Both while you are creating real estate websites and while you are focusing on marketing them, one thing that you’ll want to pay careful attention to is the variety of services that you offer.

On one hand, that’s going to mean looking into options like home swapping or flat fee MLS as well as home valuations and showing tips. What that means is that, when you’re marketing your services you’re going to want to be able to make sure that those people who are looking for specific information are able to find it.

On the other, it’s going to mean making a commitment to knowing which services that you offer that you will be marketing online so that you can direct traffic to your website. Pay per click advertising campaigns, after all, are only as productive as they are well thought out and well-executed; the same - on a more general level - can be said for your real estate websites.

Regardless of which services you offer on your real estate websites and within your business, the only way to really get people interested is to give them the information that they need. And the only way to get them to pay attention once you put that information up on your real estate websites is to launch a great marketing campaign.

The services that you offer, after all, are the foundation of your success - both offline and on your real estate websites.

Direct mail, at first glance, seems to have little in common with online marketing. But that doesn’t mean that there are not some cross over points that are important to keep in mind when you’re taking your real estate business to the web.

1. Have a targeted message. When you’re sending just listed postcards to those in the neighborhood of a home, what you’re really saying is “If you know people who have expressed an interest in living nearby, have them give me a call.” When you’re marketing your real estate business online, try to focus on having a clear message.
2. Recognize that part of your goal is just to get your name out there. Sending just sold postcards in a direct mail campaign isn’t so much about telling people that there’s someone new in their neighborhood, it’s about getting the word out that regardless of what the market is like in your area you sold a home - it’s about letting folks know that, if they’re thinking about selling you’re there for them. This is a good thing to keep in mind when you’re designing web pages and writing blog posts.
3. Sometimes there’s going to be a need to use clear information, other times you’re going to want to be a bit vague to attract more attention. This is something to keep in mind when you’re creating pay per click campaigns. Just as you may send out a direct mail campaign to announce a homebuyers seminar, and when you do you’ll include the basics of what they’ll find without the specifics, when you launch a PPC campaign, you’ll need to know which information will bait people who are interested enough to act.

Those three tie-ins between direct mail and marketing your business online are meant to get you thinking: what other connections between the two do you see?

Search engine optimization is about far more than just the keywords that you use to market your real estate business and your real estate website: it’s about making sure that you’re following through with getting the search engine rankings that you need to attract visitors to your website.

On one hand, that means looking toward the right information - the details that will allow you to understand search algorithms from Google and the other search engines. On another, it means choosing to work with an SEO company that will focus on getting your site ranking legitimately, not using tactics that are as likely to get your site penalized as they are to promote it.

Search engine optimization, after all, isn’t just about getting rankings and making sure that prospective site visitors make it to your website: it’s about making sure that once they are at your site they can find what they are looking for. In other words, the number one position on Google isn’t going to mean anything if once someone visits your site they don’t stick around to learn more about your services.

That’s why content is an essential component of every search engine optimization strategy: it’s the content that helps you to get the word out about what you do and what you have to offer. It’s the content that explains the difference between you and your competitors.

Does that mean that you should banish keywords from your content, your title tags, your blog posts or anything else? Of course not, it just means that you should look at more than just keywords - focus on your content, that will help you to reach your goals.

When it comes to blog marketing for your real estate business, there’s one important lesson that you absolutely must learn: in order for your blog to be successful, you need to be sure that you know what type of reader you want to appeal to.

Start out by looking at the blogs that you read: why do you read them? Marketing blogs like this one are targeted towards real estate professionals who want to get ahead, take their websites to the next level and use them to attract buyers and sellers. Sure, a lot of the advice that you’ll find would be applicable to other businesses - rather than the phrase “real estate website,” consider “knitting studio website” and shift around specifics about the product - but we recognize who the members of our audience are and what they are looking for.

Simply put, when you read a blog on a regular basis, the key is that there’s information that you can put to work for you, information that’s geared towards you and your needs. If you’re writing a blog for those who are going to be moving into your area - if you want to be sure that you’re attracting people from other parts of the country to the neighborhoods where you sell homes, shouldn’t you be focusing on topics like relocating, the best features of the neighborhoods and some details about the services that you offer.

When it comes to blog marketing, your goal isn’t to attract readers who aren’t already thinking about your services to your website; you should be using your blog to speak to those who are already considering making the move.

