I often refer to the fact that over 90% of those searching for a new home begin their search online. All brokers and agents know that to get a fair share of the homebuyer pie, they simply must have a real estate website. But, having the website is just the beginning. It is a baby step. Having a website that is routinely found and visited by home buyers doesn’t happen just because you have a website. Ask yourself this question, ‘On what page of Google does my real estate website appear?’  Is it on page one?  Page four? Or maybe your website appears on page fifteen? How many homebuyers are going to go through fifteen pages of search results on Google to find a real estate agent? Probably not too many….

So what can be done? First off, make sure that you have a website that has an IDX Solution. In order to get the most visibility for your website, you must have an IDX Solution, coupled with an active SEO strategy.  Off site Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can include a combination of blogging with backlinking and using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and video to help point traffic back to the web site. Over time, off-site optimization will lift your web site in the search engine rankings, while increasingly bringing your site “organic” (free) traffic.

If you simply want to increase your traffic immediately and get more real estate leads, a pay per click (also known as PPC) campaign is exactly what is needed. At Dynamic Page Solutions, PPC campaigns have an initial set up charge and a monthly campaign budget. PPC experts will run a campaign for an agent or broker website utilizing specific keywords that will drive traffic to the website.

The PPC team will research both competitive key phrases and less competitive key phrases to build a robust campaign in order to keep the cost per keyword as low as possible. With Dynamic Page Solutions PPC campaigns, the broker or agent will receive ongoing, “split-testing” of specific ads to ensure the best possible price for those words.

Because Dynamic Page Solutions has a dedicated, on-site PPC team that works daily to optimize customer campaigns, the customer is ensured that their campaign will be monitored frequently by experts who will also make strategic adjustments on an on-going basis. Customers at Dynamic Page Solutions routinely save 10-50% on their keywords. The cost savings offered is one way Dynamic Page Solutions sets themselves apart from their competition, in addition to the fact that they have their own in-house SEO department.

If you have never tried a PPC campaign, now is the time to give it a try. Ads for your website can appear on page one of the search results for a large variety of keywords very quickly. When a real estate website is on page one of the search results, it will have an immediate impact on the traffic and leads being generated by that website.  To find out more about running a PPC campaign, call the experts at Dynamic Page Solutions at 888-782-8184.

As home sellers and buyers become more and more Internet savvy, real estate agents and brokers look for ways to stay ahead of the pack and attract a bigger share of potential leads. And as we ALL know, Facebook use continues to grow worldwide, with the lion’s share of the users logging in to their account at least once per day. Combine the fact that there are more than 700 million Facebook users worldwide and that over 90% of all homeowners begin their home search on the Internet and anyone can see that Facebook is simply the place to go for networking of all kinds. Real estate marketing also now has a clever way of becoming a part of day-to-day Facebook social networking activities. 

Since searching for homes almost always begins on the Internet, it seems natural to give those shoppers (and those who have homes listed) a leg up by providing a searchable IDX MLS Home Search right on a real estate Facebook business page.  Leads, potential leads, friends, and anyone within a given circle of influence can hop on Facebook anytime and now have the capability of searching for homes. Because they are already on Facebook, agents are giving shoppers and buyers something extra that will assist them in either finding a home or providing a unique way to market a property. 

Because searching takes place right on Facebook, anyone looking at homes is already on a website they know and trust. The cool thing about this home search is that it contains advanced search features and a registration page. At any point, someone searching can click a button to register to get more information and the lead info will be sent right to the agent. This particular home search approach is not overly aggressive. When searching a specific home, a potential lead has the option to contact the agent at any time by leaving their name, email and phone number. They can also request information specifically on an individual property. The Facbook IDX MLS home search does not force a user to register, thus making it very friendly to the person searching.

Another great benefit to this relatively new feature on Facebook is that all of a company’s information and culture is right there! Because a lead or potential lead is already on a given Facebook page, they can read about an agent, see their photos, read what other clients and friends are saying and get a good idea of what the agency or brokerage is all about. It makes for a very warm and fuzzy environment where there is no pressure.

Dynamic Page Solutions offers this unique Facebook feature for clients and non-clients. Call 888-782-8184 for a special introductory offer.

We’re living in an industry where indexable MLS listings –those that are visible to the search engines- are becoming frequently more common so I feel that it’s important to bring up the value of optimizing personal listings to maximize on this opportunity. I was recently looking at the details of a real estate agents personal listing and noticed the description contained a lot of abbreviations and agent jargon and thought that it was a shame that she had not written a better description for the prospective homebuyer and the search engines.

The description listed the bedrooms in an abbreviated format and ran abbreviations together so it wasn’t easy to read and even though the search engines are very good at picking up on words, the details were pretty much an undecipherable jumble. Maybe agents don’t realize the value of an indexable IDX or how using a technology that allows listings to be indexed can bring search engine traffic…and therefore transactions! Even if you don’t use an indexable real estate technology as an individual, writing a meticulous detail page will help you to market your clients’ homes to the utmost advantage on the Internet.

You don’t need to be an editorial superstar to do this. Just assess the home and describe it as generously as possible. This doesn’t mean you have to lie about the condition of the home if it’s not great –pictures will betray you- but you should do your best to point out the good qualities…think like an investor. Use keywords that you know will capture their attention.  If the home is a wreck, use keywords like fixer-upper, investment property or investment opportunity. Is the home a super deal? Try keywords like affordable and bargain priced. Finally, although your client might cringe… cheap is a fantastic keyword that gets a lot of traffic and it’s all about selling the home right?

