A Home Trends/Market Watch report is a valuable tool to stay in touch with your prospects. These reports provide current market information about a specific community or zip code. Watch this video to learn how to easily subscribe a client to a Market Watch report.
Creative Ideas for Driving Traffic to Your Site
Build it and they will come.
...well, not really. A website that remains stagnant (regardless of how great it looks) is nothing more than a glorified business card. In order to start getting recognized in organic search engine results, it's important for you to remain vigilant, promote your site, and add new content on a regular basis. We will do our part by providing solid education and support, but it's important for you to remain part of the process by adding custom content and finding creative ways to drive web traffic to your website. After working with hundreds of real estate agents, we have learned a thing or two. Our staff has compiled a list of awesome and creative ways that can help you bring visitors to your website. As always, it’s really important for you to have great content in order to keep visitors on your site and convert them into solid leads and ultimately sales!
- Sponsor a coloring contest. Post a coloring sheet on your website, advertise to your engageRE contacts, and offer a gift card to the winner.
- Sponsor a small scholarship for a local college. Ask the college to provide a link on their website to your website site (having a “.edu” incoming link to your site is a bonus!).
- Have a monthly raffle drawing for home décor/fun new items.
- Offer a raffle for local baked goods: hand deliver the goodies to the winner.
- Sponsor a contest or raffle offering tickets to a popular community event (theater, ballet, concert, etc).
- Partner with a local animal shelter to sponsor a pet naming contest. For every entry, donate a small amount ($1 - $5) to the shelter. The winner of the pet naming contest gets bragging rights, and the shelter gets publicity and a small donation.
- Promote a $100 gift card giveaway. Add a button that links to the registration form, and draw one name per month from those who register (may be MLS or region dependent).
- Offer a $5 Starbucks gift card for everyone who registers on your site (may be MLS or region dependent).
- Partner with other agents who reside in a “vacation” location – promote each other’s listings.
- Offer weekly contests geared towards prominent sports teams and offer game-day giveaways (tickets, memorabilia, etc.).
- Post a photo each month of a location within your market area – visitors register to guess where it is, those that are correct could be entered into a prize drawing.
- Link all of your social media accounts to your site, and be sure to post things frequently and consistently. Don’t post too often – once or twice a week is ideal. Post new listings, open houses, or simply thanking everyone for their support. This would also be a great place to announce new contests or giveaways.
- Sponsor a local recreational youth sports team. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have all of the spectators see your brand on the back of those uniforms?
- Advertise your website in local media such as newspaper, magazine, or radio.
- Offer a raffle for a locally sponsored restaurant.
- Join a local business association. Many of these will offer a directory on their website that will link to your site. Examples: local Chamber of Commerce, Visitor’s Bureau, Rotary Club, etc.
- Offer for a discount on home staging.
- Develop a top-notch buying/selling guide. Advertise it on your social media sites. Set up a Squeeze Page on your website that requires someone to register to receive the document via email.
- Above all, don’t forget about traditional marketing methods such as local advertising, flyers, signage, etc.
- Have a door-to-door campaign with a small gift and flyer advertising your website.
Awesome Content Ideas for Your Website!
Having good content on your site is important for several reasons. If done correctly, custom content can provide rich keywords for search engines to index and rank your site. Another reason to add content to your site is to add value for consumers. Most real estate websites have access to the same MLS content which means that consumers can find homes for sale on many websites. What can you add to your website that will make it stand out from the crowd and entice web visitors to spend time on your site, register, and ultimately convert into a sale? After looking at hundreds of website, our staff has compiled a list of awesome content ideas. Remember that search engines love unique content, so take the time to write your own articles. Stick to what you know, and of course, what you love!
- Discuss how to prepare your pets and/or kids for a move (common problems, helpful tips, etc.)
- Add photos with captions for each community/SEO landing page.
- Highlight your personal charities with logos. Offer to make a donation to the charity of a client’s choosing at time of closing.
- Add a custom community page with links to local schools, businesses, and places of interest.
- Add a page that caters to Service members: include branch of service insignia to attract and appeal to comrades. Add content specific to the needs of military personnel.
- Office websites – write about internal contests or events happening in the office. Use this to encourage agents in the office to become more involved in local community events, clubs, and charities.
- Add a city landing page with links to neighborhood/condo searches.
- Highlight real estate market updates.
- Create a page dedicated to local sports teams in your area.
