look at what’s going on in various parts of the country with good feedback here on this question. I look forward to all the responses.

 

Thanks!  Have a great week!

 

Ed

What About Active Rain?

Active Rain (a.k.a. AR) is a multi user platform, nothing more, nothing less.  Its success is its multiple users.  Thousands I would guess.  Its failure is because of its success.

 

Let me explain.  The system rewards the conversation.  The conversation is the back and forth that can happen from a blog responding to another blog thru commentary, trackback, or a blog post.  Or all of the above.

 

AR rewards you for anything you post.  The more you post the more exposure you get.  So each post usually gets comments.  Many are obvious attempts at what we in the off AR world would call "comment spamming".  It makes for a very retarded conversation.  It also makes for a very incestious community of self focused blogging as opposed to consumer focussed blogging.

 

This is not the only example of a multi-user blog, but AR was the first to come onto the scene (I say scene and not market because a market implies trade of usually dollars) with its unique ranking system.  And true to the predictions of the book "Positioning", being first to market usually wins.

 

Win what? is my concern.  Move.com killed its buyout of AR.  Did they figure out that free means no revenues?  But I thought free is the new empowerment model that Web 2.0 is all about.  I question that one all the time.  Its hard to demand restitution from something you never paid for.  AR should offer unique blogs as a revenue model, and it is wise to have your brand on your own URL as blogs at sites like AR can be used as brand extensions.

 

The Consumer Asks Why Do You Matter?

 

When I consult I teach that the web is becoming more and more about proof of your relevance in the marketplace.

 

Active Rain has created a nice model to cause agents to create content.  These agents are only too happy to comply and create in many cases (not all), junk content.  I can only wonder what the consumer sees in the many posts I’ve seen at Active Rain illustrates.

 

Many of the posts I’ve seen there are far removed from anything real estate, and is more relevant to an IVillage discussion group.  The bulk of comments I see there that could be at all interesting to a consumer (other than a consumer looking to confirm the cultural view of a Realtor) are ones that briefly allude to a particular market.

 

This is what the industry as represented at AR is saying is their relevance to the single largest asset that the consumer/visitor owns.  Can you understand why there is a demand for a Really Good Blog in the marketplace?

 

Those of you with Blogs that we maintain for you, can be proud of the fact that your blog is on your own domain, and contains 100% pure relative content.  A consumer finding your blog will not see BS posts that are put there just to fill up space.

 

Is Active Rain worth doing?  Maybe.  Would I spend a lot of time posting there?  No.

 

More later on other Social Networking Spots.  Have a Good Thursday!  WOW… where did January go already???

 

Ed