Real Estate Search Engine Marketing Overview

Having a website built is only the first step in creating an effective internet presence. While your real estate web site is itself an advertisement of your services, it does not "advertise" itself. You have to, in a sense, advertise your advertisement. As real estate websites become more affordable, they also become more common. Understanding how buyers and sellers think, where they go to research homes and what tools they use to find REALTORS® will help you create a successful online real estate marketing campaign bringing consumers to your site. Here are some important statistics to consider:

• 85%-90% of all internet users rely on search engines to find information.
• According to the 2007 TRENDS REPORT “100 million consumers go online every year to look at real estate, which is more than 1 in 3 Americans”.
• The top 10 search engines make up more than 90% of all search traffic.
• Most internet users never click past the first Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Where Does Your Real Estate Website Rank in Search Engines?
To find out where your site ranks in the major search engines, visit Google, Yahoo! and MSN to conduct a search of major terms relating to your areas of business. These continue to be the three front runners in search technology.

If your real estate website is stuck on page 478 of Google for your main phrase, consumers' will not find you. The simple fact remains: Most people never look past the first couple pages of results. To become successful your real estate website must gain first page positioning. So how do you get your site to the top of the search engines?

---

Creating an Effective Online Real Estate Marketing Campaign

Real estate search engine optimization involves a combination of proven tactics that help increase your real estate website exposure and visibility within major search engines. Anyone with a lot of time on their hands and great knowledge of real estate optimization techniques can create and employ a good search engine marketing campaign. However, it does require much time and patience. We know your time is valuable and could be better spent helping your clients' with their needs rather than learning the art form of real estate marketing in search engines. For our active and busy clients, we've created Website Marketing Solutions to help relieve you of some of the additional work required to enhance your internet presence.

Some of our expert real estate SEO services include keyword research, homepage and Meta tag optimization, custom content writing, blogging and tracking online marketing.

Keyword Research
First and foremost, it is important to know what search terms consumers are using to find homes and agents online in your geographic area. Having created the most current and accurate technology, we do research to determine what phrases attract the largest audience and also what terms have the least amount of competition. This helps us to decide together the best search terms to target when optimizing your real estate website.

Homepage & Meta Tag Optimization
Once we understand what terms will be most effective in bringing traffic to your site we will begin the process of optimizing your homepage properly. Our goal is to ensure that your content is quality. We also ensure these important phrases appear in your Meta tags for optimum performance.

Custom Pages of Real Estate Content
Creating custom pages of content that are unique to your site is also an important step in developing a real estate website that will achieve top placement, attract new visitors AND return visitors. If you have the same pages as every other REALTOR® in your area, how will YOU stand out? You won't! You have a few different options to help you achieve this goal:

If you're a seasoned real estate pro, you probably have many marketing materials, relocation information, tips for buyers and sellers, etc. saved in documents on your computer. Assuming you've written these articles, they are perfect for your site!

Dependant on how old they are you may want to briefly go through them to ensure all data is up-to-date and correct. This is a great start!

If you're a new agent and don't have anything prewritten, don't worry! We thought about you too.

Located in your AgentCast Office, there is a section called dsContent Library filled with prewritten real estate articles for you to choose from. There are real estate articles on home buying, home selling, relocation, home improvement and many other topics. Further, you have the ability to customize the content of each article to compliment your website and services. If you don't like one sentence, remove it. If you have additional comments you'd like to include, add them! We are constantly adding new articles to the dsContent Library so check back to find new articles!

Have Us Write Custom Content for You!
As previously mentioned, it's always more advantageous to use quality content written specifically for your site alone. By providing quality content, a site can not only increase its rankings within search engines, but also dramatically improve its conversion rate. However, not everyone has the ability to write effective material that will engage and capture their audience. If you find yourself aimlessly writing jargon that only you understand enlist our help to produce material and content that will turn traffic to sales. Request specific real estate topics or ask us for our advice on what types of information would be most beneficial to your site and visitors.

Your Real Estate Marketing Specialist will ask for specific items of information about each of the areas you serve. This information could include neighborhoods, recreational options, entertainment and more.

With this information your Real Estate Marketing Specialist will build an outline for our writers to utilize when writing your 10 to 25 pages of custom content. Once this outline is built, approved by you and sent to our writers, it will take approximately 2 to 4 weeks to complete.

Real Estate Blogs
Keeping an updated real estate blog is one of the best ways to help your website move up in search engines. Search engines are very keen on updated real estate blogs because it enhances the value of your website. They are easily able to see each new blog post encouraging them to move your site up for its various terms AND keep it there.

When participating in our real estate SEO services, we will also include a blog integrated into your website. Dependant on the package you’ve purchased we may also write and post custom real estate blogs for you (2 to 4 per month dependant on the package you purchase).

Upon purchasing one of our real estate optimization packages you will be presented with a list of real estate blog topics to choose from for the year. Feel free to choose from that list or even suggest additional topics of interest to your site visitors. Remember, this is in addition to your custom pages of content!

Press Releases
Our real estate marketing and search engine optimization services also include dissemination of Press Releases of your website throughout the year. Getting the word out about you and your business is important. It is also a way to get your website more visibility!

Submission to Real Estate Directories
Once your website has been built, you’ve added tons of pages of content that discuss your areas of service, your specialties and other real estate related topics, it needs some way to reach out to search engines to let them know it exists. One of the best ways to announce your websites presence to search engines like Google and Yahoo! is to submit it to Directories that already exist in their index. This helps build your real estate websites credibility within search engines which will improve its rankings. Another reason it is important to submit your website to various real estate directories is to help attract direct traffic, meaning people will actually find your website within these various real estate directories.

There are many Real Estate related directories that provide opportunities to market your website further with free and paid listings available. Diverse Solutions does not receive any compensation for the submission of your website to these real estate directories. In fact, we’ve developed relationships with various real estate directories that offer our clients’ a discount on the submission fee. We pass these savings on to you.

Two of the most popular and common Directories known today that we can submit your website to include:

Yahoo! Directory
Yahoo!, itself began as a Directory, not a search engine. The Yahoo! Directory is still one of the largest and best known directories online. Submitting your website to the appropriate category can be extremely beneficial to your results within the Yahoo! Search Engine. The cost, however, is substantial and does not guarantee inclusion.

DMOZ Directory
DMOZ is also one of the largest and best known directories online. It is associated with Google, thus offering your site an opportunity to gain higher rankings in the Google Search Engine. There is no cost to submit your site to this directory, however, there is a substantial waiting time to be reviewed and approved before being included.

Again, there are many real estate directories online that we can submit your website to when participating in one of our real estate search engine optimization packages.

Tracking Our Marketing Efforts
In order to market your real estate services effectively, you must be able to track analytical data to help identify your most valuable venues of advertisement; where your site appears monthly within major search engines, where your visitor traffic comes from, what keywords they used to find your site, what keywords perform best, how visitors navigate your site, etc.

Before we begin marketing your real estate website online, we will run a report to show your current rankings within major search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, AskJeeves, LookSmart, and others. We will also evaluate the current traffic visiting your website. Once our efforts are in full swing, you will receive reports detailing this information for your review. This will help ensure you continue spending your real estate marketing dollars efficiently and receive great ROI.

Take advantage of our knowledge and contacts in the industry to help you get a leg up on the competition! Our vast resources, expertise and love of real estate search engine marketing will help you realize the new American Dream: Top Search Engine Placement!