Hey! I'm Tyler with Easy Agent Pro! We provide top notch marketing content for realtors... And we do it for FREE! I get excited about sharing tactics and strategies that can be implemented TODAY.
What do the top 10 real estate websites know that you don’t?
In this blog post, I’m going to break down the biggest real estate websites into bite-sized marketing take-aways for agents. We’ll start by looking at how much traffic each of these top 10 real estate websites gets. And end by examining how they get those results.
For a real estate website that works as hard as you do, get a leadsite. Start getting real traffic, and drive your business forward.
At the end of each section, I’ll wrap things up by giving you a take away to improve your real estate website.
Remember that:
Steel Sharpens Steel
Like we talked about in our post on ‘The Best Presidential Candidate Websites’, you need to study GREAT websites to generate more leads from your own website. So today, we’ll be looking at the top 10 real estate websites. And they are:
When it comes to the top 10 real estate websites, they actually get dramatically different amounts of traffic. I’ve gone ahead and charted the data from these websites as provided by Similar Web.
Here is how the visitors to these websites stack up:
As you can see, Zillow has a huge lead on nearly everyone else. Zillow is getting nearly 164 million visits per month. We’ll break down exactly how they are getting this amount of traffic below.
But for now, just look at the differences between these top 10 real estate websites in terms of traffic.
It’ll help you understand how different things you do on your site improve or decrease the amount of traffic you end up getting.
The data:
Zillow: 164,100,000
Trulia: 63,200,000
KW: 3,000,000
Realtor: 56,200,000
Redfin: 23,700,000
Coldwell: 1,500,000
Homes.com: 16,900,000
REMAX: 5,800,000
Movoto: 6,800,000
Key Take Away
The top real estate websites obtain millions of visitors from your market every month. The traffic is out there. You just need to discover a way to access it.
Sources Of Traffic
Where do these people come from? And how we can reverse engineer the results?
The first thing we can learn from these massive real estate websites is where they get their traffic.
Let’s look at two different scenarios from our 120,000 visitors a month at Easy Agent Pro:
Traffic from social for a newer post
Traffic from Google for an older post
Do you see how the Google traffic escalates with time? And the social media traffic dies away with time?
This is a key difference in the rewards for certain types of marketing. If you focus on Google traffic, your website increases in value over time. If you focus on social media, the time you’ve spent decreases in value over time.
Now, let’s look at where most of these websites get their traffic from:
What you see here is that the majority of the traffic to these websites is not from social media or advertising…
They get their traffic from showing up in search results. And that’s really not a shock. Look at these results:
Dallas Real Estate
San Diego Real Estate
Orlando Real Estate
As you can see, Google rankings are the key to success for most of these big websites. They rely on this traffic source to maintain their advantage.
But how do they do this?
The next three points will show you how blogs, Google and Facebook play into getting this amount of traffic.
But it’s sufficient to say that you need to focus on Google and SEO to create a site that feeds you leads in the future.
Key Take Away
Social media gets you an initial traffic boost. But Google traffic sustains your site well into the future.
Do Blogs Matter?
How often do these sites publish blogs?
The first thing we learned from these websites is that they tend to focus on Google as a traffic source. And Google loves fresh content on websites.
It’s quite telling that all of these sites publish at least 2 blog posts per week on their sites. The bigger sites even publish more than 10 posts per week.
Here is an analysis of the number of blogs published per week:
As you can see, there is a very strong correlation between these sites publishing content and them getting traffic. The blogs act as a constant update to the website. And get a little bit of traffic from social media.
Additionally, blog posts are an excellent way to get traffic from Google keywords not related to looking at homes. For example, look at this keyword “first time home buyers guide”:
The Top Real Estate Websites realize that it’s the blogs that provide the initial inertia for their Google rankings. The thing is most agents will look at this and then despair. They’ll think, “I can’t blog that much!” And that’s fine if you can’t. You can actually purchase real estate blogs to supplement whatever you can do yourself.
Alternatively, with Leadsites, you get access to two blogs weekly you can use to drive traffic to your site.
Key Take Away
Blogging once per week is almost a requirement to get significant traffic from Google.
Google’s Still King
Here’s why…
What we saw above is that most of the Top 10 real estate websites get their traffic from Google.
And you may think:
“How can I compete with them in Google?”
There is actually a really easy way to compete with these big websites in Google. It’s called Keyword Stacking.
Here’s how it works:
When it comes to keyword stacking, you have to create a bunch of pages for super small keywords first. These can be areas like new home builder communities, or small neighborhood names. You typically can target things like condos or other words that haven’t quite made their way into the mainstream.
These words are easy to get on the first page of Google.
You need to target small keywords first. And then stack them on top of each other to compete with these top 10 real estate website. Done correctly, you can start to outrank some of these big sites within 6-12 months.
Ignore Facebook?
Let’s look at the Facebook pages of these major websites…
The thing with Facebook pages is that there is terrible engagement there these days. Yes, you need a Facebook page. But it’s there mostly for your advertising budget.
These websites use Facebook as an advertising tool primarily. You can see the 16 ads Zillow is running right here.
They don’t depend on their audience to engage with them in order for their business to succeed. They rely on Google to send traffic to their website.
If you focus on Google first and social media traffic second, you should see an exponential line of traffic growth start to appear on your real estate website.
Hopefully this analysis of the top 10 real estate websites has been helpful for you. And you’ve taken something away from it for your own website.
If you’re ready for a website that works as hard as you do – check out LeadSites. With a LeadSite, you can start putting your ideas into action and watch your business grow.
Want More Ideas About Real Estate Websites? Check Out These Articles:
Real Estate Lead Generation is a MONSTER topic in online.
Yes – we know. How to generate those sweet leads is what agents want to know. “Can I do real estate lead generation online” is the question we hear at EasyAgentPRO the most.
The answer is ‘Yes’ and this post will help you get started. So, we’re going to break down a major social media lean secret at the beginning and then lay out another 52 ideas that you can use on top of those.
Real Estate is a super competitive, tough industry.
Your competition is always growing and can steal business from you if you aren’t staying on top of your game.
We’ve tried to make it easy for you to plan your marketing efforts and dominate in your community. The first step to any sort of online Lead Generation in Real Estate is having a blog or website that is setup for success.
We make that easy with our LeadSites. These sites are setup to handle blogging, seo, social media, and more for you! They make it easy for you to manage your business and generate more leads.
HERE’S THE SUPER DUPER TOP SECRET MARKETING TECHNIQUE OF THE WEEK:
Generate Real Estate Leads Through LinkedIn Crawling
There is a cool feature on LinkedIn that is rarely used.
Have you ever gotten an email from LinkedIn with everyone who has viewed your profile in the past 7 days? You probably have. These emails go out weekly to everyone who’s signed up for Linkedin.
The best part? LinkedIn has a great target demographic.
Most of the individuals on there have professional careers and are likely home buyers and sellers.
What if your name and face could go out each and every week to individuals on LinkedIn?
Well, it can! I call this “LinkedIn Crawling” What is LinkedIn crawling you ask? Well it is where my computer automatically visits 400 profiles of target customers in one day. This means 400 people a day are notified that about me.
That’s 400 people that had no idea that I existed seeing my profile and maybe even my website.
That’s powerful.
But it doesn’t stop there. About 2-4% of these individuals will reach out and connect with you! I’ve seen this number get as high as 8%. The percentage really depends on the target audience you’re facing.
How do we generate real estate leads from LinkedIn crawling?
1. You need to use Google Chrome and download the extension “LinkClump”
2. You need to setup the extension to open up links in new tabs while holding the shift key
3. Head over to a LinkedIn group that has your target audience in it.
4. Go to the members section and drag your mouse over all the links while holding shift.
5. This will open up all their profiles. Now, you just have to do 10 more pages!
So what? How will this help generate leads?
Well, 400 people will see your name.
You should change your profile to invite people to connect with you. Also, I’d connect with people that just look back at your profile.
Finally, suggest getting coffee with every single person that connects with you via this method.
They already know you’re a Realtor. So just show up and have coffee with them.
You’ll add so many people to your rolodex this way!
Want More Ways To Generate Real Estate Leads?
Sometimes we just need a little inspiration to get our marketing going.
Here at Easy Agent Pro we are always brain storming marketing ideas. This LinkedIn method will generate real estate leads amazingly for you. But maybe you aren’t THAT comfortable with LinkedIn.
That’s ok.
We’ve made a list to help you ALWAYS have ideas at your disposal. You never know when you’ll need to generate real estate leads.
Theme your month’s marketing promotions around big events. (Examples: Breast Cancer Awareness, Presidents Day, ect)
Sponsor a class at an under-funded school.
Organize a group of business owners and hold a fundraiser.
Host a silent auction at a house and give the money to charity.
Start a Meetup.com group.
Start a LinkedIn group and post original thoughts in it daily with a minimum of 300 words.
Start blogging daily and challenge yourself to make each post better than the previous post.
Buy breakfast for the local firefighters.
And More
Organize a neighborhood safety awareness program.
End all of your cold calls asking people what you can do for them.
Post flyers on the doors of every house in the neighborhood.
Take a Breath – Now, Here are MORE Ideas
Take out an ad in the local newspaper.
Sponsor a teacher’s lounge food party on parent-teacher night.
Give away post-it’s with your name on it.
Hand out business cards wherever you go.
Hand out pens as well. These actually stay with people longer
Host a block party for locals.
Figure out how much an email address and phone number is worth to you. (marketing plan) And pass out gift cards in front of Home Depot for less than that number.
Use Bufferapp to schedule more social media posts.
Hold competitions on social media.
Start a social media channel based around houses in the area.
Generate Real Estate Leads by calling past clients for referrals.
And More
Speak at local high schools during career days.
Speak at local elementary schools and parents will see you. This helps generate real estate leads.
Help any college courses related to real estate.
For any of the above educational related activities, try to get a link to your website from theirs.
Record any speaking engagements and post it on youtube.
Not Done Yet – Even MORE Ideas
Build up backlinks to your website until you have a DA and PA of 30. This will generate real estate leads through search engines.
