How to Get Your Real Estate Listings Found Online

Location, location, location …

That hackneyed creed of real estate is no less important in the highly competitive world of the Internet: the location of your website in the search result pages served up by Google and the other major search engines is everything.

While not every business has to worry about the locale of their prospects (in our global economy, where you live doesn’t necessarily affect what you buy or from whom) - real estate agents are a different animal. They need to attract people looking to buy in a very specific geographic region.

Become the local expert

So as a realtor, just as your street signage is located in particular neighborhoods, your online presence needs to be geo-specific as well. What am I talking about? Three words: Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

As a realtor, maybe you’re just starting to put up a website, or are about to rework the site you have… Stop! Before you take another step, get yourself a little SEO 101.

Simply defined, SEO is the application of best practices in research, writing, linking, and design that optimize your chances for getting ranked by Google and other search engines. In a nutshell, proper SEO means you get found online by your prospects (and who doesn’t want that?!)

SEO tips for your site

• Keyword research: Your first step. You need to figure out what the very best search terms (known as “keywords/phrases”) are for your website before you start any writing, or even creating the site’s navigation. And then write using different and appropriate keywords on every page. It’s a fine art and a science: How many searches per day? How many other websites are using those keywords? How often, where and in what context do I write with the keywords? Seriously consider hiring an SEO expert to do the keyword research and mapping for your site.

• Consider blogging: The software is free and easy, so you can post fresh, unique content on your site regularly - a practice Google takes into consideration when ranking sites as substantial and authoritative. (Blog software can be used for other content purposes, too.)

• Submit your listings at these leading real estate search engines:

Trulia.com (free)

Zillow.com (free)

RealtorSolutionCenter (range of fees)

Move.com (fees): list your rentals and new homes

Yahoo Real Estate ($50 for 3 weeks)

Real-Estate-Blogs.com (free; submit blogs only)

• Stock up on books and other forms of information about Search Engine Marketing (SEM), particularly as it pertains to your industry. I recommend “Realty Blogging: Build your Brand and Outsmart your Competition, by Richard Nacht and Paul Chaney, as a good starting point. (It has a great chapter dedicated to Search.)

• Email marketing: Very powerful; be sure to offer “sign up for our monthly e-newsletter” on your site’s home page. Too busy to write your own newsletter? There are lots of good, affordable newsletter providers out there.

Be geo-specific in your website writing

Keep in mind that Personalized Search is a feature on both Google and Yahoo! as an option where people can enter certain words and phrases to drill down their searches. The SEO by the Sea blog writes about personalized search:

For example, if the client has performed numerous searches for real estate in the San Francisco Bay area, the search system may select San Francisco Bay as a search parameter or search term automatically for future searches of the index for real estate.

Therefore, your best keywords will likely be geo-specific: say, “Markham real estate” or “San Diego realtor” in conjunction with “condos”, “houses”, etc. Think of all the terms (formal and jargon) used to describe a city or town where you sell - even a neighborhood that goes by a trendy name.

Warning: Do not use the same content more than once in your site; just swapping out city/town names will not fool Google. The search engine will recognize it as “duplicate content” and penalize your rankings for it. Instead, take the time to have each web page written precisely for that topic - be it condos in Palm Beach or townhouses in Burlington.

The wrong keywords will not get you the traffic you want and need to be a success - so don’t leave it up to chance; the business benefits of SEO merit doing it right.

Good “curb appeal” for your site traffic

With Search Engine Optimization writing and keyword research, it’s all about what your prospective customers think when they’re looking for real estate help, and therefore what they type into that Google bar.

The Internet is a powerful, built-in marketing channel that can drive the right home buyers to the right page on YOUR website, and not your competitors’ sites.

Having your site buried on page 2, 3, 4, or worse, on Google’s search result pages won’t bring you any “drive-by traffic,” that’s for sure. Search Engine Optimization - along with rich, unique content and great Internet marketing - will get those visitors to park and come on in to your site… and generate sales leads!