Knowing which people you want to market your services to is always going to make your marketing materials stronger and more effective; why would it be any different for blog marketing?

It’s one thing to hire a web design firm when you are originally designing your real estate websites, however, when it comes to maintaining those sites, you’ll find that there are a lot of different options that are available to you.

First - and probably the most obvious option - you can maintain your real estate websites on your own. But, if you don’t have the time to make regular updates or you just don’t feel like it’s something that you want to do, it’s time to start looking at the other options that are going to be available to you.

As for those other options, one is to have your real estate assistant update the pages for you, another is to bring on an additional real estate assistant, even on a part time basis that can make sure that the job’s getting done. Not only can your assistant add new listings to your site, but also you can be sure that your web assistant is keeping your blog up to date.

On the other hand, you just might find that there are college students looking for internships or even high school students in the area who are looking for an after school job who have the tech know-how to keep your website up to date at a low cost in exchange for the experience.

Real estate websites are extremely effective marketing tools - at least when they are used well. The best way to make sure that your website is working for your real estate business is to keep it up to date.

There are countless strategies out there for using pay per click advertising - some of them are going to be far more effective than others - but then, that isn’t something that should come as a surprise. While having any pay per click advertising plan or strategy is better than not having one, there are some things that you must keep in mind.

Choose the right keywords.

Let’s say that your real estate business in located about an hour’s drive from a major city: do you really think that it would be a good idea to use the name of that city as a keyword in your PPC campaign? Of course not - even if you use it on the website, it isn’t the right spot to focus on.

Choose the right link.

Every great website has more than one page. If you’re targeting a PPC campaign towards those who are looking to buy homes in an area, make sure that you are not linking them through to a page on your real estate website that focuses on sellers; if they cannot find what they are looking for right away, chances are good that they will not stick around long.

Craft a great landing page.

When you’re using a pay per click campaign, whether you offer moving services or home listings, it’s essential to make sure that your landing pages offer the info that the site visitor is looking for, but there’s another thing that’s important to: encouraging a call to action.

When you start to create a great plan for your pay per click advertising campaign, those 3 elements at the priority, but they are not the only things that you need to keep in mind. Your PPC plan should also include:

• Your budget.
• A way to measure results.
• A back up plan: what small changes will you tweak if you don’t get the results you are looking for right away.
• An idea of whether or not you will manage the campaign yourself or if you want to work with someone who can manage it for you.
• Which search engine you’ll run your campaign through.
• How you will measure results.

If you have taken your real estate business online, chances are good that you’ve read more and a little bit about search engine optimization because, well, you want to be sure that you’re attracting attention to your website when people are searching for real estate in your area. Of course, a big part of search engine optimization comes down to the content on your site - the photos you use, your blog, tips and articles and virtual tours.

However, the virtual tours that you create for your real estate site and the properties that you’ve listed also can be used to draw traffic to your site in another way. Those virtual tours can be used on sites like YouTube along with information about your real estate market in the notes and keywords that you use to describe the video.

That way, those who enter search terms into YouTube looking for properties - those who are looking for vacation properties and want to see videos of an area, perhaps - will be able to locate the properties that you’re representing. And then, provided you add links back to your website you will also benefit from incoming links and search traffic that might not have found your site otherwise.

In other words, optimizing your site for the search engines isn’t just about the basic techniques that you read about; SEO is about looking for all of the tools that are available to help buyers and sellers to find your site and using them to the best of your ability.

(Source) Don’t spend a penny on advertising until you have a website that properly represents your company and clearly demonstrates your products and services. If you have a bad website then it will diminish all other efforts. A good website will index better in search engines, have more visitors and create tangible ROI. We are in the process of re-doing our . . . website right now, and we will probably have to do that again in another 6-12 months. The web is our front door and we need to keep a fresh coat of paint on it at all times.

Interestingly enough, this sentiment about the importance about having websites that are fresh, solid, interesting and regularly updated as the central focus of your online marketing campaign - while it is not specific to real estate websites - used a bit of language that folks in real estate will understand. Though not specifically stated the gist is this: your real estate website has to have curb appeal before you really start marketing the real estate products and services that you want to promote.

What can you do to create a site that will work as the central element of your online marketing campaigns?

