Ready to start marketing yourself as a Realtor? Or have been around for a while?
Either way, we have a 10 point checklist for you to follow to properly market yourself.
STEP ONE: SET UP A FEATURED LISTING LANDING PAGE
This means that you have a page on your website dedicated to featured listing. A dedicated landing page will keep people on your site for a longer time. This will help with SEO. The longer people stay on your site – the more likely they are to reach out to you for help with buying or selling their home.
This type of content is considered prime content because it covers the information that home buyers and sellers are most interested in. A few tips that will get you great results are to include the full property address in the page title and URL, and to feature your professional listing photos prominently.
If you have a website and you already have a section for “Featured Listings” break it down one step further and make sure every home has their own landing page. That way, when you want to talk about one specific home, you can send traffic to that specific page.
STEP TWO: LABEL ALL YOUR IMAGES (NAME THEM)
Before, the only thing you had to do was make sure Google liked what you were doing. Now, you have to use specific language Google (the search engine) will like. But also, you need to make sure you are using language and words people will be using to find you.
Google considers photos to be high quality content. Google and other search engines favour websites with a lot of images over sites that are mostly text-based. So, when you get the photos of your listing back from your photographer, or if you upload your images yourself, you’ll need to take a few moments and rename each in the following format:
[property address ] – [descriptor]This is done so that Google understands what the photo is. Include the full address and a descriptor such as kitchen, exterior, or dining room to get the best results. Remember, you need to name the photos this way before you upload them to your website; in other words, the actual file needs to be named.
STEP THREE: CREATE A VIDEO
Video in general is also considered high quality content, so Google places particular importance on videos and will rank results accordingly.
The good news is that Google doesn’t necessarily care about how the video was created. That’s why shaky iPhone videos are as likely to go viral as a professional grade commercial! GoodLife Realty is currently using the listing photos to create a video slideshow, as another example. The point is that if you have a video of some kind related to your listing, and you post it online before the portals can get the information, your chances of ranking above them are exponentially increased.
On the next page, you can see an example of a video that would make quality content if applied to a listing. Remember to include the full property address in the description wherever you decide to post the completed product!
STEP FOUR: JUST LISTED (ORGANIC POSTS, MAILING LIST and PAID ADS)
Posting a “Just Listed” post on Facebook as an ad campaign is an inexpensive but incredibly effective marketing effort. This type of campaign also has the added benefit of appeasing your seller: with the insights function of Facebook, you can show how many clicks and impressions and general interest that the ad is creating for your listing.
Moreover, you can also duplicate the Just Listed ad and change the wording (think setting up a template) to use for all Just Listed ads.
Setting up a Facebook ad the first time can be difficult, so we’ve made it as easy for you as possible. Click here to follow along.
Format your announcement in your emailing platform, and send it out to those contacts in your database who you think would be most interested to learn about the property.
You’ll want to be selective about who you blast with these updates, however, as you don’t want to fatigue your list. Also, you’ll have the opportunity to tell everyone about the home when you send out your monthly newsletter.
STEP FIVE: OPEN HOUSE CAMPAIGNS
You shouldn’t hold an open house for your listing until you get it staged and on the MLS, but if all your ducks are in a row, you’ll be able to advertise the event on Facebook well before it happens to strengthen your website’s position as the authority on the property.
An Open House campaign calls for you to create a Facebook event, but don’t be discouraged if people don’t RSVP online. In our time using them at our brokerage, these types of ads actually result in more publicity for opens than before, and they further generate traffic to our website.
Remember, the more clicks you can get to the listing page on your site, the better lead generation power you accumulate!
Post this on all platforms:
Google +
and Make sure you include You Tube
THE END RESULT: GENERATE TRAFFIC AND LEADS
The goal of this strategy is to drive as much traffic as you can to the listing page on your website prior to the property being officially listed in the MLS. This will give your site an early advantage in Google’s indexing of information about that home, which will reward your page by having it show up higher in search engine results.