Real Estate SEO

Archive for July, 2009

How to measure quality in a real estate  SEO campaign and in a SEO provider.

I’ve talked about similar topics before, but I wanted to lay it out succinctly for our readers since we get a lot of questions on this. The lists below are ways to judge and ways NOT to judge a SEO provider. They’re also metrics and methods for measuring the effectiveness of a real estate marketing campaign overall.

Indicators of good real estate SEO campaign performance:

• Leads generated
• Site traffic numbers
• Average number of pages visited by users to your site
• Average time visitors spend on your site
• Search engine ranking (placement) for a long list of terms

The most important things that a SEO campaign can do is to cause more visitors to arrive at your site and to generate more leads for your real estate business. Now, the number of leads that your site generates also has a lot to do with the design and architecture of your site. So, if the SEO provider has little control over these contributing factors, then the traffic numbers are the best indicator you have of quality.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t touch on benchmarks for a moment. You must have benchmarks to measure against. If your site is seeing 150 visitors per month from Google when your SEO campaign starts and 1050 users part month 6 months in, this is strong performance. If your website was producing 1 lead per day before the campaign started and how it’s producing 10 leads per day, again, your SEO is doing a good job.

An indicator of a good SEO provider and of any real estate marketing firm is whether or not they provide these metrics to you. If they’re willing to be accountable to you, and they’re not hiding anything, then they have no choice but to show you good work. Otherwise, you’re liable to fire them when the contract is up.

Here are some ways NOT to measure performance of an SEO campaign or of an SEO provider:

• Whether or not you rank for 1 particular term
• Traffic numbers 3 months into a campaign
• The frequency with which reports are delivered to you.

Believe it or not, search engine ranking is NOT what makes for a good SEO campaign. Marketing campaigns MUST produce results. Results = revenue. Results and ranking don’t mean the same thing. As I’ve said before, ranking and a token will get you on the subway.

This same analysis must be applied to all real estate marketing campaigns, media, and ad buys. If the money ain’t producing the biz, then it’s not well spent. Ask the questions, do the math, get real numbers to judge performance.

Real Estate SEO and Real Estate Marketing present content development challenges. Let’s face them head on.

We’ve written about 100 posts on real estate SEO, how content is king and how this can help your real estate marketing campaign online. I’m not going to tell you again, how important it is. You know by now.

We’re also aware that we’re presenting what can be a daunting SEO task. It’s not always easy to come up with original stuff. But we don’t want to push this challenge under the rug. Instead, we’re going to help you overcome the obstacle. In fact, it’s not an obstacle at all.

If you’re running a good online real estate marketing campaign, you’re not just looking for ranking, you’re leveraging social media, you’re using email marketing, you’re probably investing in real estate SEO and probably real estate SEM too. Now, here’s the big secret. All of these will help you generate content.

Let’s examine each:

Social Media
Effectively leveraging social media requires a few things. First of all, your profile should be up to date. This might prompt you to also update your bio on your website. Freshening up the pages of your site on a regular basis will help maintain, if not improve, your SEO placement. Also, if you tweet, then you blog and this content can go right into your blog. You can also setup your blog to syndicate to Twitter via RSS.

Email Marketing
By definition, when you broadcast an email newsletter, you’re going to have to write some content. eNewsletters are an essential component of any real estate marketing campaign. So, make sure you’re writing them. When you do, take the content and post it on your site, maybe just make it a blog post. You’ve already done the hard work.

Leverage your team
Your team should already be motivated to work on your online marketing campaign. If you all pitch in, the work gets easier. I’m talking about more than just dividing up the work of writing new content, though this is a great idea. I’m talking about leveraging your SEO Army. Everyone in your office should be updating their profile, twittering, using Facebook, and yes, sometimes generating a blog post or two.

PPC/SEM Ads
Believe it or not, the content in your PPC ads can be repurposed. The headlines and those 35 character ads are selling points. If you’re managing your own SEM, then think about expanding on what those attractive headlines actually mean to your business and especially your customer. If you wrote that content to attract users to click, you can use it in your site too. It makes for great headlines, call-outs, bullets, and more.

OK, I hope you’ve learned something. You are probably already generating the content you need to achieve great real estate SEO and boost your real estate marketing campaign. Now, all you need to do is put this all into practice.

If you have some ideas that I haven’t mentioned, pleasse leave a comment to share with our other readers. Thanks.

Don’t just say that you have the knowledge, show it.

How many times have you seen a website that says something like, “We have the knowledge and the experience to…” or “Our experienced and knowledgeable team is here to serve you.” Or something similar. Sound familiar?

Yes, our clients provide the same empty language from time to time and yes we do populate this type of content onto the sites we built on a frequent basis. I’m sorry to say it.

Fact is that we’re in a time when it’s pretty easy to build a website. It’s free to put up a blog on someone else’s website (like wordpress or blogspot, for example).  And just about anyone can write a sentence that says they have the knowledge and the experience to do whatever. The consumer has grown impervious to such language. Today’s consumer wants more.

We want to feel like we’re getting great information from the fountain of knowledge. We want to feel like we’re making informed decisions. We know that with a few keywords in Google, we can access lots of information sources, but we want to quickly and efficiently access the best. We want an authority.

How do I become an authority? Well, an authority is an “Accepted source of information.” At least, that’s one of the ways that dictionary.com defines the word. Well, this is where your website really can be a powerful tool in a few ways.

