The marketing of your web site is the most important element in it's design and implementation. Your goal after all is to get visitors and to entice those visitors to contact you. Once you have their names, email addresses and telephone numbers you can start a working relationship, leading towards a closed sale and another happy client. Our senior consultant has practiced what we preach. As a former RealtorŪ with a very successful web site he knows exactly what is required to achieve a successful Internet presence. We use this knowledge to help you succeed at internet marketing.

Fact 1 - Scary Statistics

Less than 40% (as of October 2003) of all RealtorsŪ currently have a web site with it's own domain name that can easily be found on the Internet. Of this tiny percentage less than 1% have actually taken the necessary steps to put their site on the radar screens of the majority of general public. There are a large number of agents who have chosen to take a low profile on the Internet, we don't think they really intended this, they just made decisions without having all the necessary facts. For you this is actually good news, your competition is still minimal on the web today. With over 70% of buyers using the Internet to find a home it's comforting to know you have the opportunity to be amongst the 0.5% of agents they will find.


Fact 2 - Turning Strangers in to "Hot Leads"

The vast majority of visitors to the web use search engines to find sites. If you are not registered, and rank well, with the important search engines your web traffic will be limited to those who see your personal marketing material. The primary concept of internet marketing is based on the premise of introducing yourself to strangers and turning them into clients. If you can only be found by people with your business card or other forms of personal marketing material you are only reaching a tiny percentage of your prospective clients.

Fact 3 - What are people looking for?

It is difficult to convert a stranger into a "Hot Lead" unless you understand what that visitor is looking for. Here's the bad news - only a tiny percentage are looking for a RealtorŪ! The vast majority (95%) are looking for a new home, some are looking for a RealtorŪ with a good web presence who they can work with to sell their current property, and some of your visitors will be other agents looking to place referrals in different parts of the country. Ultimately your success will depend on satisfying these requirements - We build sites with this important information in mind.


Fact 4 - How to turn a site visitor into a working relationship

Now you know what your web site visitors are looking for it's a lot easier to convince them you have what they need. The number one inquiry you will receive is from people looking to buy a home, this maybe only a few miles from their current location or across the other side of the country, occasionally from a different continent.

All of our web sites allow you to present your own listings. However, the odds are, even for a top listing agent, that the prospect will want additional choices. Our web sites allow visitors to search the majority of homes on the market in your marketing area by incorporating IDX which allows you to present all listings from all brokerages. We then provide a form that allows prospects to contact you to arrange a showing or request additional information.

A large proportion of home buyer's actually decide that if they are going to work with a RealtorŪ they will ask the RealtorŪ to perform a search for them. We provide a "Dream Home Finder" service that allows the visitor to specify their requirements - It is then delivered to you via email within a few minutes. You now have their contact information and can build a working relationship.


Fact 5 - Importance of being first

When marketing on the internet it is important you achieve a high visibility. It is not critical you are ranked number one on every search engine using every search term, however it is important you are ranked in the top ten and preferably the top 5 on those search terms appropriate to your marketing area.

No one can guarantee you will be number one in all the search engines with all the possible search terms - if they do, don't listen - you would actually need hundreds of different web sites all optimized for different search terms to even come close to achieving this goal.

If your site maintains a top ranking position using search terms appropriate to your area you will get visitors. Our sites achieve that high level of visibility through our promotion services.

Fact 6 - Importance of being different

How do you select a service or product when shopping? If someone presents you with 20 web sites which all look the same the decision is going to be difficult. If you want to create an impression on your visitors and prospects you must show originality. The same 3 pages presented in the same colors with minor changes to the same content information isn't going to sell anyone! It is important you are marketed as an individual. Everything on your web site says something about you, the color, the layout style, the ease of navigation and the content. If you want to sell yourself as another RealtorŪ who selected a standard web page within a Real Estate "mega-site" you already know where to go. If you want to be different, interesting and promote yourself as an individual who has made the effort to have a web site developed that reflects their personality you should be working with us.

Fact 7 - Importance of being last

We can't guarantee your site will be the first a visitor finds, however we work hard to ensure it is, and even harder to ensure it's the last one they need to visit. Once a prospect finds your site you should have sufficient content to satisfy their requirements. If you achieve this goal they have no incentive to continue searching the net, and you have a new client!

For this reason our starter package, "Silver Service", offers a minimum of 9 pages of content, our "Gold" package offers 13 pages, and "Platinum" sites can often go over 100 pages of important real estate related information. Your Internet prospects will have everything they need at your site, and no incentive to look for another.



Fact 8 - KISS

Keep It Simple - The single biggest mistake RealtorsŪ make when selecting or contributing to the design of a web site is the "Simplicity Factor", they fail to Stay Focused on the target of generating leads.

Prospects will warm to an easy to navigate site that delivers the information they are looking for. They probably got to your site because they were looking for a home to purchase, they are not there to find the weather forecast, the local TV listings, they are not planning to use your Real Estate site as a replacement portal for Yahoo! or as a site on which they can play games. By putting all of this "junk" in the way of their original reason for visiting your site you can only alienate the prospect and most probably cause them to leave.

Real Estate web sites attract people who are looking to move....Keep the site focused on the subject matter and prospects will show their appreciation by contacting you.





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This web site was last updated on: Friday, May 9, 2008