Having a great website is a small part of the real estate lead generation puzzle. You must must ensure that people can easily find your site and then compel them to engage with you once they are there.
IDX
Internet Data Exchange Listings Feed This is the central database that holds every listing on Realtor.ca. CREB and CARA control the listings on their own boards and you must get a license and the data feed from them. A simple alternative to getting a direct data feed is to hire a real estate website company who already has the proper feed for your board. Over 90% of the activity that consumers do on Realtor websites is search properties. Without access to a large number of listings, most consumers will go elsewhere. CMS – Content Management System To add high quality, unique content, you need to be able to create additional pages, forms, and information easily. Relying strictly on professionals for this can be expensive, slow and can prevent you from responding to current events with relevant content.
Blog
While a blog is not critical, it can be an easy way to build and display content. It is preferable to have a blog as a sub-domain on your site (http://myrealestatesite.com/ awesomerealestateblog) and not a stand alone site (http://myrealestatesite.com and http://awesomerealestateblog.com). WordPress blogs are also very search engine friendly.
Offline Often people forget about the effectiveness of offline marketing. How many times have you seen a sign or commercial, or got a flyer and then visited a website for more information? Publish your domain name everywhere you can. Make sure it is easy to remember and not too long. Ditch the “http://” and “www” and just use your actual domain name.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization Search engines (like Google and Bing) find your website by using special coding called “spiders”. These spiders scour all the websites they are aware of, follow all the links those sites point to and create a massive directory of the available information. This information is then stored and constantly updated on the search engine’s servers. To get your website found quickly, submit your site directly to the search engines initially. To make your site rank higher on the search results, you must optimize it. Search engines like Google look for sites that are most relevant to consumers on the topics they are searching for and punish sites that are trying to cheat for better rankings.
To optimize your site, you will want to research the keywords your target market is searching for and then create lots of unique content about those keywords. Choosing a domain name with your keywords in it also helps. It is extremely important to ensure your web programmer understands SEO and that the backend of the site is optimized. Remember that is it a “computer” that is searching your site and that computer is reading the coding of the site. Things like page urls, title tags, meta tags, page descriptions, image alt tags and more all contribute to your ranking. After the search engine gathers all this information and sees what other important web pages link to your site, your site’s level of importance and rank is determined. Don’t guess at this process. Visit Google’s Webmaster pages and learn about SEO first hand to enhance your understanding: https://www.google.com/webmasters/.
SEM
Search Engine Marketing SEO can takes months to get results. Google and Bing offer Pay Per Click
Advertising that can put your website on the first page for the keywords you want instantly. This is also known as SEM. With Adwords, you can choose as many keywords to target as you like, then you create the ads. When consumers search, your ad comes up on the top or sidebar of the search results. You are charged only when people click on your ad (~$0.35/click and up). Calgary, AB is one of the most competitive markets in North America for real estate related keywords. Set your daily maximum spending low to start and tweak your campaigns often. Research online for best practices to maximize your results.
Lead Capture
You can spend a lot of money driving traffic to your real estate website, but what do consumers do when they get there? You need compelling content throughout your site that people can request by filing in contact forms to access the information. You then have a lead. Common “opt-ins” are things like: forced registration to see property details, home evaluations, request a specific article, book a showing, request more information on a property, download a special report and more.
Lead Conversion
Once you have someone’s contact information, there are 3 keys to converting them into a client:
1. Instantaneous Contact – Less than 5 minutes is best, but do it as fast as you can. Touch base immediately to let them know you are a live person and that you will be sending over the information shortly. A phone call or email will work, but do not use a generic auto-reply message as a replacement for this.
2. Sell the Experience – If they are requesting information on a specific home, sell the experience of using you for the home buying process and not just this specific home. If they feel your value stops at getting information on a particular listing, they will not work with you.
3. Get the Relationship Offline – While it is good to have an active conversation over email and over the phone is even better for building relationships, you must try to meet this person face-to-face. This could be to view a specific home, meet for a needs assessment at the office, or to just grab a coffee to learn about the home buying process.
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