Search Engine Optimization For Realtors
January 18, 2007 No Comments
For years REALTORS have marketed their services to potential clients in ways that currently achieve a very low return on investment. Mass mailings typically end up in the trash, Billboards are driven by at 50 to 60 miles per hour, News Paper ads are like hunting for a needle in a haystack and the list goes on. It’s time for REALTORS to put a portion of their advertising budget towards the area that can obtain the largest return on investment, their Website. Studies have shown that approximately 82 percent of all buyers begin their search for a home on the internet.
In today’s real estate environment, technology has come to play an ever increasing part of the equation. Every REALTOR can claim they have a web site however only a very small percentage can claim they actually generate any business from it. Most of the sites are piggybacked on the broker’s office site and are nowhere to be found in the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo or MSN. Why would this be? The answer is simple; nothing has been done to optimize the site for the search engines. The default content placed on the site by the host is the only content that appears. This is also the case with many agents who have contracted with outside sources to host a website.
REALTORS need to be exposed to a whole new set of terms. Links are not where you play golf but how to navigate from page to page on a site and link popularity is not how much you enjoy a course. PR is not public relations or a press release and what in the world is Page Rank?
The problem is that REALTORS are licensed and trained to sell real estate, not become search engine optimization gurus. What REALTORS need is a basic understanding of what to do to help their site become recognized and have it presented in layman’s terms that are easily understandable.
Several Atlanta real estate brokers have recognized the importance of offering additional training to their agents in this field. Sharon Dover of RE/MAX Around Atlanta Partners in Duluth, Angie Mezza of Virtual Properties Realty in Duluth, and Michele Shoda of Solid Source Realty in Roswell have made a commitment to help their agents overcome the “Lost in Cyberspace” dilemma. The class is taught by a REALTOR who has been there, done that and didn’t get the t-shirt, that was until the proper optimization techniques were implemented on his site.
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