You’ve started your online real estate business with the launch of your new website. Once this goes live, it’s also the start of your internet business journey. Some owners think that the job’s done once they hit the publish button. However, it is actually just beginning. Just because you’re already live doesn’t mean you will automatically rank on the first page of Search Engines (SEs), there’s some work ahead.
Here are the facts about real estate websites that you need to know:
- Search Engines rank only credible and legitimate businesses. Credibility and legitimacy on the internet take six months to one year. It all depends on the traffic going to your site.
- Your target customers will not find you if you do not start promoting it. Traffic does not grow like mushrooms, but rather it is established through diligence and a consistent digital marketing strategy.
- The success of your site is dependent on how well you manage the marketing and promotion of your site.
The question of now what? What can you do to promote and drive traffic to your new real estate website? Before you create the site, you must have a preliminary marketing plan. If not, now is the time to strategize and develop a concrete plan of action.
Here are your marketing options for your new real estate website:
1. Plan your keywords
People do two things around the internet regularly, searching and checking/replying to emails. Now, you want to make sure you are present in both activities. First, planning your keywords involves research and creating content with relevant keywords. Search engines have keyword tools that aid businesses in better content production and posting. You want your target audience to find your site by using the keywords often used by searchers/users using different key phrases on content for continuous relevancy.
2. Email marketing
As aforementioned, another regular activity online is checking/replying to emails. Emails and newsletters are still key promotional tools for launching websites and your services. If you are new to real estate, however small your email contacts are, do not feel discouraged. You can reach out to previous clients and contacts to get the ball rolling. In time, through further efforts, you build a list of targets through landing pages, blogs, and CTAs on your social media platforms.
3. Social Media Blast
Promote your new website through social media. Your FB, IG, and Pinterest friends and followers can now go to your new website to check it out. And also help you promote it by providing links to other friends and followers. In addition, you can start posting pictures and snippets of your listings. People spend at least 35 minutes on social media; make sure you are there too. So, choose at least three that you can work on regularly to promote your real estate site.
4. Press Release
One way to encourage people to visit your new real estate website is through press releases. Every day online news platforms are looking for fresh topics and stories to fill their page spaces. All you have to do is craft a press release, special offer or organize an event that will coincide with launching your site. This can be a live Q&A about local real estate or live staging of a house. Get creative with your press release and make sure that your target finds the whole event beneficial.
5. Blog
Create blog posts that provide useful information to real estate customers. Your new real estate website will gain traction with Search Engines by writing blogs with the right keywords used by searchers. In addition, SEs use algorithms that include content relevancy as a parameter to rank websites or pages. As a result, blogs are effective promotional tools and help establish credibility. Your blogs can also feature reviews of previous clients, including particular issues encountered by your clients that you helped solve.
6. Keep Your Website Up-to-Date
Many businesses fail online because there’s no follow-through. If you want to be successful online and spill this over offline, keep your real estate website fresh and pertinent to evolving industry. The real estate industry evolves with new trends and technologies, including sharing listings. Therefore, a stale website becomes immaterial and unimportant.
7. Use Analytics Tools
Business owners use analytics tools to track websites, how traffic flows to and through the site. These also tell how users behave while on the website. Utilizing the tools, you’ll be able to improve the flow of visitors, how they browse, and implement digital marketing strategies effectively.
8. Paid Ads
Paid advertising is an option you can use to drive traffic to your site if you want to fast-track business goals, drive targets to the site, and convert them to clients. PPC and Social Media ads effectively drive traffic to the site if you can afford it.
9. Personal Branding
Support your main website with personal branding for your target audience to see you from the other side. Influencers use this tactic to promote their main website by letting their friends and followers know them more personally at work and play. In addition, you can use your personal brand to let followers know about your advocacies and community activities. These, in turn, are part of your real estate niche.
10. Guest Posting
Posts to other websites or media platforms can be part of personal branding. Write up-to-date or trending information that will appeal to other sites and platforms that can be linked back to your real estate property website and personal branding blog. When you have compelling copies and topics, media platforms that cater to audiences interested in them will publish your posts. You can link these posts back to your site.
The options presented can be mixed and matched. Do not be afraid to experiment and try what works best and efficiently and optimally. When we say optimal, both cost and ROI are factored in.
What Is More Important, Traffic vs. Conversion, For Your Real Estate Website?
Business owners are often confused about which is more important for the site, traffic, or conversion from traffic. First of all, it is easier to drive traffic to your real estate website organically or through paid ads. You can spend as much time and as much money driving traffic. But to what end? The objective is to increase traffic, convert the visitors into active clients. How do you do this?
- Make sure that you are attracting the right visitors to your real estate website. You can do this by carefully studying your keywords and using these words on your site and promoting it through blogs, social media, emails, or paid adverts.
- Real estate website visitors are already 50 to 80 percent interested in your services. If not, they will not make an effort to visit and browse. Your site’s job is to ensure that those who visit will become active clients.
- The site must be convincing or compelling enough for visitors to take action. How is this possible? You can do this through a user-friendly interface, fast access to different pages and loading times, and beneficial/engaging content about buying or selling properties, your services, and your commitment to your profession. Personal commitment can be seen through your personal branding, supporting blog, or social media accounts.
Traffic and conversion of visitors are 50/50. However, both are equally important to guarantee your real estate website success.