Hire cold callers off of oDesk to do calling for you.
Hire graphic designers off of Upwork to freshen up your website.
Have 1000 words of original and keyword optimized (I recommend 1% KW saturation) content on every page of your website.
Make more pages on your website and have each page target a different neighborhood nearby you.
Make helpful video content about buying homes in neighborhoods you service.
Make sure you are easily findable on all map applications. Search for yourself on Google Maps and Mapquest.
Sponsor a local soccer team.
Sponsor a local school music program.
Learn a new social network. Pick a network and spend 1 hour a day on it. Always ask, how can I provide value to get value.
Sponsor an animal shelter. People who buy pets usually fall into a similar demographic as home owners.
Co-brand with another local business owner.
Start an email marketing campaign and do not talk about real estate. Ever. Only offer free value to your subscribers.
Find an icon in the real estate world and copy their marketing
Getting Excited Yet? Just a few MORE Ideas
Start a local mastermind group about marketing.
Place your logo on your call and include your phone number to generate real estate leads.
Ask for referrals at least 7 times.
Market to friends and family. They love you and will support you.
Always provide value for free to anyone that will take it.
Post content on your blog whenever you can.
Answer the phone in a professional manner.
Generate Real Estate Leads through any of these methods. And you will be successful.
The key is to picking one method and seeing it through until it is profitable. It’s too easy as business owners to jump from one idea to the next. Focus is critical. Find success in one path and then build off of it during the next path.
Real Estate Marketing Ideas are so hard to come up with when things aren’t going your way. Maybe you’ve had a bad month. And are looking for ways to shake things up. This list will help get your juices flowing.
Don’t try to do everything on this list. Simply focus on doing what you do very well.
We’ve broken these down into “Traditional” and “Online” real estate marketing ideas. There are some sub-sections in each category as well.
Your marketing should never be ‘comfortable.’ Always look for ideas to grow what you are doing. Hopefully there will be a few things on this list of 200 real estate marketing ideas to spur you onward in your journey to be a better Realtor.
Here’s a quick video that explains how agents need to use all these real estate marketing ideas to form a better plan of attack:
Too often I see an agent pick up a marketing idea…take it for a test drive. And then stop.
That’s not how marketing works! Marketing works over time…with dedication to making the idea more effective.
These 200 marketing ideas should give you creative ways to grow your business. And unique insights for how to perform better in the long run.
What Are The 4 Ps of Marketing in Real Estate?
The 4 Ps of real estate marketing are highly revered principles. All successful real estate marketing strategies use these four approaches. They are the blueprint for developing an effective marketing campaign on social media platforms, blog posts, or virtual tours.
Property
The property is what is on offer. It goes beyond the physical property to specific features that potential buyers find appealing. A buyer may look for a four-bedroom home with a swimming pool. A unique feature is if you find them a home with an infinity pool or a spectacular oceanfront view. Real estate professionals make the home alluring for prospective buyers by finding these unique features of the property.
Promotion
Real estate marketing is not about scoring one deal and moving on to the next. It’s about using all your resources to expand your reach. Real estate professionals use offline and online channels to get the word out about a property. This strategy raises awareness where the target audience frequents.
An online marketing strategy entails using social media to gain a loyal following, show expertise in the field, and attract leads. Use tools available on your social media page to run paid ad campaigns, conduct virtual tours, communicate with potential buyers, and understand the needs and wants of prospective buyers. Your social media profile is ideally synonymous with real estate.
Blogs are another effective online platform to increase your reach. A website is an excellent place to show your portfolio and add content that shares your expertise and experience. Contribute to other property-related blogs to grow your brand. Use search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to increase the chances of the blogs getting found by the target audience. SEO tools include keywords, hyperlinks, frequent content creation, and adding pictures, videos, or infographics to content.
Price
The property value can make or break a real estate marketing strategy. Potential buyers can disappear without a trace If the price is too high. Examples of factors that determine a property’s price include:
Location – which state or county is the house located in?
Neighborhood – is the area and its environs safe? How close is it to amenities, shopping malls, and leisure areas? How is the school district? Are the people friendly?
Property condition – old houses tend to cost less. The property value can increase with kitchen and bathroom renovations.
Position or Placement
Position or placement in the real estate industry deals with ensuring advertisements and marketing campaigns reach potential buyers. Additionally, the target audience needs to find the ad trustworthy and informative. Make sure all the details are in the ad copy without sounding salesy. Capitalize on the property’s unique features and appealing price tag.
Should I Hire a Real Estate Marketer?
Hiring a real estate professional is an excellent option for property owners looking to sell. Selling property is hard work. You have to prep and stage it while actively looking for potential buyers. Your advertisement needs placement in the right location to attract potential buyers. Otherwise, all your marketing effort is a waste of time.
A real estate agent has the resources and experience to reach a wide target audience. Developing marketing strategies is a real estate professional’s strongest suit. They have a social media profile with prospective buyers, and their blogs generate tones of traffic and lead. Furthermore, they have a network of other real estate agents who can buy the listing. All you do is pay a small fee to get the property sold.
How to Build a Successful Real Estate Marketing Plan
A successful real estate marketing strategy utilizes the 4 Ps of real estate marketing.
Identify the Dynamics of the Property
Is the property an apartment, a townhouse, or a stand-alone house with a yard? Is it ideal for a single person or a family? Is it in the leafy suburbs or in an urban center? Consider the neighborhood, amenities, schools, safety, leisure activities, and other unique features like parks, transportation, animal-friendliness, and physical attributes. Such features give the property its unique selling points, making it marketable.
Identify the Target Audience
Once you know the nitty gritty of the property, it’s easy to know what demography may want to live in it. Develop a marketing strategy around potential buyers in this demography. If the target audience is college graduates, make the wording and features of the advertisement appealing to that demography.
Set a Budget for the Marketing Campaign
Designate money for your marketing strategy to avoid overspending.
Traditional Real Estate Marketing Ideas
Give Aways:
Pop-by
A great pop-by gift is a chocolate bar or a gift card. These types of random gifts gives you the ability to easily stop-by and visit someone without it being awkward. They are a great way to nurture a new relationship.
Offer free garage sale signs to neighbors in the spring. You can even collect them back and reuse them year after year. This will help out everyone in your neighborhood and easily get your name seen by many people.
Volunteer
This is a great way to meet new people. Be sure to start many conversations and talk about what you do. The best way to utilize this strategy is to attend regularly. Pick 1 or 2 organizations and commit to attending.
Keychain tags
This freebie is a fun way to keep your brand in front of many people for a low cost. Pass them out at a event you’re volunteering for or at conferences you attend.
Hold Contests
Contests are a great way to get information from a large swath of people. For added exposure, partner with another business in order to gain access to their customers.
Enter Contests
Entering contests gives you the chance to meet and talk with other business owners. It will also give you good ideas for how to run and market your own contests.
Give away freebies at open houses
Be sure to thank people for visiting your open house by giving them something to remember that property. Most people will visit multiple open houses. So make sure your freebie has your address on it.
Give free bonuses for an error you’ve made
Did you miss an appointment? Gift cards are a great way to apologize and show you care.
Thank you gifts
Thank you gifts are a good way to follow up unobtrusively with clients. This will out perform a lot of other real estate marketing ideas and help you stand out from the crowd.
Luxury box at events
You can invite friends and potential clients. The event provides a long time to bring up various business deals.
Calendar
Want to be in front of your clients all year round? Make a calendar that contains your business contact information. It’s a good idea to use pictures from you local community.
Pens, Pencils, and Writing Give-Aways
These simple give-aways are a must. They are very versatile and can be used in many situations.
Home Makeovers Give
Enter the people that give you referrals into a Room Makeover Lottery Pot. You can set the max budget for the room makeover, and you’ll instantly have a referral program that’s different than your competitions. You can also run a different type of contest where you award the person who has the best home makeover before and after photos with a gift card.
BONUS:
One of the best real estate marketing ideas is to have a solid, lead generating real estate website. If you haven’t seen them yet, check out LeadSites. These Realtor websites help you get more leads from EVERY marketing activity. Send out postcards? Awesome! These sites will help capture more leads from the visitors to your website.
Educational Real Estate Marketing Ideas:
Educational real estate marketing ideas are a great way to build your reputation in the community. It is also a good way to give back.
Host Seminars
Local seminars let you show off all the knowledge you’ve built up. They also are a good way to meet new people.
Speak At High Schools
Career days provide a good way to give back to your community.
Reach out to local college programs
College programs often hold career days and the local real estate courses might be interested in working together with you.
Radio Show
Radio shows constantly need content. If you have a good voice, you might be able to help them with a show segment.
Teach
Volunteer to teach anywhere. This will lead to meeting families and new contacts. You can really grow awareness of your real estate brand through consistent teaching.
Contact Grooming Real Estate Marketing Ideas:
Contact communication is the key to any successful real estate business. These ideas facilitate the process of following up with all your contacts. Use these ideas to expand what you currently do marketing wise. Make sure to integrate them into a regular program with your business. The regularity with which we complete a marketing idea is what makes it successful.
Reach Out To Contacts Daily.
Business Cards.
Wrap Your Car.
Commission Only Sales People.
Referral Program.
Get Your Number In Clients Phone.
Open House.
Door Flyers.
Door knocking.
Cold calling.
Make telephone calls.
Holiday Postcards.
Send out birthday cards.
Take a client out to lunch.
Throw a party for a client.
Ask for referrals.
Give referrals.
Follow up with referrals.
Follow up with clients after the sale.
Keep in touch with clients that move away.
Text messaging.
Advertising Real Estate Marketing Ideas:
Advertising real estate marketing ideas are less glamorous than digital ads. However, they still get your brand seen by a large number for a lower cost.
Local Newspaper Event Listings.
Chamber of Commerce Event Listings.
Write articles for community newsletters.
Write articles for business newsletters.
Direct Mail-Postcards.
Radio Advertising.
TV Advertising.
Newspaper Inserts.
Free ads in shoppers.
Outside signs.