1. If your website includes vast amounts of information and it answers the user’s first question, whatever that may be, then they’re likely to come back again for another answer. Basic questions asked of a real estate website might be:
   1. How much does a 1 bedroom home cost in Boston? or
   2. What does it mean to be pre-approved?
2. To show that you have more than information, you have knowledge, you’re going to want to have a blog. Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis and/or already have a blog, will agree. Your blog is where you flaunt your stuff. You show what you’ve got. If you feel like you’re giving away the store, don’t worry. Give away as much information as you’re willing to type. The more you post, the more you’ll look like the authority you are.

The reality of real estate is that there are just too many realtors out there. It’s not like Coke and Pepsi who have been trying to take market share from one another for decades. You’re trying to take a few more deals from a large pool. You’re trying to rise above the crowd. Do this by showing the visitors to your site just how much knowledge you have and what all those years of experience have taught you.

I’d like to conclude by mentioning someone who embodies authority. Paul Krugman is a NYTimes columnist and Nobel Lauriate in economics. Not only does he have the years of experience and the accolades to prove his prowess, but he also writes with authority. I recommend checking out his columns and examining his writing style. Also, he’s pretty smart and insightful, you’ll probably learn something about our economy while you’re at it.

Can a new operating system by Google really affect my business? If you’re not asking yourself this question, you probably should be.

Yes folks, Google is challenging Microsoft, again, this time where it really hurts. Google is launching a new operating system called Google Chrome OS. This will affect your business. In fact, it’s part of a trend that already is.

Today, Google officially announced that in 2010 their new Google Chrome OS will be available commercially. At first, it’ll mostly be in Netbooks, they’re telling us. Netbooks, for those of you who haven’t heard, are small, portable laptop computers. They’re intended for a market of people who spend a lot of time on the web. This is key!

The fact that there is a market for Netbooks nowadays is very telling. Netbooks are, somewhat by definition:

• Small
• Portable
• Have relatively low processing power
• Make it very easy to access the web, and
• Cost far less than your average laptop.

To look at this from another direction, the reality is that there are millions of people who spend so much time on the web. These folks are using applications like Google for searching, Facebook, Twitter, and email for communication, and thousands of productivity applications too numerous to list. You might be one of these people. If you’re not, that’s OK, but you MUST realize that these folks are a large and growing segment of the population.

Let’s discuss some other facts about the Netbook-owning population:

• They’re well connected – Verizon offers a Netbook with a built in cell phone card. This is so that the owners can access the internet from anywhere using the device. In fact, I think they device is discounted or free if you sign up for long enough, much like a cell phone
• They’re on the move – These are busy people who want quick access to information, communication, and really the world.
• They have some money to spend – The fact is that most Netbook users aren’t buying these devices to be their main computer. It’s their secondary device or even tertiary. It’s somewhere between their cell phone and their laptop, but serving a different set of needs.
• It’s hard to grab their attention – This is a population, and I am a member of this club, that is not looking for distractions. We have too many. Inundated by information and looking for a way to get to the good stuff faster, Netbook users aren’t easy to market to. They’re going to come and search for you. You need to be able to be found by them.
• They’re electronic – Don’t think you can grab my attention with a newspaper ad or a post card in the mail. I don’t pick up paper. I hate paper. It kills a tree. If I want something, I’m going to go searching for it. Probably on Google. When I want to buy a house, I’m going to Google and I’m searching for real estate. This his how this population thinks. Start thinking like them now and you’ll be ahead of the competition.

Know this, if you start thinking about how to reach the folks who will be using Google Chrome OS now, you’ll be selling them real estate in 2010 when the OS comes out. In fact, these folks are already out there. You’ll probably be selling them homes next month.

Image source: news.cnet.com

Today, I got an email, generated by Facebook (or really by someone I’m friends with on Facebook) suggesting that I become a Facebook fan of a deli meat. Nope. I only wish I was kidding. I did not choose to become a fan. I’d never even tasted the stuff.

In stark contrast, my real estate agent (the one who I worked with when I bought my home) recently sent me a request to write a recommendation for him on Linked In. So, I did. I wrote him a glowing recommendation saying that I’d bought and sold and bought real estate again with his services helping me along the way and that I’d be happy to provide a direct reference if anyone wanted to call or email me.

Well, let’s examine these two instances. In the first case, someone asked me to become a fan (doing so requires 2 mouse clicks on Facebook, so long as you’re already logged in). The second required about 15 minutes of my time. I had to think and write a paragraph about the realtor. I wanted it to really be something that helped him.

You see, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do Social Media. This is true for real estate and for other industries as well. When you’re in professional services, you’re better off having some strong and heart felt recommendations, from people who really mean it, than just having followers, fans, or friends. On both Linked In and Facebook, it’s easy to have people write positive reviews about your company. If you need help setting up a Facebook fan page, give us a call.

The idea that you need 1,000,000 friends and/or followers is fine, but what you really need to start with is some good friends and some great testimonials. Ask some past clients to write recommendations, not just on Linked In, but use the space on Facebook and other sites to do the same.

The fact is that lots of people use Facebook and Linked In nowadays to ‘check you out.’ If someone recommended a real estate agent to me, the first thing I would do is look for a website, then I’d check them out on Linked In, then maybe Facebook if I hadn’t found anything yet. I’d also probably Google their name, just to be safe.

I once heard a story about a person Googling a realtor’s name and finding an article about them tampering with a gas meter. I doubt they got hired.

So, it comes down to this: As much as you can, shape what people will find about you when they search for you on the web. This includes Social Media, of course. BTW, if you look for Rich Haen, my real estate agent on Google, you find his website, then his Facebook page. He’s learned well!