• Fix what’s broken. If you walked into a seller’s home and the light switch in the living room, when flipped, turned off the light in the hall bathroom, you’d tell them to fix it. If your site has broken links, or a page title doesn’t have much to do with the page topic, fix it.
• Give the walls a fresh coat of paint. Unless your real estate website’s colors make reading the text difficult, this step has little to do with the color of your page; instead, it’s about the content. Make sure that you’re not getting sucked into gimmicks and trends with your content; provide visitors with the foundation that they need to make the info their own.
• Make it easy for visitors to get around. If you were holding an open house, you’d want to be sure that there weren’t rolls in the carpet and you’d want to create a steady flow from one room to the next in case it got crowded. A site map and your real estate website that makes it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for is a great idea.

When you focus on your real estate website and make an effort to look at your site from the outside in (just as you tell sellers to have a look at their home from the buyers’ perspective), you’ll find that all of your internet marketing is more successful.

When you make a commitment to local networking for your real estate company, you’ll find:

• that there are benefits to making connections with those in related industries
• that both you and those you’ve networked with benefit - if mortgage lenders refer clients to your real estate business, you win; if you refer buyers to a mortgage lender, they win
• connecting your advertising to their advertising builds website links

There are other benefits to local networking, but for the moment, let’s stop there. When you want to build your website’s popularity - and you want to make sure that when folks in your area are searching for a real estate agent they are able to find your site - incoming links are going to help a great deal.

Social marketing is a bit like using local networking to build some popularity for your site. Unlike link exchanges where you post someone’s link so that they’ll add yours to their website, social marketing includes using bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon where you can create a profile that links back to your site - to individual pages, to individual listings or blog posts. More importantly, it gives others a chance to add their comments as well.

When you take the time to network on social bookmarking sites (and even on sites like MySpace and Facebook), you’re able to reach out to those who may use your services - and to those who offer complimentary services - and to continue promoting your business.

Social marketing is a great way about getting the word out about what you do, however, it’s not a replacement for local networking - consider using it to supplement what you’re already doing (and make sure to get your contacts on board as well).

When you have one or more real estate websites, one of the most essential things is to keep the information that appears on that site up to date. There are two really, really good reasons for this.

1. When the information on your site is outdated, it’s going to look like you are either too busy to update your website or that you don’t use it to provide valuable information - both of which are turnoffs to your prospects.
2. When the info on your real estate websites is out of date, some site visitors may not believe that you have current information on the neighborhoods that interest them.

It’s for these reasons that others also suggest working with someone else who can keep the content on your site up to date. If you do not have the time to keep your site updated, if you have someone else managing it that lack of time won’t show, and information that visitors are looking for will be there.

In other words, when you want to be sure that visitors to your real estate website find a valuable resource, you’ll want to make sure that they are finding the details they need, that past information is archived so that if they are interested in looking at the trends they can follow them, and details about planned communities stay up to date.

When you make a commitment to attracting clients to your real estate website, don’t just settle for getting them there: make a commitment to getting them to keep coming back.

When you’re going to use blog marketing for your real estate business, there’s one big point that you’ll need to keep in mind: who are you writing your blog for?

Some real estate pros make a conscious choice to write their blogs toward their peer group - to talk about insights that they have into the business and to ask for feedback from other agents, brokers and investors, or to give advice to those who may want to go into the business.

Others make the conscious decision to write to those who are within their farm area who may be looking to buy or sell a property in the area to make sure that people know who they are and what they have to offer.

There are merits to both forms of real estate blog marketing; it all depends on what you hope to accomplish. Just keep in mind that if your goal is to reach out to prospective clients, you need to target your writing to them and not to other agents. Likewise, if your goals include getting feedback from other agents, don’t focus your writing on buying and selling tips.

In order to effectively market your business with a blog, you need to know who your market is and make sure that you are writing for that market.

Classified advertising can accomplish a number of things for your real estate business - the most notable of these, interestingly enough, isn’t helping you to sell homes. That’s right - classified advertising can be used for many different purposes including attracting visitors to your website and catching the eye of those who are looking just to see what’s out there.

On one hand, you’ll be able to look at newspaper and magazine ads:

(source)Buying newspaper classified ads is an expensive way to spread the word about whatever you’re promoting. But guess who reads the classifieds?

Reporters—lots of them. That’s where they find the low-hanging fruit in the form of clever, funny or unusual ads. With one or two phone calls, they can turn that ad into a free article.

That article may mean that you have everyone in town reading about something new that you’re doing with your real estate business - whether they’re finding out that you’re offering a discount to new sellers or preparing a class for first time home buyers. It may mean that different practices that you use in your business that set you apart are showcased, and prospective buyers and sellers will be given your company’s phone number and address or website information.

