Real Estate Website Marketing

The term real estate website marketing refers to the process of using your website to promote listings, attract new clients, and gain business exposure online. It is a component of Internet marketing (a broader topic) but primarily involves those actions taken on your actual website. It includes such things as lead generation, search engine optimization, website design and content, and more.

The Goals of Web Marketing

There are typically three goals of a real estate web marketing program. In most cases, the primary goal is to produce inquiries from prospective clients. In other words, to get buyers and/or sellers to contact you about your real estate services. From a website marketing perspective, this is the ideal goal because it brings business (in the form of clients) with minimal effort.

Lead generation is a secondary goal related to the first one. Here, the agent is trying to capture leads (names and contact information) through the real estate website for follow-up purposes later on. We will talk more about this later on, when we discuss the components of a website marketing campaign.

Promoting property listings is another common goal of a real estate web marketing program. Here, the agent is trying to put his or her listings in front of the largest audience possible, in an effort to drive sales. The Internet is a useful tool for this purpose, because it can help you tap into a large market of potential buyers.

Key Components of Website Marketing

As mentioned earlier, Internet marketing is a broad term that includes many techniques and strategies, while website marketing refers to those actions taken on your actual real estate site. Here are some of the primary "ingredients" you can use to grow your real estate web marketing program:

  • Website Design — The layout and appearance of your website has a direct bearing on your overall web marketing success. If your site is poorly designed, visitors will have a hard time navigating through it. On the other hand, a well-designed site makes the visitors job easier and therefore leads to more inquiries and overall website marketing success.
  • Website Content — Within the context of real estate web marketing, "content" refers to the information presented on your website. This includes articles for buyers and sellers, property listings with photos, virtual tours, and other items used to inform your website visitors. The quality of your web content has directly impacts the success of your website marketing program.
  • Search Engine Visibility - There are thousands of real estate websites online today. Even within your particular city or town, there are probably hundreds of agents competing for "web space." This is why it's important to have good search engine ranking / visibility. It will increase the amount of traffic to your site, which will in turn increase your web marketing success in general.
  • Lead Generation - All the web traffic in the world does you little god until you convert visitors into leads. This is a critical (but often overlooked) step in a real estate website marketing program. You must use a variety of lead generation techniques to get your website visitors to contact you in some way.

These are the primary components you should have in place to achieve the best results with your web marketing campaign. In other areas of this website, we will examine the topics listed above in much greater detail.

A Word About Real Estate Web Designers

If you're planning to have a web designer create your site, keep one thing in mind: Most designers know little or nothing about the marketing aspect of websites. They know about colors, layouts, and the coding behind those colors and layouts. But most don't know how to write web copy that motivates readers. Nor do they understand the finer points of an effective call-to-action. They know how to design websites — they don't necessarily know how to design them to sell.

Nor would I expect them to know these things. I expect designers to be great at designing websites. I don't expect them to be web-marketing gurus. The two disciplines are entirely separate, and both take a great deal of training and practice.

In other words, it would be far better to work with a great web designer and a great web marketer than with one person who does each of these things halfway.

I can't tell you how many attractive sites I've visited that did virtually nothing to (A) capture leads, (B) motivate the reader, or (C) generate any form of response.

So when working with a designer, keep in mind you'll still be responsible for the content of your website. You'll need to make sure your website does more than just sparkle.