Networking Real Estate Marketing Ideas:
Networking is essential to any marketing plan. Theses real estate marketing ideas focus on getting you in front of a lot of people. Be sure to have a follow up plan for after you meet them!
Walk your customers out of your place of business.
Keep track of your customers likes/wants and notify them when you what they are looking for.
Community bulletin boards.
Handwritten notes.
Your core story.
A window display.
A name tag at events.
Audio-visual aids.
Flip Chart.
Coupons.
Lead buying.
Canned e-mail.
Canvassing.
Guarantees.
A theme line.
A Brand Name.
Reputation Building.
Co-Sponsored Business Events.
Hire Cold Caller.
Develop Phone Scripts.
Focus on Service.
Sponsor a local team.
Ask people what could make the process easier.
Watch your competitors.
Talk to random people you bump into everyday.
Start a campaign to change something.
Answer your phone on the first ring.
Have an after-hours answering service.
Join forces with the common before and after service providers.
Listen to your customers.
Take a survey.
Interview an expert in the community weekly.
Balloons at the open house.
Signup/give-away at the open house.
Online Real Estate Marketing Ideas:
The internet makes it very easy to market. Yet, there are so many online real estate marketing ideas that it’s hard to get a handle on everything you are supposed to do. Here is a list of many of your marketing options. Pick a few of them and get started today on improving your marketing.
Website
Have A Real Estate Website
Real Estate agents need a website. Even if you don’t market your site, most clients will try to find you somewhere before meeting in person.
Onpage SEO
This will help you get found. Look for some SEO advice in other articles on our blog.
Youtube channels are a great way to passively introduce yourself to your clients.
Blog
Your blog should always contain current information. This is a great way to attract more website visitors and potential clients.
Own several websites for the nearby neighborhoods
You can have multiple real estate websites and make each one specialize in a different neighborhood.
Curate Localized Content
Localized content is a sure way to stand out online.
Email:
Email Signature:
A simple email signature with your phone number, email address, and website address will help clients remember where to find out more about you.
Email Newsletter:
Email newsletter blasts will let your get your give-away information out there quickly!
CRM Autoresponders:
Setup your CRM to automatically email your clients and prospective clients a certain number of days after you talk with them. This is a great way never to forget who you’ve talked with.
Advertising Real Estate Marketing Ideas:
Advertising online is a way to get more leads now. You will need some landing pages for these visitors, but that is about it. Your game plan should be to get their contact information and then put them into a drip sequence. Real Estate Marketing Ideas around this type of campaign focus on the various types of platforms out there for you to advertise on.
Google Adwords:
Google ads are a quality but expensive way to drive traffic to your website.
Bing Ads provide a nice alternative to Google Ads. The platform is less competitive and thus cheaper than Google. Usually this advertising platform can get you clicks as low as $.15. This is a great way to get eyes on your houses you have for sale and promote your business. You should try these ads at least once a month for your business.
Paid Ad Slot on Local Website:
Local website most likely sell slots on their page. You can purchase these slots for a very low monthly cost and get awesome traffic to your website. I’ve found websites that list ads for under $5 a month. These type of links also can help your SEO. Real Estate Marketing Ideas that get you qualified website traffic and build your SEO presence are rare. Take advantage of this method today.
Partner with companies in other states;
By partnering with a moving company in another state, you can capture potential clients before they leave their own town.
Affiliates:
Affiliates will drive traffic in exchange for a ‘per lead’ fee. You can set the dollar amount you are willing to pay per lead. These services let you easily hire great internet marketers to work for you.
Newsletter ads:
Real estate marketing ideas wouldn’t be complete without this one. You can get your name and brand in the email box of hundreds or thousands of people for under $100.
Localized Listings:
Local listings populate most maps searches. These are important for getting in front of people searching on mobile devices and through maps. Real Estate Marketing Ideas for these localized listings are mostly the same. You want complete and accurate information on all of these profiles. You also want to get reviews on these platforms. Be sure to encourage people to review your service on these sites as it will really help you get more leads!
This website is full of real estate marketing ideas. You can list your properties for sale and hire people to sell for you. If you have rental properties, you can also rent them out here.
Youtube.com.
Youtube has tons of users on it. Capture their attention with videos about your business and video tours of your properities.
Vimeo.com.
Vimeo is another video platform. It has signficant people searching on it each month and is less competitive than Youtube. You may also like how their videos embed on your website better too.
Podcasting:
Podcasting is relatively cheap and easy to start. You can have your podcasts on the iTunes store and have access to nearly everyone with a phone in your community. It is a nearer real estate marketing idea that is not very competitive yet.
Blog Commenting
This is a terrible SEO tactic. But as a referral traffic driving idea it works wonders. Write a great comment and this tactic will out perform most other real estate marketing ideas.
Write a blog on how to get your real estate license
Make slideshares
Make How-tos for your community
Add an About Page to your website
Monitor Online Reviews
Create a converting 404 page
Write about and de-bunk common myths
Post about the current holiday
Make a FAQ page
Have a caption contest
Congratulations on getting to the bottom of our Real Estate Marketing Ideas list! The best thing to do now to pick 3 of these real estate marketing ideas and set them into action. It is rare to find someone performing perfectly in any of the above marketing avenues. So, find the best example of someone perfectly marketing themselves that way and copy them.
Do not allow yourself to move on until you master that way of marketing.
This will give you the maximum benefit from these Real Estate Marketing Ideas.
#1 The Backbone Of Your Site: Posts & Lead Capture
Where do leads come from?
Traffic.
And there are really only 3 ways to get that traffic. (Google, Facebook, & Ads…)
Real estate blogs are no longer an excellent way to build trust and maintain credibility on your website. They are a requirement to get traffic and leads.
That does lead us to a common problem – agents don’t know what to blog about. Oh sure, at a distance everyone is an expert on several topics, but when you’re faced with a blank post, filling the space can seem daunting. Here’s a pro-tip: separate generating topics from writing. Create a list of topics that you can refer to when you’re ready write. When you have a free moment, scan the list and choose something to start with. You can start with our list of real estate blog topics here.
Here’s the problem…
The problem is that there is virtually no lead capture with the way most real estate websites are built.
A quick solution for this is to turn each of your blog posts into a mini-landing page.
And here’s how and why this works:
Most of the blog traffic that comes through your site is going to read one post and then leave. Designing each blog as a landing page will allow you to maximize your potential of converting leads from that incoming blog traffic.
Here’s how you can setup successful lead capture on your blog for maximum results:
#2 Skate Where The Puck Is Going
Close your eyes for a second…and think about your office meeting room….or a local Starbucks.
What’s the average person doing?
Are they on a phone?
Most likely.
Your website needs to be optimized for mobile. But that’s just the beginning…
When it comes to real estate, a mobile-ready lead capture website is a must!
Over 80-90% of buyers are starting their search online and at least 30% of those searching for a home are doing it from a mobile device.
A while back Google changed their algorithm to rank mobile-friendly sites higher than those that aren’t designed for mobile. This alone could be costing you between 30 and 50% of your real estate website traffic.
There is so much you can do to maximize your real estate website today, but if you don’t make it easy for people who are ready to buy to use your site from their phone…
So, let’s talk about how to get you more leads from mobile:
For starters, you need a mobile-responsive website. Not just a mobile website.
What’s the difference?
A mobile responsive site will adapt to any mobile device by growing or shrinking based on the screen size for stellar phone or tablet browsing.
Your calls to action will need to act differently for mobile as well. The internet has primed us in many ways to seek instant gratification and super-fast results. And your calls to action can give your viewers just that. You’ll also want lead capture and landing pages that look fundamentally different on mobile. Find out how to make it happen HERE. Looking more specifically at your real estate website design, you’ll want to make sure that it’s as easy as possible for clients to call you from your website.
This means including a click to call phone number multiple times on your site.
And make sure it’s incredibly visible. And simple.
You don’t even want to make your customers have to click your contact page to access this information. Just include your phone number on the header in your real estate website design.
The mobile version of LeadSites is going to make all of this a breeze and help you start capturing more leads in no time.
Here’s a video that talks about the power of Lead Conversion:
#3 The Text That Makes All The Difference
Does your lead followup system involve text messaging?
Because it should.
Let’s be honest…
A lot of the time we don’t contact our leads immediately (within 5 minutes of them opting in on our site) and this is probably why they don’t convert and why you’re losing out on qualified leads.
In fact, less than 5% of leads are contacted within 24 hours. And this is a big problem.
The average person’s attention span had dipped below 10 seconds, so you can bet that most leads will have lost interest, if not completely forgotten about what you have to offer them, by the next day, if not within the hour.
These are leads you’re losing to the Quit Window! The leads are quitting before you contact them.
What’s the best way to get ahead of this?
Texting.
Take the conversation from your website to their phone. Because, get this, folks are seeing an average 40% response rate from texts.
But what if you’re not even getting notified about your fresh lead until much later in the day? Well, if you have a LeadSite, we’ve already taken care of this with one of our newest apps called Texty.
Texty (available on LeadSites)
Sends All Your Leads Welcome Texts!
Texty will automatically send you a message when a new lead comes through and the app will also send your lead a message so you can start the conversation faster and never miss an opportunity!
If you don’t currently have a LeadSite you can’t really automate texting, but there are still some steps you can take to increase your response time. Here’s the alternative we’ve come up with.
#4 Organize Your All Leads
If you follow all these tips, you’re going to be getting tons of leads.
But:
How will you manage them?
You’ve got to have a system in place to followup with leads automatically, otherwise chances are you’re going to lose them.
When it comes to choosing a real estate CRM it can be easy to overanalyze your options.
The thing to keep in mind is why you’re getting one in the first place.
The goal here is to convert more leads and systematically stay in touch with all of your contacts.
That’s it.
So, you need ensure that your website hooks up to your CRM. That way, when a lead captures, they will deposit directly into your CRM.