If you’re fortunate enough to secure an upscale listing, use keywords that have the best chance of capturing consumer search engine traffic. Does the home have a view of a mountain range? Name the range in the listing details – yes people actually search using these kinds of keywords and I have the Google Analytics to prove it over and over again. Is the pool custom? Describe it in detail, down to the mosaic artwork and fountain addition. Stainless steel appliances-you’d better list that! Any green features? Use brand names. Peel it like an onion. The most unusual search term that I’ve seen a homebuyer use to find one of our agent sites was “brushed nickel faucets.” This is the power of the long tail keyword advantage. That was actually very important to the consumer and we offered the IDX that captured that homebuyer simply because our pages are search engine optimized.

So, the takeaway is to start thinking like a homebuyer instead of a real estate agent. Be conscious of how the buyer thinks and definitely roll with the times. Affordable is relative to the market and the area where the home is, so don’t be afraid to use it as a keyword. Short Sales and Foreclosures are the flavor the market so keep that in mind when writing the details. If a homebuyer has been looking for some time, the fact that your listing does not fall under this category may be very attractive, so expand on that using a very detailed, keyword and synonym rich description. Successful listing agents are given more opportunities to continue being successful.

So Google announced that it is retiring real estate results in its Google Maps application effective February 10, 2011. Furthermore, it’s retiring the Google Base Data API on June 1, 2011 and replacing much of its functionality with new Shopping API’s…but not for real estate content providers (which are/were listing agents and brokers trying to market their listings on Google). While this may not mean much to a lot of real estate professionals that don’t realize the value of having their listings indexed on the search engines, those that do have expressed a lot of concern recently.

Dynamic Page Solutions has been offering a very robust indexable IDX solution for real estate since 2006 so even when Google announced that real estate listings would be available on Google Maps in mid 2009, we didn’t see much threat because the listings were not optimized to be found on any other factor than very specific location and for those that were searching for real estate via Google Maps. I believe the retirement of the Google Map real estate listings is an indication that the vast majority of people don’t search for real estate by map, (Google Maps anyway). Perhaps another factor that came into play with the demise of real estate listings on Google Maps is that the majority of people search via the Google search bar and do not necessary navigate from there to Google’s segmented results on their shopping, maps, images, news and more pages.

What is more interesting still (to me anyway) is the potential impact that the retirement of the Google Base API (which has been used by individuals to upload their listings to Google). Some of our clients have been concerned that this will have an impact on their traffic but I say, “not at all.” In fact, if Google is no longer offering the ability for agents and brokerages to upload listings directly into their databases, there is less competition for winning on long tail traffic, which, of course, is what Dynamic Page Solutions technology is all about.

I’m proud to say that DPS is still way ahead of the game of optimizing real estate listings because we segment the listings into multiple components based upon the many features that a property may have. We not only make listings visible to the search engines, we generate long tail data by doing this. So listings can be found by homebuyers based upon many aspects of their search style and while there may be a lot of upstart companies trying to do what we do…no one has been able to match our level of optimization yet. We play by Google’s rules and our customer’s websites are rewarded with placement for not just one listing, or a couple of keywords, but thousands.

So, our challenge moving forward as a company for our clients that have their website(s) populated with Google Base data (instead of MLS data which is the data we use for almost all customers) is to find an alternative source. We’ve been looking at a few options which will be an improvement on Google Base data because another key flaw in GB API data is that it was subject to inaccuracy and poor clarity, (in programmer’s terms, “garbage in, garbage out.”) Google’s decision has caused some initial panic, but I believe in the long term, emerging alternatives will be a better data source and offer better user experience overall.

Real estate agents have relied on their brokers and traditional marketing for too long and are in danger of losing ground to new agents that are paying attention to emerging technological advances in the industry. Many agents have ignored the trends or not understood how to engage their target market which has shifted to online search for all products including real estate. The Internet minded agent has a distinct advantage over those that hold on stubbornly to old marketing outlets such as print and magazine advertisements, or worse, do no marketing and expect leads to fall from the sky.

New Beginnings

2011 is the year to rethink your marketing strategy and embrace the concept of search engine marketing, (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO). Since most homebuyers are now using the Internet to not only find homes, but make contact with a real estate agent to represent their interests, it’s critical to utilize website technology that captures this buyer when they first begin to look.

 It can be overwhelming for agents to gauge what is most important when approaching SEO for real estate because there are truly hundreds of new products that are meant to engage the client once they’ve found the website, but do not provide any “teeth” to capture traffic from the search engines. IDX solutions that only feature sort and save features are still ultimately behind in keeping up with SEO because the MLS data held within most IDX’s cannot be indexed and used to drive search engine traffic to real estate agents’ personal websites.

Many real estate website providers have produced the ‘bling’ that keeps buyers on the site, but without ranking for keywords, the flash is literally lost on the web. Agents still have to drive their traffic via business cards or direct traffic from email signatures etc., versus capturing searches based upon property features. The fact is that most homebuyer’s search style is based upon very specific criteria and the search engines have no option (unless given one) to default to websites that have been online for a long time, regardless of the actual content. When a property’s features are search engine visible and the content (or listing agent remarks) is presented and optimized on indexable, individual pages… matches for specific searches can be made.

The real estate industry continues to suffer disproportionally compared to other industries, so, to not seek out and take advantage of top real estate technology could prove disastrous to many careers. It’s really a matter of pushing to be better than your competition. The Internet is currently proving to be the great equalizer because success on this medium is a matter of the most diligent and forward thinking individuals.