Driving Traffic to Your Real Estate Web Site

Driving Traffic to Your Real Estate Web Site
By Larry Goins
Once you have a web site to tell the world about all your great real estate deals, you need buyers visiting and bookmarking your site. Unlike the “Field of Dreams” where if you build it they will come, your real estate web site needs traffic or visitors to sell properties.
Even if you have the best buys on the market, if potential buyers and investors can’t find your web site, then they can’t buy your properties. Let’s look at the tools that you will need to drive targeted, buying traffic to your web site.
Over time, if your web site has quality content (see my article on Attracting Prospects and Leads to Your Real Estate Web Site for design tips) you will rank well in the search engines for keyword phrases like “investment property for sale” or “homes for sale in (your geographic location)”. But when you first launch your web site, you will need to utilize additional tools until you have good natural organic search engine traffic. More on that in a minute.
If you do not yet have a real estate web site, check out the great tool available from my buddy Rob Yaggie at http://www.UltimateInternet MarketingMachine.com/.
Until you have good organic search engine traffic from natural rankings for relevant keywords, these tools can help you drive more traffic to your real estate web site. Nothing is more frustrating than to launch a web site and then have no one visit it.
Signage, Flyers, and Business Cards
It goes without saying that everything that leaves your office should have your web site address or URL printed clearly on it. Every sign, flyer, business card, post card, and ad should have your web address and a little blurb about your site. Using the site above as an example, the blurb might read, “Hot web sites for marketing cool real estate deals online 24/7”. This is the least expensive form of web marketing available to you and is still very effective. A lead might look at your business card or a post card at 11 PM at night and think it’s too late to call you about a property. But they can go to your web site and see everything that you have available even when you aren’t working. Your web site works twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
Article Writing
The next least expensive way to drive traffic to your real estate web site is by writing articles and publishing them on article directories for other publishers. Be sure to publish them on your web site as well. If you are the realtor of choice in a specific geographic area article writing can help to brand you and drive traffic to your website just by telling people how great your geographic area is. If you are the go to guy for short sales or foreclosures, then use that area of expertise to drive traffic to your web site by writing and publishing articles. It doesn’t cost a penny except for your time and articles work round the clock for your business, too.
You can submit articles to sites like www.ArticlesFactory.com or www.ArticleDashboard.com or www.ArticleDirectory.com
Organic Search Engine Hits
Being on page one of a search at Google or Yahoo when someone is looking for properties like you have to offer is the best way to get traffic to your web site. Scoring those rankings is a tricky combination of successful keyword optimization, web site traffic history, web site age, inbound and outbound linking strategies, and quality of content. If you are continually building a quality website with relevant content, you can look forward to natural or organic search engine hits in your site’s future. A well built web site will ultimately get the bulk of its hits or visitors from organic search engine hits.
Local Newspaper Advertorials
Don’t be afraid to promote yourself and toot your own horn. Get to know some writers and editors at your local newspaper and write an advertorial about a subject of interest, tying it back to your web site. If there is a tremendous amount of foreclosures in your area or a large amount of for sale by owners, write about it and link back to your web site with a little teaser of information about how you will be offering great properties, too.
Banner Exchanges
When you are in contact with other business owners in your area who have web sites, ask about exchanging links or banners to each other’s web sites. Especially business owners who are also working with homeowners. For example, furniture stores, contractors, painters, interior decorators, landscapers, and driveway pavers. You might further assist this link building partnership by posting on your website a list of general and specialized contractors who do work for you on your properties that you would recommend.
Hold a Giveaway On Your Site
Everybody loves to get something for nothing. A giveaway is a great way to attract people to your web site. You don’t have to give away the farm. You can offer a free e-book, free home seller consultation, or anything else that would be of interest to the same people who would be interested in the real estate that you have to offer. You could even connect with your local Welcome Wagon representative or co-launch a giveaway with several local businesses to up the prize ante. Make sure that you structure your giveaway so as to build your list. If people are picking up a free item or registering to win an item require them to register with their contact information so that you can continue to market to them in the future.
Work Your Mailing List
Any time that you have a giveaway, or attend a chamber meeting or network you want to be building your own internal mailing list. The list, especially if it contains email addresses, is a no cost marketing tool. You can send your articles to your list, your new properties, or even great information about what is going on in your area. Every time that you mail or email your list, be sure to include a link to your web site. If you want to be sure that people visit yoursite as a result of the mailing, you might want to only include a small blurb or teaser to the entire content that will be on your web site.
Pay Per Click Campaigns
Pay per click campaigns generate your ads on the top of search engine results pages for relevant keywords. When an internet user types in a keyword or words you have bid upon, your link is displayed at the top or right hand side of the page. It almost appears to be a regular search engine ranking result. Almost. It is actually a paid advertisement. If the searcher clicks on your advertisement, you pay per click. The rates vary greatly depending upon the competitiveness of the keywords chosen but if you are only competing with local realtors then the prices shouldn’t be too high. It’s not actually as expensive as you might think and you can control your daily and monthly budgets accordingly.
Full Blown Marketing Campaign
If you are made of money, then this most expensive but highly effective web site traffic generating tactic might work well for you. The cost per lead is higher, but it can drive very targeted buying traffic. You can find companies that specialize in successful search engine optimization or search engine marketing campaigns by searching for them on Google or Yahoo. Look for one’s with previous experience working with realtors and real estate investors.
Tying It All Back Together
Owning a piece of internet real estate is just the first step into doing business on the internet or driving traffic to your web site to sell your properties. It’s a complicated beast and truly an anomaly unto itself. Juggling your property listings, your web site content, your lead capture forms, your SEO, your syndicating listings on other sites, and your internet advertising is no simple task. An integrated approach will drive more traffic to your web site and enable you to focus more time on locating deals to sell more properties.
Larry Goins