If you use Leadsites, then you’re probably already familiar with Paths – the powerful tool that connects your leads to nearly any real estate (or non-real estate for that matter) CRM. What’s great about Path’s is that it allows you to put different leads in different lists, tags, and entire tools – so your buyer’s can be set up in one system or list and your seller’s added to something entirely different. Paths is powerful lead management!
Here’s a video that explains Paths –
Otherwise, be sure to figure out a way for all of your website leads to directly deposit into your CRM.
Be sure to check out our home staging guide for help turning all those leads into clients.
#5 Your Site Needs To Stalk People
Ready to save time by decreasing your reliance on phone prospecting?
One of the best ways to cut down on cold calling is Pixels!
You can use Pixels to deepen your relationship with leads and thus, increase your chances of turning them into clients!
Pixels is a Leadsites feature that enables you to follow your real estate website visitors with Facebook Ads.
Why is this so awesome?
Because people love video!
This is how you can begin to establish a more meaningful relationship with your leads without having been on the phone with them even once. They get to see you, hear your voice and hopefully learn something new.
This way, when you actually do make contact, you’ve already connected with them!
Here’s how it works:
#6 Landing Pages Grab Leads From Your Traffic
One of the best ways to get leads is through landing pages.
But designing these lead capturing pages can be complicated, to say the least.
Here’s a trick…
LeadLock lets you turn any page, post or listing on your website into a landing page instantly. This way, you can use your existing content to gather leads.
For instance, if you want to turn a blog post into a landing page and have people opt in before viewing the content you can do that in no time! Just add #LOCK behind any of your blog posts URLs, and you’re done!
LeadLock is also great for boosting social media conversion. You can share your locked content or create a Facebook Ad from it to drive traffic back to your website and start gaining more leads on a daily basis.
Ready to see it in action? Check out the video below.
#7 Text Gets You Found. Video Gets You Clients
In addition to rocking great blog content on your website, you should also consider integrating video. After all, listings that incorporate real estate video marketing tactics receive 400% more inquiries than those that don’t.
Yup, you read that right. 400%, so you definitely want to start producing videos and sharing them not just on Youtube, but on social media and your real estate website as well.
Embedding your Youtube videos on your site can also help you get more traffic to your Youtube channel.
They’re a great way to supplement your written content too and will also increase your Google search results visibility.
And as I’ve said before, videos are a fantastic way to build trust and strengthen your relationship with both leads and clients. They get to see and hear you.
The video content you produce also gives you the opportunity to establish yourself as a local expert. You can do a tour of a neighborhood, preview local restaurants, review the schools in your area, just to name a few! Even putting up a welcome video and introducing yourself and any team members you work with is a great way to start earning credibility and get your name out there.
#8 A Landing Page For Reviews
Your testimonials are the best way to convert traffic into leads.
So, you should absolutely be highlighting all the reviews and testimonials you have on your site.
We help agents do this with LeadSites by having their testimonial landing page link to a scheduling page and we’ve seen time and time again how effective this can be. Potential clients will be most motivated to contact you after they’ve read about all the great work you’ve already done. You’ll ease any concerns they may have so they can contact you with confidence.
I really cannot stress enough the importance of linking your testimonial page to a contact page, this is such an effective, yet effortless way to capture more leads.
And, after all, the whole point of your website is to make it easy for people to contact you and this landing page is going to do just that all while warming up your leads.
#9 Use A Seller Magnet
Here’s the thing
There are so many different types of landing pages you can have on your real estate website.
One you’ll definitely want to set up is the seller landing page.
If you have a Leadsite, then you’ve already got a build in seller landing page, otherwise I recommend setting up really all your landing pages with Leadpages.
Having a seller landing page is truly the best way to get home valuation leads online.
#10 Get Found By Making Farming Pages
When it comes to ranking on Google, neighborhood pages are an excellent way to increase your search visibility and start show up on the first page. But in order to do this, you’ve got to create content.
This can seem daunting at first. What if you live in a small (or, let’s face it, boring) area? Or maybe you’ve just been bogged down with a bad case of writer’s block. It happens to all of us, but the fact of the matter is you need content to succeed in SEO.
And trust me, it’ll be worth it.
When you focus on making neighborhood pages you’ll begin to see an increase in SEO leads and referrals will start to convert better. They also present you as the neighborhood expert which helps you close a higher percentage of deals. Sounds pretty good, right?
This is also a great time to tell you about Instafarm. Instafarm is an app we at Easy Agent Pro created to get you more leads on Google in less time. With Instafarm you can turn literally any page on your Leadsite into an SEO page. This means you’ll become even more visible on Google.
The best part? All you have to do is fill in the blanks and you’ll be generating leads from Google just like that. Instafarm will direct the focus of the users on your site towards the images and video content available and then create professionally designed and placed call to action boxes next to them. This helps you build a bigger audience and develop trust with your potential leads.
Now that we’ve introduced neighborhood pages, let’s get into the details of writing for Google.
Google really wants you to be successful. They want to help you.
But why are you getting found?
You’re not speaking their language!
Here’s a video that explains how to do this:
To start, write down some ideas, as many as you can, too many to implement. This will help to shake any reservations you might have about your abilities to write and hopefully get the creative juices flowing.
And remember, just because you don’t find previously existing content on a subject you want to write about doesn’t mean it isn’t worth pursuing. It’s just the opposite, actually. This is a huge opportunity for you to be the first to create the content and then start dominating search results with your niche topics.
If you’re still struggling, check out Yelp reviews for some inspiration. You can see what people are interested in and what they’re already talking about.
So, how do you use your content to start ranking on Google?
You need on-site indicators–your pages, blog posts, links and texts are all things that make up your on-page SEO and this is really the thing that will determine if you show up in searches or not.
The first thing to consider is keyword placement. The keywords you use are the terms you want to show up for in searches.
While you’re making a list of all the things you might possibly write about, also jot down the keywords to go with them. Then, when you’re writing, make sure to include the words in your post. A good ratios is 1 to 2%, any more than this and Google will catch on because you’ll notice that your content begins to looks unnatural, it’s also known as keyword stuffing.
Also keeping in mind that Google is a service that is used simply to provide answers to questions. And it will give them the best possible ones first. So, if your article effectively answers a question or need, you’ll be well on your way to getting SEO traffic.
#12 Have Your Calls-to-Action
One of the easiest ways to improve your website is to implement proper Calls to action.
The best websites all have clear and consistent calls to action.
Period.
You need active calls to action that give people more information in exchange for their contact information. Through the use of sidebar calls to action that link to landing pages, you’ll be able to actually turn blog traffic into tangible leads.
This type of lead capture usually adds another percentage point to the percentage of leads that convert from your website traffic.
#13 Find Me SEO
Find Me is the latest Real Estate SEO tool that we at Easy Agent Pro designed to help you optimize your Leadsite for Google from the ground up! The Find Me app tells you precisely how much information you need to include on your Instafarm page and also makes suggestions for you!
We’ve made it easy for you to create content for your website without having to worry if you’re doing correctly so you can focus on what really matters–your awesome content!
If you’re not currently using a LeadSite, you can still improve your Google search visibility by optimizing your pages. Here are just a few things you should check off your list: include visuals–images, video…etc., link to other sources, and focus on your keywords. Like I said, you should have a page for each keyword you want to show up for and then be sure to use that keyword in the url, 1-3% of the time throughout the text of the page and also in the title.
#14 Have A Playbook
In order to succeed in real estate with your website you need create pages with the following components: 1,000 + words, photos, videos, listings, lead capture, backlinks, and a killer design, just to name a few.
You also need to keep in mind that folks need to to see you 10 times before they will even become leads. Sound like a lot? It’s really not and we’ve broken down exactly how to achieve this with our Leadsites success formula. It goes like this:
It’s incredibly rare that you’ll get clients from only one action, so building your action plan to incorporate multiple actions, including building value, engagement and touches OVER TIME is the best way for you to become successful online.
With LeadSites, we give you a playbook to help your site win. It looks like this:
#15 Speed Kills
Page speed matters to Google and when it comes to your site load time, every second counts. You really want to optimize your pages to load as fast as possible as decreasing the amount of time it takes your content to load can seriously improve conversion rates and even benefit your SEO success.
Think about it: when you visit a site that is slow-loading how likely are you to jump off and look else where? Multiple surveys have shown that just about 50% of internet users are expecting sites to load in 2 or less seconds and are likely to exit a site that has a load time of over 3 seconds.
Even more shocking, nearly 80% of consumers are unlikely to return to a site if they have experienced a delayed load time.
#16 Coaching & Support For The Win
Finally, we all need a little help sometimes and one of the things we’re most proud of at Easy Agent Pro is the training we provide to help agents grow their business and succeed with their LeadSite.
We’re here to teach you how to get internet leads. And we accomplish this through a few different avenues. For one, we hold monthly webinars where you can learn all kinds of new marketing strategies and ways to continue to improve and make the most of your site. Additionally, we’ve created a Facebook group for LeadSite users as a community-building effort to help agents come together and share advice and tips about strategies they’re implementing and the ways in which they’re using their site to grow their business.
You’ll also get complimentary success coaching! Our success coaches walk you through your LeadSite, show you exactly where the apps are, help you make a plan for your first week and first month using your new site AND hold you accountable by following up with you via email.
And best of all, we feature our best agents every month on our own blog!
Let’s Wrap Up!
If you’re considering a real estate website, these 16 things will really help.
All of them will help you get more leads and grow your business!
We’d love to build your real estate website at Easy Agent Pro. Talk with us today and see if we’re right for you.
::: This Is Our Outdated Version Of This Article :::
Getting traffic to your real estate websites is great.
Getting leads from your real estate websites is great.
But when the stars align and you can go full throttle on both?
That’s when you know you’ve made it…
…because you’re essentially invincible.
You’re in luck because today I have something that will make you feel like the king of the world:
16 Hacks For Real Estate Websites that you can use today to get more leads and listings.
1. Use A Welcome Gate To Capture 2-3 TIMES More Leads
Now: Most Realtors think real estate websites have to be super complicated and sticky.
But what I’ve found, is that the way you structure the flow of visitors through the design of the site is more important.