In other words, no matter which part of your real estate business you’re going to promote, you’ll want to be sure that you’re looking at every possible way of getting the word out and that includes classified advertising.

However, it’s important to look a little bit more closely at those options and to remember that sites like Craigslist will allow you to place classified ads online for no charge. If placing ads in your local paper can help to catch the eye of those who may be interested in your products and services, think about the advantages of adding a link to your website in an online classified? There’s less of a risk of typos, and plenty of readers will click through out of curiosity.

Direct mail has long been a staple of real estate marketing. It’s always been a way of reaching out to those who live near a property you’ve just listed so that you can help get them on board and talking with their friends and acquaintances who have wanted to live in the area. It’s always been a great way of reaching out to FSBO sellers to tell them more about the services you offer.

Email marketing - electronic direct mail, if you will - works in a very similar sort of way. With an email marketing campaign, you can be sure that the buyers you are working with receive an email - with photos and details - of properties that are similar to what they are looking for.

That sort of relevancy is key to effectively marketing with email: you need to be sure that your prospects and leads are receiving the information that will help them with their search for a home. When someone signs up for your mailing list, consider the confirmation page that they land on when they subscribe: let them choose which specific newsletters they will receive.

Once they’ve subscribed, send a clear welcome message that tells them exactly what they can expect to find. This will help you to develop a strong first impression - and from that point forward, you’ll want to be sure that you’re living up to that impression and building your relationship with them.

Whether you’re providing sellers’ tips, suggestions for buyers so that they can better identify what they want and need in a home or helping to keep investors posted about the market in your area, with an electronic newsletter that’s well-scheduled, detailed and relevant, you can be sure that you’ll get results comparable to those from traditional direct mail campaigns.

It used to be that real estate websites were able to be subtle: you could simply set them up and visitors would find them, get the information they were looking for (or not) and then move on to another site. These days, however, when most companies have a real estate website, you can’t rely on simply providing the information to be enough: you need to be able to get site visitors involved enough that they begin to interact with it.

Here are some suggestions for engaging your site traffic:

• Encourage comments and questions on your real estate blog. Your blog is more than just a marketing tool; it’s a place where you can ask for feedback and encourage those who visit the site to ask questions that they’re looking for answers to. When you encourage questions and feedback and respond to it, more visitors will keep coming back for more.




• Use photos and other visual elements to attract attract more interest to your site. On real estate websites, this is relatively simple because you have access to photos of the properties you’ve listed as well as photos from the MLS that you can use to show sellers what their photos should and should not show.




• Add videos to your real estate websites. Virtual tours of homes, visual presentations that help to show site visitors more about the things that they are looking for: short movies are extremely popular on the web - look at YouTube as an example. The visual element lets those who learn in a different way to get the information they need.




• Add podcasts to your real estate site. Podcasts can be downloaded from your site so that visitors can listen to them on their own time. They can also play them on the site to ensure that your prospects are able to access the information that they need in the for that’s right for them.

By adding interactive elements to your real estate websites, simply put, you’ll be able to draw the site visitors in - and that’s what will keep them coming back.

When you buy a list of leads for your direct mail campaign you’re able to target your mailings to a certain demographic. This is a good thing, as you know: if you’ve got listing for condos that are available, you’ll want to be sure that you’re sending just listed postcards to a specific target - baby boomers looking to downsize or young married couples looking for a first home, depending on the condominium. If you’ve got larger properties, you want to be sure that new listing information makes it into the hands of those families who need the space or to those who have the income to make purchasing the property more viable.

This is a benefit that a great deal of online marketing doesn’t afford you - yet. Writing a blog only for young couples who may be interested in purchasing a home doesn’t make sense if your goal is to work with a wide range of people - unless you keep multiple blogs. Placing online classified ads in Craigslist, for example, is likely not going to help you reach a broad group of users; because often the site doesn’t attract a broad demographic - and the group of people you’re trying to reach may not use the site.

Marketing on the web is important; it’s a vital part of getting the word out to a large number of prospective buyers and sellers. Email marketing allows you the most comparable benefit to direct mail because you can sort out your database if you have a fair amount of information about your subscribers. Direct mail lets you know that the leads you’re contacting are right for the properties, allowing you to be as specific as possible in your marketing campaigns.