Real Estate SEO

Posts Tagged ‘online marketing’

Thank you to everyone who came to our latest LogicClassroom session on Maximizing Lead Conversion!

We learned about the importance of the consistency of the user experience from when they begin their online search to when then land on your website, and various ways to KEEP them on your site.  We also talked about  lead capture and management as well as how to leverage social media, email, and other marketing techniques to help convert your leads into clients.

Don’t worry if you missed this LogicClassroom session, you can view the slides below at your convenience. Enjoy!

Thank you to everyone who attended our LogicClassroom presentation last night. We discussed how and why to leverage different social media platforms for your business. Don’t worry if you missed this session – the slides are below for you to view!

Please join us for our next LogicClassroom session 2/9/10 on Search Engine Optimization 101. Please email Katrina to attend.

We had a great turnout for this LogicClassroom session on effective blogging both in the office and on the phone. We explored the benefits of blogging for your business, including how to optimize your posts for SEO and how to turn a blog into a traffic and lead generation tool for your company.

I want to thank everyone who was able to attend. Don’t worry if you missed this LogicClassroom session, you can view the slides below at your convenience. Enjoy!

Our next LogicClassroom will be on 1/12/10. Learn how agents and brokers can leverage free social media to generate leads and a loyal client following. Please email Katrina if you would like to attend.

I saw this post on a Yahoo Group that I’m a part of. It’s amazing to me that anyone would even consider this business in 2009.

Hello to all
I am looking for some help. I’m looking for an investor or angel investor. I am looking to start a hobby store in my area. What I would be selling is. All kinds of sports cards. Video games and acssereis, (I think he meant Accessories) and lastly all kinds of coins. If there is any one that could help me. I would be very thankful for the help. If you would like to contact me, my email address is xxx@yyy.com or my phone # is 555.222.4444. if I don’t answer my phone please leave me a message. thank you for the help.

Sincerely.

Wow, this brings back memories. I was a hobbyist when I was a kid. Baseball cards were all the rage. There were coin collectors and memorabilia shops, but those are tough businesses these days. Let’s look at why.

Well, it’s obvious that the internet has changed things in big ways. eBay really killed the collectibles market. Think about it. If you wanted a rare coin and you live in the countryside, well, you’re really pretty limited in your options. So, there’s the local hobby shop or memorabilia shop. Maybe you have a book that tell the prices for things. Remember those books? They were published annually and gave you the going rate for a 1989 Gary Carter baseball card in Mint Condition. PUBLISHED YEARLY.

These days, you can go online and see the last 100 transaction where a Gary Carter baseball card changed hands. The market and the buyers in that market have MUCH more information. The result is that people know what they should pay and the margins are razor thin.

Now you’re thinking, ‘I’m a realtor. What’s this got to do with me?’ Remember, the buyers you’re working with have access to information. They have more than they ever did before and they can get their hands on more every day. The thing about real estate is that you work on a percentage. The guy at the office around the corner is likely charging the same rate for his services. Probably 5 or 6 percent. So, you don’t have to worry too much about eBay coming along and taking your business. In fact, you’ve been able to sell a house on eBay real estate for years and the impact on the industry has been small.

This means that to get ahead of the other real estate agents in your town, you need to capture the market. You need to get your marketing in front of more people. Then you need to provide great service. Now, we’re here to help you with the first part, Real Estate SEO is how you capture more of the market. Providing great service is your job.

You should also realize that the buyer can find out a lot about homes and they can find out a lot about you! They can look you up on LinkedIn and Facebook. They can Google your name and your real estate firm’s name. You need to have your Social Media profile in order, just in case someone goes out looking for you. Luckily we wrote a post about this a while back. Check out how to do social media right.

Lastly, realize that we’re not going into hobby shops any more. We’re shopping on the internet. We’re searching on Google and letting our fingers do the walking. The Real Estate search starts on the web. Realtors come second. Yes, it’s true. The first thing they’re going to know about you is that they found your site and it was helpful! If your site isn’t findable then you need to do some real estate SEO work NOW. If, when they find your site, they’re leaving or not signing up, that’s an issue of design. We can help there too.

Thanks for reading.

Lots of folks wonder why the search engines have written their algorithms in certain ways? Folks ask us how and why social media is going to help them build their brand and generate new business? The high level answer to much of this is that most of this actually parallels a real life situation. The analogs are quite stark. In this post, we’ll examine a few of them.

In the SEO realm, there are lots of factors that affect ranking. Many of them actually digital analogs to the pieces of evidence that we all look for when evaluating the quality of a potential service provider.

URL Age
Do you want to hire the guy who’s been in the business for 6 months of 10 years? I think the answer is simple. All other things being equal, the search engines are going to rank the site that’s been around longer higher.

Links
Well, as we know, quantity of links is not as important as the  QUALITY of those links. That said, a link is like a vote. The more votes you have, the better off you are. Still, people tried to exploit this and just get as many links as possible. So, not all votes are created equal. i.e….

Link Quality
If you wanted to buy a new car, would you take a survey of your friends? Or might you go to your 1 friend who really knows a lot about cars and ask for their expert opinion. Most of us would go straight to that friend. To us, they are the authority on automobiles and their “vote” is more valuable than 10 votes from friends who don’t know anything about cars.

Google uses some sophisticated analysis to determine which sites are authorities. If there’s a website about BMWs and on that site there are links to another site about BWMs, then that other site about BWMs will rank well for the term BWM. The Search engines also look at the text in the link itself. If the link reads Ford Cars, then the search engines conclude that this link points to a page about Ford Cars. Similarly, if the link reads BMW, it’s like the originating site, where the link resides, is voting for the other site in the search results for the term BMW.

New Content
Search engines want to see new, unique content. Why, well, which report do you trust: A report about the best cars on the road from 2004 or a report on the best cars on the road from 2009? Similarly, 2 reports about the best Realtors in the neighborhood might give me the same ranking order, but one might give me more detail as to why someone is ranked at the top of the list. Most of us would like to see the supporting details. So would the search engines.

Unique Content
If all you do is republish everyone else’s content, then why should I ever visit your site? Republishing content, with today’s technology, is relatively easy. If anyone can do it, then many sites will republish the same old content. Why would Google want to send you to one of those unoriginal sites over another. Instead, they’re going to send you to the site with the most unique content and with the most recent posts on it.

Social Media Profiles
Smart consumers do their research. We want to know more about a real estate agent than where they work and what their sales performance looks like. These days, it’s not that hard to look someone up and check them out. Make sure that what they’re going to find looks good. Update your Linked-In profile and your Facebook page. If you are trying to sell the clients on your use of technology, then you better have a Twitter account and your tweets should be relatively current. Google your name and see what comes up. If it’s not flattering, you’re liable to lose a client as a result of the fastest background check in the world.

Social Media Connections
Are you a networker? Do you gain much of your real estate business by relationship and referral? Lots of us do. Social media is an analog to what you’re doing already. Thing is, you can network in your jammies on a Sunday morning. Get connected, remind people you exist and what you do,  and don’t forget to make it personal. Have a real interaction with them. Don’t just friend them or follow them or link to them, ask them how they’re doing and if there’s anything you can do for them. They may just have a job for you.

BLOG!
This one is maybe the most powerful. When you blog and give people insight, they immediately begin to see you as the expert. The more you blog and the more you educate your readers, the more you will position yourself as the expert. If you blog about real estate, when it comes time to buy, the customers will come to you for help in buying their new home.

To boot, blogging means generating more new content. As I said above, more content means better search engine ranking. Blogging is essential to good SEO…Just one of the many benefits.

Thanks for reading our blog. Have a good weekend.