And what better place to start managing the flow of traffic than before they get to your awesome website.
This is crazy: But if you put a welcome gate up that is only shown to new visitors landing on your home page (no, this doesn’t interrupt people who clicked a link to go to a blog article)…
…you’ll see the page converts between 5-20%.
(If you haven’t used Leadpages in the past, they are a real estate landing page tool. They easily let you customize landing pages and deploy them anywhere online. The best use is to create a welcome gate for your website.)
Here’s how your welcome gate will help you capture 2-3X more leads:
First, you’ll need to head over to Leadpages and find the template you want to use. I recommend this one.
As an example, you can click “Landing Pages” and then “create new”:
You’ll then be able to easily change colors, logos, text, and lead capture settings:
After you’re done, you will want to click publish and head over to your WordPress website.
Let’s go to your WordPress Leadpage section and add our landing page as a Welcome Gate:
Once you click the publish button, you will now have the ability to see your new welcome landing page.
As you can see with any analytics platform, most traffic will land on your home page:
Do you see the opportunity here?
People who land on your home page usually don’t convert into leads.
You don’t need to be a genius to see that. Typically traffic converts WAY under 1%.
But here… literally thousands of people will see your landing page. And that page will convert 5-20% of them into leads.
Now:
Once you have the welcome gate live for a week or two… …try split testing the text on your page. You don’t want to lie with your offer.
But you can change it slightly and monitor the conversion percentage in Leadpages.
Before long, you’ll have a welcome gate that converts tons of previously useless traffic into leads!
Now that’s how you make websites really do work for your business!
PS: Easy Agent Pro’s welcome gate converts at 10%…
2. Add These 3 Landing Pages (And Their Calls To Action) To Get Your Lead Gen Flow Rise From Your Real Estate Websites
Let’s make this simple:
When someone finds you online, there are only two things that can happen:
1)They can become a lead… …or
2) They’ll leave and forget about you almost instantly.
When people convert to leads on your website, the grass literally looks a little bit greener outside.
3) The Seller Home Valuation You need to make it easy to access these 3 pages on your website design:
That’s what you call lead gen flow!
But how do real estate landing pages impact the lead capture element of real estate websites?
These calls to actions are an old school marketing and copywriting tactic that was even used in newspapers. You can adapt these tactics for the online environment and get amazing results.
Why? Because you’re minimizing the friction it takes to do business with you!
The overarching goal of all real estate websites is to minimize the friction to do business with you.
People that succeed in real estate online do this very well: They give you something in exchange for contacting them… …and have multiple calls to actions for various types of clients.
(As an aside, we do all this for you in our LeadSites)
You want to make sure you have those 3 landing pages on all your websites…
And link to them from almost every page.
There you go! You’ll be golden for almost every type of lead generation method!
Blogging, social media, SEO, and ppc can all be helped from adding flow and those 3 types of landing pages.
3. Add These Pages To Your Menu (And Make Your Real Estate Websites Google Friendly)
These days, Google is pretty darn smart and doesn’t care how many times you put your real estate keywords on your website.
Instead, they want you to earn your way up to the top of the search results.
Ever heard of the phrase, “You have to walk before you can run”?
Google wants your website to go after easier keywords before showing your website for the most competitive terms.
For example, if you want to show up for Google searches about “San Deigo Homes For Sale”… …you want to first show up on Page 1 for Patio Homes Near San Deigo.
Why? That keyword gets very few searches. So, it’s low risk for Google to display your website for that keyword.
To help you start showing up for these searches, here is an example of a decent page: (Taken from LeadSites)
…they now know that this page is about a neighborhood of homes.
But there are things you can do to make your neighborhood/niche pages show up even higher:
…it’s as simple as that!
To explain even more: You should have 10+ of these neighborhood pages on your website.
They should target hyper-local or niche types of locations.
You should then shoot to have 1,000 words and videos on each of these pages.
We’ll set them up for you with our LeadSites. You’ll easily be able to get traffic from Google to your website.
Want more tips: The complete Real Estate SEO guide is right here!
4. Rank #1 In ZERO Time With This SEO Secret
I can hear you calling me out already. “Tyler, that’s impossible.” But, stick with me and I’ll show you what I mean.
Create your own keywords It’s not that hard to do. For example, what comes up when you search your name?
It’s probably not your website.
Want to know why? Sites like Realtor.com, Trulia, and Zillow have you sign up for profiles on their website. So that visitors find their website when they Google your name.
Doesn’t that seem like stealing?
You might not think about it this way, but your name and company name are keywords.
…and they are super easy keywords to rank for.
Just put them occasionally on your website!
The best part: You can start catching that traffic and converting them into your lead capture funnels.
That way you get them before Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com do!
Here’s the thing: Every buyer or seller that interviews you, will Google your name to find things out about you.
Do you really want them finding those big box sites first?
Most Realtors I talk to fall into one of two categories:
1) I don’t have time to blog!!!! – or – 2) My blog is the biggest asset to my business.
Here’s the thing: A blog is not optional anymore if you care about social media, showing up on Google, converting ads better, or building a consistent stream of traffic online.
It’s just not an option. Google literally hates websites that do not blog regularly. They get 4-6X less search engine traffic depending on the industry.
Why do you think Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and every other major player in real estate invests in online content? Because it produces results. What’s the bottom line: Create content on your website if you want to succeed online!
….But that doesn’t have to be scary.
Here are some tips for those of you who don’t like writing:
1) Record video answers to common real estate questions and pay someone on Fiverr to transcribe them for you. This will give you high-quality video content and blog content in minutes!
2) Outsource the writing of blog content. While this isn’t my favorite, you can easily have someone create blog content for your business!
3) Leverage the power of others. Do you partner with lenders or companies?
Ask them to contribute written blog content on a regular basis. The fact simply remains, you must create content to remain relevant online.
Look at Pinterest:
…you can’t “do” Pinterest unless you have content to link to on your website!
You’ll want to commit to a blogging or content creating schedule just like you commit with your lead generation. For example, let’s say you want to show up on the first page of Google for various keywords someone will type when trying to figure out how to buy a home.
You’ll hopefully have a WordPress blog (like we do on LeadSites) where you can add this helpful information.
Here’s the best part: Your articles will help build trust and confidence in your abilities as a Realtor.
People believe what they can see. If you have your unique selling system written out online, they will believe it more…
…than if you just explain it during your listing presentation.Blogs build trust.
6. Emphasize Social Before SEO On Your Realtor Websites
This is often messed up:
But, agents care about ranking on Google more than social media.
Sure, it’d be nice if 1 million people visited your website… …but what if those 1 million people who visited all came from Russia? That wouldn’t be very helpful now would it?
More than traffic, you want people to engage with your website. And your popularity on social media helps this.
7. Here’s How To Get More Leads From Your Blogs Without More Work
Here’s a tip that requires no extra work: To get more leads, you need more traffic.
Right? Not exactly.
One of the best ways to get leads is to cultivate the people who already like you. Let me explain.
Do you have active lead capture?
Popups, like the one shown above, usually convert 2-7% of your traffic into leads. You can use this in several ways!
They can build newsletter lists for your business… …or be offers for things like “Free Home Valuations”
Here’s an extremely simple way to do this:
A simple tool like SumoMe will help you add active lead capture elements like Popups and SlideIns.
These tools, when setup correctly, can really help you dominate real estate lead generation.
Now: I know some of you think popups will negatively affect your user-experience and SEO…So, you might want to try a more subtle slidein active lead capture.
Or, a pop-up chat. Or maybe try content upgrades like these found on Easy Agent Pro:
This hack for you real estate websites will help make sure you capture the most leads possible per traffic.
8. Stupid Simple Strategies For You Getting More Traffic
How many emails do you send per day? 100? 200?
What if each email you send could drive traffic to your website? Here’s my email signature:
When you click my PS, this pops up:
That’s right! Every email I send, basically invites others to refer people to the website.
It works like a charm.
Visits went up dramatically after implementing the change.
And copy the “standard link” url. Put that as the hyperlink on your email PS.
Now: When someone clicks your email signature, they will be invited to share your website with their friends.
This is an awesome way to get more referrals! And get more traffic to your realty websites.
9. The Best Realtor Websites Create Blog Content
You probably already have a blog. And we just talked about all the benefits of blogging above. But here’s a tip to get your blog ranked much higher on Google.
Look at this outline:
This is how you use your blog effectively!
Are you doing this? You have neighborhood pages, right?
Then you’ll want to create blog posts about that neighborhood.
And in those blog posts link back to the neighborhood pages.
Why? This is called cross-linking.
And it works like magic for ranking your pages.
For example, in this post, I’ll link back to my post about Real Estate Logos. Do you see what I did there?
I created a link back to another post with the keyword. Google loves this. It’s the BEST way to use your blog effectively!
10. Contact Info Consistency Leads To Higher Local Rankings
Do you want to show up in listings with Google Places?
The solution is simple: Add the same contact information across the web.
Your website should have a contact page. And that information should match the contact information on Yelp, Google Places, ect… …the more listings that match this contact information, the higher you will rank!
Here’s a little video showing you how to do this quickly:
11. Skyrocket Your Conversion With Videos
Video was all the rage in real estate about 3 years ago.
Now:
People aren’t talking about it as much.
But don’t miss out on the results that you can get with real estate videos.
There are two awesome things videos can give you on your real estate websites:
The First: They help build trust.
People that hear your voice and see your face online already have a close relationship with you. If you can create video, and then deploy them on your website.
You’ll be golden.
Clients will trust you more and you’ll find relationships progress faster.
Secondly: Youtube is the second most used search engine online. It’s second behind Google.
Best of all: It’s videos get placed highly on Google websearches:
One of my battle-tested SEO and blog tricks is to include videos everywhere!
Google loves seeing Youtube videos on your website. And will rank you higher if you use them correctly.
They also love promoting quality videos in their searches. When you’re becoming a real estate agent, I really suggest using video to your advantage!
12. Add Supporting Keywords In Your Blog Articles
Here’s a trick: Whenever you pick 1 keyword for a blog article or website page, Google that keyword.
