Marketing Your Real Estate Website

Florida Real Estate Web Sites -
5 Steps to Promote Your Site

You need to roll up your sleeves and get to work if you want your real estate site to be successful. If you manage your own site, you can do this yourself. If you don't have the time, then by all means assign the project to your Webmaster, or hire a Virtual Assistant from Treasure Coast Host to help you with these tasks:

1. Supply information about the community.
Create pages on your site for the different communities you heavily market. Start with one community, promise yourself that you'll add one community or one category every week. This will provide lots of information to your visitors and will ensure Search Engine (SE) bots return to your site because they know you'll have new content for them. Nothing will kill a Web site quicker than stagnant content. Without fresh content, the SE bots will simply stop crawling your site, and before you know it, your web site will be buried under your competition.

2. Provide relevant information for your target market.
When people relocate to our area, they need and appreciate handy information. Give this to them. Create a mini directory on your site with relevant real estate information. Give them names of mortgage brokers, title companies, movers, pool cleaners, lawn services, painters and decorators, local churches, schools, hospitals, police, transportation and airports, etc. Homebuyers do a LOT of research before making decisions, and they start well in advance of purchasing property. This is especially true of out-of-state buyers.

If you're targeting retirees, then make sure you have information geared toward that demographic. Give them information about senior clubs and senior communities, social activities and healthcare information; for example, tell them how far the nearest hospital is; provide them a list of board certified practitioners specializing in geriatrics.

If you target young families, then give them information about schools, daycare centers, family entertainment centers, youth activities, sports clubs, parks & recreation, boating, golf, places of worship for all religions. Include shopping centers and day spas, the local YMCA.

Give plenty of general information to buyers and sellers such as homeowner tips, buyer-seller advice and so on. Information about obtaining Driver's Licenses, Homestead Exemptions, Property taxes and so forth. Tell them about our weather and wildlife and our close proximity to Florida's attractions.

Our Florida lifestyle is unique and fun; but there are issues new residents need to know about. Safety tips being at the top of the list, especially pool safety for young children. We're also the lightening capital of the world, so provide safety tips for storm shelter. The ocean is beautiful and relaxing and we all enjoy it; but new residents need to know about the strong currents and how to survive if caught in undertows.

Make your site interesting and chock full of resources because it's guaranteed to end up in a prospect's "favorites" folder. Then, when they are ready to make a purchase, they'll return to your site, not only to look at the new homes for sale, but with all that information on your Web site, you've given them plenty of reasons to believe you care about them and you're an expert about the area. They'll want to do business with you!

3. Place your ads in banner or text form on related Web sites in our area and real estate Web sites that have national recognition.
Your local chamber of commerce is an excellent place to start. You may have to pay a little extra for this, but in the end, it will be worth it. Find real estate Web sites that offer free agent pages and create a simple informational page with a link to your "real" domain. Most of these free template-style sites come with easy to use text editors. If you can use Microsoft Word, you won't have any problem with these types of text editors.

4. Search for reciprocal links and banner exchanges with local area sites or industry specific Web sites.
Mortgage companies, title companies, etc. Offer to exchange links, or if need be, pay a small fee for advertising. This not only makes your site more visible to buyers and sellers, it makes your site more visible in the search engines also. Even though the importance of link popularity has been somewhat diluted this past year, it's still an important factor in the success of your web site. You need incoming links from quality Web sites to attract more visitors.

5. Last but not least -- use the power of print advertising.
Mailers, postcards, flyers are cost effective ways to promote your real estate Web site. Make sure your domain name is on every piece of printed material you mail out, and then some! Business cards, letterhead, notepads, pencils -- the list is endless and prices for these printed materials are very affordable these days. Include some of these in the Welcome bags that the Chambers give to new members. Choose something that will stick around, like notepads or pens and pencils with your name on them. All of your trade magazines offer these materials at discount prices. And everyone, please please, use your domain name in your classified ads. That sounds like a given doesn't it? I'm here to tell you, not everyone who has a Web site remembers to do this, including some of my own clients -- [you know who you are ;-]

In conclusion...

Having an attractive Web site, which has been optimized and submitted to the major search engines is just not enough anymore. You need a solid marketing
plan of action. You can do this yourself, or sit down with your web designer or virtual assistant and map out your strategy. Because if you don't advertise your site, it will not be successful.

Major changes have occurred in the search engine industry this past year. If you haven't kept up to date with these changes, you need to get on the ball or hire someone who does know. Google no longer has the stronghold it enjoyed in years past. Yahoo and MSN are fiercely competing for their share of the search market. If you pay attention to your log files (which you need to do) you'll probably see your top referring search engines as Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. Not necessarily in that order, but very similar. In addition, more and more engines and directories are going towards localized search. Search engines will now serve up results based on your IP locale. Take advantage of your local market, create those community pages, and make sure your address, zip code and telephone numbers are visible on your site.

It's time to start thinking of your New Year's resolutions. This year, decide to make the most of your Web site. Put it to work so that it earns money instead
of costing you money. Make your web site a top priority. Work it successfully and you'll see a return on your investment. There is no time like the present....roll up your sleeves and get to work!

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Nikki L. Amelse
Treasure Coast Host
nikki@treasurecoasthost.com
12/02/04