- Add a page dedicated to the history of the your primary market area (may also include searches for homes in historic districts).
- Create a page with a buyers list in order to match buyers with sellers.
- Include college affiliations to attract/appeal to fellow graduates and millenials.
- Focus on one specific demographic group. For example, you may have a page dedicated to the needs of physicans with searchs around the local hospitals.
- Add a page dedicated to a special niche such as historical homes, golf courses, lakefront communities, etc.
- Include Agent Insight widgets on SEO search pages.
- Add a page that highlights fun things to do in the area or unique facts about your community.
- Participate in local community activities in your area and post information/photos about those events.
- Consider adding custom videos to your community landing pages. This could be as simple as you talking about the community or offering a driving tour.
- List your top ten favorite restaurants in town and why you like each of them. Try to talk about restaurants off the beaten path.
- Include floor plans for popular new construction communities.
- Add a page for neighborhoods with parks (could include SEO searches for homes in those neighborhoods).
- Add a custom page with a list of frequently asked questions that agents get asked by their customers.
- Add a short, unique paragraph to an SEO search that describes the community in your own words. Borrow facts from another site if necessary, but write the content using your own words.
- Create custom content based on the customer’s buying cycle: dreaming, initiating, shopping, negotiating, transacting, owning.
- Use video! Interview some of your local politicians and/or restaurant owners and find places to highlight them on your website.
- Create a page that uses humor to discuss the do’s and dont’s of home buying. Use your own experiences with clients (sometimes you just can’t make these things up!).
- Write an article about the places in your community that offer live music, especially those that are free to the public.
- Consider adding a “Just for Kids” page that has fun games and links to local youth activities.
- Create a page dedicated to the local schools – highlight achievements such as championship games, local clubs, or academic excellence. Include property searches for each school.
- Customize your profile page. In addition to adding your certifications, make it personal. Talk about why you love selling real estate in your community.
- Add a Google calendar showing events being hosted or attended.
Promote Your Site!!
Now that you've got a top-notch customized website, you may be asking yourself, "what's next?" You have this great new website along with an enhanced image that is promoting your personal brand intended to convince potential clients to choose you as their real estate agent. In addition to SEO enhancements, there are many steps you can take to drive traffic to your site.
- Use engageRE email tools to promote yourself and your website and drive traffic to your website. engageRE tools that help drive traffic to your site include importing your contact list into engageRE in order to send monthly email newsletters, setting up HomeFinder alerts for your contacts and prospects based on their stated preferences or search patterns, and sending personal emails or other campaigns, such as an upgraded site launch announcement and new customer welcome emails.
- Another good business tool, Moz Local, can be accessed at moz.com/local. Moz Local can show you the local online directories where you are listed as well as those where you are not. This gives you an opportunity to add yourself to directories you think will be of benefit to your business. In order to access Moz Local's free service, click on Check my Listing Score from the home page. To get started, simply enter your Business Name and Zip code, then click on Check My Listing.
- Register on Google My Business in order to get better visibility in local search.
- Branding yourself online may be one of the most important things a real estate agent can do. If you have not already done so, purchase a domain name that is relevant to your business. If you have purchased more than one, for SEO reasons, we recommend that you have all of your web traffic pointing to one domain and all other domains redirecting to this primary branded domain. Once you have purchased your new domain name, review our Setting Up a Custom Domain Name video to point your domain to your engageRE website.
- Trade links to your site with local vendors in the area and RE/MAX affiliates around the country in order to build more links to your website and increase your reputation with Google.
- Use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets to engage your customers and prospects and drive traffic to your site. The use of social media through accounts that link to your personal website is very beneficial to your site's visibility in search engines
- If you have not already done so, include a link to your website in your standard email signature and on your business card.
- Promote your website through traditional marketing efforts like having a magnetic sign on your car that includes your website address and including your website on all printed promotional materials.
These promotional suggestions will also help you most effectively get your website in front of as many current, past, and prospective customers as possible. This is vital in order to make your online marketing strategy more effective so you can get the most out of your website.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss our service, please contact our support team.
Related Articles:
Awesome Content Ideas for Your Website!
Creative Ideas for Driving Traffic to Your Site
Getting the Most out of Your Website (webinar)
Custom Domain 101
Setting Up A Custom Domain Name (video)
Should I purchase more than one domain name for my website?
Should I Have More Than One Website?