Then:
Scroll all the way to the bottom… …’til you find this:
These are keywords that people also search for… And they are closely related to your blog pages keyword.
So, you can include them in your article and rank for WAY more searches.
In fact:
They actually help Google understand what your website is about.
Now, this page you are reading about is all about real estate websites.
Right?
So, what I do is Google real estate websites and find keywords at the bottom like this: Now I’ve got a mini case study that will show you how to reveal the top search results.
That means I’ll include words like top real estate websites and how to create real estate websites better than Zillow throughout the blog post.
Why?
Because my article will show up for a ton more searches! Plus, these keywords give you perfect ideas for what to write about. They tell you exactly what your potential clients are trying to figure out.
Most times, these keywords will give you ideas for your content subheadings. This little trick should help boost traffic to your real estate websites by over 30%. Most searches on Google are unique. That means the more words and unique phrases you include in the design of your real estate website… …the better you’ll be found online!
13. Borrow Traffic From Your Local Vendors
It’s ironic:
But a lot of Realtors don’t realize how easily they can use their offline relationships to boost their online real estate lead generation.
A lot of Realtors can’t figure out how to get traffic…is that you?
If you have partners offline, you need to use them online.
Find ways to partner with your local vendors and service business owners. They can link to your website in meaningful ways… …and send you more traffic.
Realtors get caught up in creating their own presence. That they often forget people can help them online.
If you don’t feel comfortable doing a marketing task, Real Estate Virtual Assistants or partner with someone who’s good at it. Leveraging your offline relationships and driving traffic through offline marketing is a valid way to build your business.
14. Don’t Reinvent The Wheel If You Start Making Blogs Or Videos
Have you ever seen a magazine? I want you to think of one right now… …have one in mind?
Great, what do the titles say? Perhaps one is: The Best Books For _____ in 2015
That’s a common magazine article title, right?
Of course! Every publishing company knows the best type of article isn’t reinvented.
It’s an article that was previously popular that was now made better. To help you understand this: When creating content, don’t start from ground zero!
Use the 3-Up Technique
What’s that?
The 3-up technique is where you find a previously successful blog article… …and make it better in 3 ways.
Here’s how you do this:
And when you use this trick… You’ll find that the content you write ends up being:
shared more often, found on Google better, and converts to leads better!
15. Install Google Analytics To Track Your Real Estate Websites
Now:
None of these tactics are worth anything if you don’t track your metrics in Google Analytics.
Without analytics, you have no idea how your real estate websites are doing!
Are you growing? Is traffic hitting your website? Are people not staying on your website for more than 15 seconds? All this stuff is super fixable with Google Analytics.
Here’s how to install it:
Quick:
Take action today and start tracking your progress in Google Analytics. Just like any other real estate lead generation tactic… …it’s useless unless you track your progress.
Think about it:
Traffic will not just show up on your website. Leads will not just call you. You have to understand what is happening on your website. Google analytics is a must for real estate websites!
16. All Top 10 Real Estate Websites Do This One Thing:
At the end of the day, all real estate sites have to grow your business.
Perhaps, it helps buyers find their homes… …or helps sellers feel confident to list with you.
No matter what your reason is for having real estate websites…
You need a goal.
The best Realtors all have a goal.
And it probably is one particular goal. Now:
What I’ve found online is that it is very hard for a website to do 2 things at once.
When you develop your real estate website, you need one clear goal so that you know when they are actually helping your business grow.
:::Bonus Hack:::
Get even more leads from Google with InstaFarm!
We’ve made it easy for you to turn any page on your Leadsite into an SEO page. All you have to do is fill in the blanks and you’ll be getting leads and looking like the neighborhood expert in no time!
With the InstaFarm app you can:
Get 1st page results Convert more traffic into leads Forget coding! Just fill in the blanks!
The best part? It takes just minutes to create a professionally designed, optimized page.
We know what Google loves and have created a time-tested SEO formula to build your pages and capture leads that come from increased Google search visibility. The app directs viewers to your visual content as a way to strengthen trust and begin to build lasting relationships with potential clients. But that’s not all, to take it a step further, Instafarm also puts call-to-action boxes right next to your trust-building videos and images.
Why? Because in 2016, people trust Google. And based on the SEO stats we’ve collected to guide your New Year marketing plans, that won’t be changing any time soon…or maybe ever.
As an added bonus,I strongly suggest also incorporating these additional 2 landing pages into your real estate website design:
The Testimonial Landing Page
You want your visitors to be able to see all of the reviews and testimonials you have. This is a nice way to warm up leads. And, you’ll want this page to link up to the second bonus landing page I recommend to complete your real estate website design:
The Schedule Landing Page
The schedule landing page is where you’ll let your leads know that you’re planning to call them. And this is extra important because chances are that if they’re already expecting your call, they will be even more likely to convert.
What about you…?
Now that I’ve talked about my favorite hacks for real estate websites…I want to know what you have to say.
Cold calling not cutting it? Tired of knocking on doors at dinner time? Maybe it’s time to up your real estate leads generation game! To get you started, we’ve rounded up the top lead gen strategies that are getting agents just like you more leads. Right Now.
If you’re looking for a website that has built in lead capture functionality, it’s time to get a Leadsite.
Before we get started, let’s get one thing straight. This isn’t a blog all about putting cold-calling, door knocking, or other strategies like direct mail to shame. Each of these still have a place, but they can be so hit or miss. And, let’s be honest, how many of you actually like to call up cold leads? Or knocking on neighbor’s doors? Or spending money on postage?
Especially when you can reach the same prospects through Facebook ad targeting — a tactic that will save you a ton of time and ultimately lead to you finding qualified real estate leads who actually want to talk to you.
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves though…
What we’re going to do is break down the top lead generation strategies that you should be using today to get leads. The catch? You’ve got to commit to these tactics 100% and take action on them until you get results.
Spoiler alert: cold calling isn’t one of them.
Let’s jump in!
If you just want to get to it, download this eBook to take action now. Using niche SEO campaigns, Google Adwords, and Facebook you can cover more ground in less time! A lot more ground, a lot more real estate leads incoming!!
Otherwise, keep going for an introduction to using these real estate lead generation tactics to the max.
First up…
The Facebook Funnel
We’ve discussed Facebook Ads a lot. Playing catch up? Check out these posts:
Most recently, we’ve covered this in a video about the 3 ads EVERY agent should be running to get real estate leads:
So, you know how to setup an ad, but what good is it if you don’t know who to target? Like cold calling, broad audiences will only get you so far. You’ll spend a lot of money and even more time trying to find solid leads. Without proven strategies, there are no guarantees and you’re stuck with trial and error testing until you figure out what works for you.
The solution? You need to find your niche. Or at least a niche audience.
We all have a past and hobbies! Everyone has worked some past job before starting in real estate or has something that they’re super passionate about in their spare time.
These often times create nice starting points for finding a deeper niche.
Or, you can just focus on buyers and sellers who truly need your help.
Did you know that 61% of divorced couples end up listing their home? This percentage may vary from city to city and town to town, but you can be sure that your area is rolled up in this statistic. So, who’s going to be their listing agent? It should be you.
Want to target the divorcée on Facebook? We’ve created the entire step-by-step ad for you. Grab it here and start getting leads this week!
Bonus: What You’re Forgetting
Even if you are already using Facebook for real estate lead generation, what are you linking your ads to? Your homepage? A blog? More importantly, how is that helping you convert online leads to offline sales?
The two pages we recommend are a Seller Guide (focused on how to get the maximum value from their home in the least amount of time)(which happens to showcase you as a great candidate to be their helpful & professional agent!!) and a Buyer Lead “Cheatsheet” Landing Page.
Have you made these pages yet?
If so, great!
If not and your Facebook ads aren’t converting, this may be why. Once you’ve got these pages up, make more. In fact, each of your Facebook ads should link back to a custom landing page that specifically supports that content. Why is this? It’s simple. Imagine that each landing page is a door way to your site. Lots of folks expect their site’s homepage to do way too much work. This needs to
Dominate A Farm Area – Old School Real Estate Lead Generation on the Web
If you’re not quite ready to target more niche lead types, you can still set up pages that specifically address the locations you’re doing your real estate farming in. Once you master a certain neighborhood, you can continue to expand your reach and move onto different areas.
But how?
Well, if you’re a LeadSite agent, the easiest solution is to use Instafarm.
Most website companies tell you to create your own neighborhood pages, LeadSites doesn’t do that. InstaFarm gives you a fill-in-the-blank template that has been proven to rank very highly on Google. And convert SEO Traffic into leads.
InstaFarm will direct the focus of the users on your site towards the images and video content available and then create professionally designed and placed call to action boxes next to them. This helps you build a bigger audience and develop trust with your potential leads.
Get Real Estate Leads Through Blogging
While we’ve covered real estate blogging extensively in other posts, it bears mentioning here. It is the next step for large-scale farming. While Instafarms make niche area farming easy, blogging on particular areas, neighborhoods, developments, and area attractions can bump up your overall domain authority and provide a steady stream of inbound visitors, some of which will become leads.
LeadSites customers get two blog posts a week on general real estate topics, however, these are editable and one of the easiest techniques is to localize these posts to increase SEO value and give visitors more targeted information. Agents who use this pre-made blog content as a starting point and fill in local details find this is far more valuable to their real estate lead generation goals.
Consider just this one opportunity for exposure – local Facebook groups that don’t allow promotion? Make posts about local attractions and share them as ‘community service.’ These can be everything from local Christmas light display maps, to best things to do in this season, to best places to eat with kids in an area. Once you get started, the ideas go on and on.
Mailing FSBOs – They’ll Be Begging After This
Mailing FSBOs can be easier than cold calling and it’s probably already part of your real estate lead generation plan. But does the plan end there? If it does, you’re wasting your time. Because 65% of businesses have no follow up system in place when it comes to strategies like this.
So, here’s how to win them over…
You need to establish a solid follow up system and never falter from it. How is this possible though? Of course you want to be able to instantly engage clients 24/7, but that’s not realistic. You’ve got a life to live. But you can still make this happen.
