Are you sabotaging your real estate business and website with these mistakes?
Even many real estate agents, investors, and mortgage firms that have invested a lot in various parts of their websites and online marketing can be killing their results with these mistakes. So how do you get from where you are to the results you want from real estate?
Are You Online?
New data from StatisticsBrain shows that a surprisingly small percentage of small businesses actually have websites (53%). Yet, only 4 percent said they’ll never need one. Sometimes there may seem like there is already a lot online, there is still huge room for growth. Some individual real estate agents and investors or private lenders may think they can survive without a website, but there are clear financial advantages to having one. Small businesses with annual sales of $2.5M to $4.5M (the highest earnings in the small business category) were the most likely to have websites. The lower the likelihood of having a website, the lower the earnings of the business. It’s so incredibly easy and affordable to get up a real estate website that there are really no excuses not to have one.
Website Design
Most real estate brands and professionals have realized that they don’t need overly complex websites. However, they do need good looking ones. No one should be doing business with anyone without checking their website out first. Since you can do it from your phone, most people do. Consumers, prospective freelancers and employees, business partners, merchants, and investors and funding sources will all want to check out your website. They’ll sum you up in a matter of seconds. What impression will your real estate website give them?
Search Engine Optimization
If the key to buying real estate is “location, location, location,” the same is true for real estate marketing that works. It’s just like the old days of having a physical store. The better positioned your store is to receive more passing traffic, the more customers you are likely to pull in. Yet, most real estate businesses might as well be invisible online.
Sadly, this is true, even of those that have invested a lot in great content, awesome ads, and that have a really great product. Neglecting some of the finer details can mean that no one ever sees or comes to your online real estate store. They’ll never see how awesome your product and service is. If they don’t know it exists, they can’t buy it.
Some of the factors that may be keeping your real estate website hidden include:
- Not being mobile friendly
- Too slow
- Cheap content, and copied content
- Failure to use keywords in page tags and descriptions
- Not claiming business citations or social profiles
If you are publishing great, relevant, and keyword rich content, but aren’t getting the visibility you think you deserve, look at the other items above.
The Right Keywords
Most real estate website owners are failing miserably in selecting the right keywords. Some are investing in quality content, and a lot of it, but they are getting hung up on the wrong keywords, and metrics. Some are using keywords that really aren’t being used by their customers. Others are choosing high volume keywords that have very low conversion rates. Some are targeting too tight, and aren’t getting the volume they want. If you choose the most trafficked keywords, but have a ton of competition, conversions will be low. You need both volume and targeting.
Great Online Content
Some of the best content to publish isn’t focused on keywords at all. Getting people to your real estate website is one thing, but you’ve also got to keep their attention and trust. You want them to keep coming back, sharing, and linking to your content. You should be a source of inspiration, resources, and practical tips. If your budget is limited, you may want to focus on creating less content, but the greatest content you actually can. Think infographics, statistics, highly valuable action items, etc.
Off-Site Promotion
What you get published off-site can be equally as important as what gets put on your site. So where else can you get content published? Who can you get to reference or link to you? Press releases have made a comeback with Google, and other third party sites always need content. Just make sure that you aren’t feeding the competition too much.