Mailing FSBOs is a great point of contact to make, not to mention it’s incredibly low-cost!
Then What?
After you mail them, it’s time to initiate the next touch. And that is going to come through an automated text message. Now, there are several ways to do this, but like the steps before, we have an app that comes with every LeadSite that takes care of this for you. It’s called Texty and looks like this when you use it to land leads.
You can apply this approach to literally any real estate lead generation strategy you’re already taking action on. As soon as folks opt-in to a landing page, join your email list, respond to a Facebook or Instagram Lead ad, hit them with this.
They’ll be blown away by your quick response.
Notice in the image above there’s a link to Calendly. This will allow leads to set up an appointment with you at their convenience. The great thing here is that you set your own appointment times through Calendly so they’ll be able to choose what works for their schedule and it will fit into yours as well. And you can do all of this without ever having to pick up the phone.
Great follow-up with real estate leads mixes two important principles – automation that helps you always be at your best, regardless of the circumstances of the minute the lead comes in, plus, allowing leads to self-service/schedule to a time of their choosing puts a lot of power in their hands and makes it easy for you to connect with them at a time that’s good for both parties. This is making the best of the systems and capabilities that are easily available to agents. In other words, 1995 called and it wants its follow-up strategies back, so just let ’em go!!
If you’re ready for a website that works as hard as you do – check out LeadSites. With a LeadSite, you can start putting your ideas into action and watch your business grow.
Take Action Now To Get Real Estate Leads Today
These are just a few of the real estate lead generation strategies agents are using to dominate their area today. For a more indepth look at each, plus even more time-tested tactics to help you win qualified leads, pick up this eBook and take a peek at the rest of the agent guides we have available!
What lead gen strategies are landing you clients right now? Let us know!
There are less than 100 days left in the year and it’s time to plan your winning real estate winter marketing activities!
Halloween is over.
The World Series has ended.
And Starbucks has a brand new cup design for you to behold.
Yep.
With the 1st of November came the start of the 2019 holiday season.
As tempting as it can be, there’s no sense in putting it off.
It’s crucial that agents market to past clients and prospects over the slower real estate season and make it a top priority to capture the best leads.
Of course, just because your schedule as started to open up, doesn’t mean your community is experiencing the same lull.
It’s all too likely that your past clients and future leads are preparing for their own holiday events.
So, where does that leave you and yours?
In order to ring in a stress-free new year and enjoy the upcoming winter holidays, you’ve got to get into the holiday spirit and join your community in ushering in the merry season.
And we’re here to give you everything you need to slay your real estate winter marketing efforts!
Be sure to check out our home staging guide when you finish with this one – It’s full of useful info to help you get the most out of your showing!
Here are 12 ideas to prepare for your best season yet –
3 Festive Blog Post Ideas
#1) 10 Ways To Beat The Freeze In (Your Area)
Depending on where you living, this winter could be a doozy. Tackle the cold by giving helpful tips on how to combat the chill and tell buyers and sellers exactly how the frigid temps could affect local homes. You can include suggestions on how to prepare pipes, clean out gutters, and a list of resources your community can consult when in a grinchy pinch.
Live somewhere warm? Lucky you!
Read on for more real estate winter marketing blog ideas.
#2) DIY Holiday Decorating Guide
Snow or shine, most folks loving decorating for the holidays! And it’s easy to position this type of post for your community. Whether you’ve got palm trees or pines, your area will still be getting in on the cheer!
Throw in some extra safety instructions on how to hang lights without damaging the exterior or interior of a home. For DIY tricks, think back to your favorite childhood decorating traditions and share one or two family favorites with your audience. You can encourage them to do the same!
Want to add lead capture? Create an info form for leads to fill out so they can download the guide.
This is super easy to do with LeadSites!
Here’s an in-depth walkthrough on how to setup blog popups with Smart Popups 2.0:
It’s always nice to reflect on our personal and business success over the past year, but you’ve got to put a slightly different spin on it to make this blog worthy.
Real Estate Winter Social Marketing Campaigns
#4) Host a Holiday Contest
Even if you haven’t had much success with contests or giveaways in the past, the giving season is the perfect time to try again on your social media platform of choice.
Have your followers share a photo of their seasonal decorations and give a special prize to the the person whose photo gets the most likes.
You can test this out over Thanksgiving and do another round for Christmas or New Year’s.
For Thanksgiving – go beyond decor and encourage your network to post a photo of a special recipe or their Thanksgiving dinner spread.
When Christmas rolls around, you can ask folks to share a light display, the final results of a DIY family decor project, or their gorgeous tree.
For the prize…
There are a lot of different directions to take this. You can pick up some Starbucks or Amazon gift cards, or partner with a neighborhood family business to encourage people to shop local. A major perk of co-promoting your giveaways with a local business is that you’ll increase your reach.
For a giveaway, we recommend using Facebook. You can post on your personal account, business page and even share the post in community groups.
#5) Get On Instagram
If you haven’t already, create an Instagram account.
It’s a great way to connect with new people and add a very necessary visual storytelling component to your real estate winter marketing strategy.
As you collect photos throughout the season, add them to your Instagram feed.
You can include both community and property features.
A tree lighting ceremony, twinkling neighborhoods, a shared hot chocolate on a snowy day…etc., these are all great ways to stay top of mind, and heart, in your area.
Create These Two Pinterest Boards
#6) Holidays + Seasons In (Your Area)
If you’re finding little payoff in creating unique Pinterest boards for every holiday, season, and occasion, just make one.
You can then update it year-round. Include all four seasons and the major holidays within those months.
To get this board going, start with November – January and include Thanksgiving Inspiration, Christmas, and New Year’s with lots of winter inspiration sprinkled between the holiday goodness.
This is a great way to get your board organized because you really only have to focus on one season and one or two holidays per month.
Next, take on February – April and include Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter. Your board’s aesthetic will quickly change from a wintry wonderland to a fresh Spring. You can continue to share this board on other social platforms so your audience can follow along for all seasons.
#7) Join or Start A Holiday Decor Group Board
Group boards are exploding on Pinterest. With group boards, you’ll not only be sharing the “pinning” load with other Pinterest users, but you’ll be expanding your network with every new member that’s added.
Encourage pinners to join you and share new decorating tricks they’re going to try as well as to pin recipes they’re making. You can pin your related blogs to this board and this will encourage pinners to visit your website.
Spread Joy In Your Community
#8) Give Back
Start thinking about ways you can be in service during the cold months. Host a canned food drive, make your office a drop-off point for Toys For Tots, or take coat donation and give them to a local shelter or organization.
You can bake a batch of cookies and keep some cocoa or eggnog on hand to get conversations going with your area when they come to leave their contributions.
#9) Gingerbread All The Way
Reach out to a community center and setup a gingerbread decorating party. If you’re enjoying hosting contests, you can even give out some fun prizes to those who decorate the best cookies or houses.
This is also another nice opportunity to build community relationships. See if you can partner with a bakery or even local grocery store to sponsor supplies or give some decorating tips for the party.
Plus, building houses together is the perfect segway for you to deliver some information to buyers and sellers who attend!
#10) Send A Holiday Card And Ask For This In Return
Give Thanks for your clients on Thanksgiving or with them Happy Holidays by mailing them a card or e-card. Of course, you’re just showing your appreciation, but it doesn’t hurt to ask them to leave you a quick review.
It doesn’t have to be a long testimonial, though that would be great, you can just link them to your Facebook Page, Yelp Profile, or anywhere your agent profile exists online and ask them to leave a quick remark.
Looking Ahead
Whenever you find yourself with some downtime, check these quick tasks off your list:
#11)Update CTAs
Majority of all online leads are going to come from your real estate website. So make sure you lead capture tools are ready to work.
Take a look at the various opt-in forms floating around your site, including landing pages, and make sure they’ve all got a strong Call To Action button.
With LeadSites, it’s incredibly easy to update any form for your real estate winter marketing campaigns and then swap them out again in 2020.
You can also track all your opt-ins in the backend of your LeadSite dashboard to see what pages are performing well and which could use a boost in conversion potential.
#12) 2020
You should also set aside some time to start planning for a great New Year.
Update your database, clean up any outdated information, and do the same with your social media profiles.
I mean, when was the last time you updated your profile or cover photo?
Or updated your bio?
The time and effort you put in now will have a huge impact next year, and you owe it to yourself, your clients and future leads to be prepped and ready for the best New Year yet.
These simply, yet highly effective real estate winter marketing ideas are perfect for any agent to up their lead gen game and define themselves as the leading community expert.
No one can deny the need for IDX on a real estate website.
After all, the point of every site is to generate more homebuyer and seller leads.
And what are your leads after?
Listings.
The functionality and design of your website IDX can make all the difference for your leads.
Because any successful lead generation campaign starts with having the content your target audience wants and needs.
But this isn’t always easy, or pretty, when it comes to IDX feeds.
That is going to change though….
Right Now.
Ready to outshine the competition?
Here’s How
Welcome To LeadSites
After a long-awaited launch, we have started rolling out a way for LeadSite users to customize the IDX on their real estate website.
It’s clean, sophisticated and looks great.
But more than that, our latest IDX updates are going to give agents more lead capture capability than ever before.
LeadSite users can now have the best looking search in their city.
And we mean it.
Before we launch into the IDX App, let’s talk a little more about LeadSites.
LeadSites provide you with the tools, training, and support you need to start marketing your real estate brand online without any headaches or hard work.
Whether you’re focused on targeting buyers or sellers, you’ll get the tools you need to understand what’s getting you leads and what’s not.
With LeadSites, you can also easily segment and tag your leads so you can automatically send the perfect followup emails for every type of lead.
Really, our goal is to help you get leads through your website your way.
And you can achieve this by taking advantage of the 16+ apps included with your LeadSite.
Agents can also connect to their favorite CRM, receive weekly done-for-you-blogs, access unlimited landing pages, and so much more!
One of our latest and greatest updates is all about IDX.
You can now customize your listings to get exactly the look both you and your leads want.
Scrolling through your listings will look better than ever before! You can pick your favorite listing look inside of your IDX app.
Let’s check it out!
Using The IDX App
You’ll find the IDX app under the Apps tab in the backend of your LeadSite.
It’s the last one on the menu, for now!
Once you click on it, you’ll be taken to this page:
The first thing you’ll see is this brand new listing template.
Let’s take a closer look:
Once you activate this, it will be applied to all of your IDX listings throughout your website.
Taking an even closer look at this template, you can see that there’s a ton of information available!
We’ve optimized our listings more for Google by auto linking all school districts and MLS areas to searches.
This will increase the number of pages, listings, and URLs Google finds on your site.
Thus, increasing the SEO rankings for all LeadSites.
You can map schools directly in this template and so much more.
Let’s also talk about this killer opt-in form that will show up at both the beginning and end of the page.
You can give leads the option to contact you directly or even start the conversation via Facebook Messenger!
And all you’re asking for in return is their email.
Seems like a fair exchange to us!
Let’s see what else the IDX app can do…
Moving forward, we’re going to be launching templates for the basic search and advanced search so stay tuned for that!
Next, let’s check out the newly released property tile templates.
Just like the listings template, you can activate any one of these to feature your property.
You can also preview any of the tiles to ensure you end up with a layout you love.
Best part?
We’re just getting started!
You can expect more templates and IDX updates that will have a major impact on the experience users have on your real estate website.
It’s also going to open up lots of untapped potential for you.
For instance, being able to connect pages like this to Facebook is going to up your lead capture capability on these listing pages like crazy!
Easily get a leg up on the competition and save yourself loads of time and frustration with these flawless point-and-click templates.
You can also keep track of the leads you generate with the IDX app, or any lead-generating LeadSites app, directly on your LeadSite.
Just hop into the Leads section of your dashboard.
And click on the app you want to track leads from.
You can search by the day, week or year.
Your leads’ contact information will be displayed and you can start to get a better idea about where they’re coming from and what pages are getting the most visits on your site.
You can also plan a more effective followup with them because you’ll know what information they’re after.
We’ll have another IDX update for you all soon!
In the meantime, we can’t wait for you to check out the IDX app for yourself!
Post a comment below and let us know what you think!
To move this process along for you, we created a Single Property Listing landing page, or Squeeze Page, to captivate audiences and tell them everything they need to know.
The page you can customize with your LeadSite will look something like this:
It will also display a ton of information about the property in an interactive way.
You can upload a video, property details and features, a complete photo gallery and even an area map.
Of course, there’s also a form you can customize to capture lead info.
Now, if you’re just wanting to tell leads about your property, they may or may not fill this out and at this stage, that’s really okay.
You can simply treat it like a registration form so they can RSVP to the scheduled showing.
Really though, this type of landing page unlocks all kinds of potential.
You can even buy a domain and create a single property website for each listing.
This is sure to satisfy buyers and sellers alike.
If you don’t want to give up all the goods right away, you can also try out a more straight forward landing page like this:
Especially if you plan to market your open house on Facebook.
You can upload lots of images to feature the property and simply let folks register through Facebook.
One and done.
If you’ve got current open house marketing strategies that are working for you, keeping it up!
You can simply pair a landing page like one of the options featured above with your favorite marketing activities to increase your visibility and likelihood of attracting qualified seller and buyer leads.
Even so, not every person that attends your next open house is going to buy.
So, how do pick up even more leads from your next open house?
We’ve got that covered, too.
Read on to find out!
Lead Capture
If you’re a LeadSite user, we suggest using the squeeze pages you just created to market your open house as a sign in tool to collect more information while you’re showing the property.
Yes, you read that right.
You can use the pages you already designed to capture more leads.
You can use this service not only to collect more leads, but Open House Pro also offers options for automated follow-up, social share integrations, and you can also categorize leads.
Of course, you’ll have these options and more available through your LeadSite.
You can track the leads generated by your squeeze pages right from your website and even use the Cookies app to find out what other pages leads visit after they opt-in.
And that’s it!
What are you favorite ways to market your open house?
Share them with us and other agents in the comment section below!
What these stats let us know is that real estate video marketing is no longer a luxury.
In fact, it’s no longer optional.
Leveraging real estate video marketing is a crucial strategy for agents to employ in order to grow their business. Real estate video marketing is not only a great way to get more eyes on your content, but also connect with your audience and leads on a deeper level.
So you can ultimately increase your conversion.
Today, we’re going to take you through the top 3 real estate video marketing trends of 2019 and beyond and show you exactly how to generate more leads and build trust-driven relationships in your community.
Let’s get into it!
Gone In 60 Seconds
While video marketing might be on the rise, our attention span is not.
You don’t have to create a 10 minute+ video to attract viewers or get traffic.
Your leads want you to communicate value in an upfront and entertaining way.
Short and sweet.
What this means…
Save the listing videos for your real estate website and use short, easily consumable videos to promote your services on social media.
Once you hook a lead with a quick video, you can deliver the real goods on your website.
Try starting with one of these simple topics:
Neighborhood Videos
You don’t even have to narrate these! Think about scrolling through Facebook, how often do you actually watch a video with the sound on? Let your visuals do the talking and do a quick neighborhood tour.
Business Profiles
Collaborating with other local leaders is always great!
Not only will you be providing information for your area, but you’ll also gain access to a whole new audience by providing video that these local professionals can use to market their business as well.
1 Minute Market Updates
Market reports are boring!
Keep things interesting with a quick video highlighting the major updates for your area.
Buyer and Seller Tips
Videos like these will never go out of style.
You can choose one simple buyer or seller tip and make a 1-minute video on it.
Publish just one of these on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube (or all three!) each week and you’ve got yourself an awesome series.
Instagram Stories
If you’re active on Instagram, you should absolutely be taking advantage of the stories feature.
Like Snapchat, the story features on Instagram encourages real-time engagement along with the sharing of your real-time photos and videos.
You’ll also unlock many branding opportunities with this and can use some fun filters to promote your page and business to your audience.
You can create buzz around new listings, show teasers, and overall give a behind the scenes look into your daily life.
You can also see what accounts have viewed your videos and follow-up with them after.
Real Estate Video Marketing: Quantity vs. Quality
The major thing that holds back agents from creating videos is resources are:
Time
Money
Equipment
And these three things are all related.
If you have the money you can purchase the equipment and you can learn to use your new toys when you have the time.
Really though, you can start making videos right now with your android or iPhone.
And you can make a lot of them.
That’s why we suggest starting with quick videos and sharing them on social media.
Can you create impactful videos reviewing the pros and cons of various school districts?
Maybe you can even interview certain teachers or principals…
These videos will certainly attract attention online of those researching where they want to live.
8. Local Event Coverage
Are there art fairs happening in the areas you’re farming?
If so, take video and photos next time you’re there!
Then, use a program like Magisto to make a video of the event. You’ll now be able to market the neighborhood with your attractive looking videos online and link back to your website through the description and video annotations.
9. Top 10 Lists
Do you remember those Top 10 lists the newspaper used to put out?
You can create your own Top 10 lists with other local business owners!
This will expand your network among business owners…
…And give you great real estate video marketing content.
10) DIY Home Ownership Tips
Finally, there is nothing like DIY tips to attract the attention of online video watchers.
You can give away tons of actionable tips about fixing up a home that you’re about to sell or just have purchased!
Going Live in 3…2…1
Live video streaming can add even more authenticity to your marketing and help you control how your business is perceived in the digital world.
If you like using Instagram stories, you can use its live video feature as well, but we recommend starting with Facebook.
Even after your livestream is complete, it will remain on your channel and will continue to attract organic views and engagement.
And if you’re still saving up for camera equipment, this is an easy strategy to incorporate with your smartphone as you get comfortable in front of the camera.
Required Reading
Video is the best resource you have for successfully growing your real estate business and getting qualified leads.
And I guarantee that you’re leaving money on the table by not including it in your marketing plan.
Check out these blogs to learn everything you need to know about easily creating powerful, lead-generating real estate videos:
It’s time to select the type of ad you want to run!
Navigate to your ads manager to get started.
You’ll determine this by setting your marketing objective.
In this case, like most always, it’s Lead generation.
To capture sellers with Facebook Lead Ads, we first need to create an audience to target the ad to.
You’ll start by selecting Create New and then specifying your new audience demographics.
You first want to enter your city or farming location and give yourself a 25 mile radius around it.
These are all the potential sellers who will see your ad.
You also want to narrow your age range.
Facebook will usually start you at 18 – 65+, but that’s far too broad.
For home sellers, we suggest making 30 your lowest age.
You can leave 65+ as-is, or cap it at 60 for more specific targeting results.
Next, we need to add in a few more details.
You can follow the exact targeting specs above.
It’s really important to exclude those in the real estate profession, as well as renters.
Neither of these groups are likely to be selling a home.
You also really want to focus on the income levels you select.
The 3 we’ve chosen above will work for your market as well.
Your targeting should be fine tuned as much as possible based on what you know about your market, but these are really good base points to start with.
Providing Your eBook
If you haven’t already, click the green button linked at the top, middle, or end of the post to grab your free seller eBook.
We’ve created this using Google Slides so you can totally customize it.
Swap out our logo for yours, add more slides, new photos…whatever you want!
When you get to the eBook presentation, it will look like this:
However, you cannot edit the eBook directly on the page.
Select File and Copy to create your own version.
DO NOT REQUEST EDIT ACCESS
Once you copy the slides, you can edit them and save them as a PDF to use with your ad.
Wrapping Things Up
We hope this strategy works well for your market!
However, even after you launch your ad and start getting leads, you need to make sure you’ve got a follow-up strategy and system in place to convert them.
Collecting contact information is great, but that isn’t going to push your leads all the way through your seller funnel.
If you’re a real estate agent on Facebook, you’re probably using it to advertise your business and services.
And if you happen to be a LeadSite user as well, hopefully you’ve applied some of our time-tested marketing hacks to make your efforts eve more powerful.
