Real Estate Marketing Online - Using Content to Bring Traffic

Real Estate Marketing Online - Using Content to Bring Traffic

by Brandon Cornett

Real estate agents have to work harder these days in order to attract website visitors. The reasons why are obvious. These days, there are many more real estate sites online than there were just a few years ago. The number of potential clients, however, has not increased at such a rate. So there are more websites competing for the same sized audience.

But in addition to working harder at it, you have to work smarter as well. You need to take a focused approach to your web marketing strategy. One of the ways you can do this is by expanding your website with high-value informational resources.

How and Why to Create a Resources Section

Why bother adding new articles and tutorials to your website? It's hard work and takes a lot of time and energy. What's the point?

When you expand your website with informational resources (articles, tutorials, FAQs, etc.), you are achieving several things at once. And they all support your ultimate goal of getting more business from the Internet.

The Benefits of Content Expansion

For one thing, you are making your website more useful to the most important audience of all -- your prospective clients. This in turn keeps people on your site longer, which is the first step to converting anonymous visitors into viable leads and inquiries.

You also benefit by further positioning yourself as a lead authority in your market area. For example, if you publish original articles about the local real estate scene, neighborhoods, new construction and the like, it shows you really know what's happening in the area. Good for clients!

In my mind, the first two benefits are the most important. But there's another good reason to expand your web content with relevant information, and that is search engine visibility. Keyword-rich content is the first step to good rankings in the major search engines. The more relevant content you add to your site, the more ways people have to find you online.

Organization is Critical

So I've convinced you that adding resources to your website is a worthwhile venture. Now what? Well, you can go about your content expansion in a number of ways really. It all depends on your current site structure, your audience and your goals. But the most important thing is to proceed in an organized fashion.

Disorganization and clutter is a common problem on real estate agent websites -- too much information presented all at once, with no thought to organization and logic. This will turn your visitors away and wreck your conversion rates. Consumers have high expectations for websites these days, so why would they stay on a site that's poorly organized and hard to use?

Here's a technique I use all the time. Map out your current website structure on a piece of paper. Nothing fancy -- just boxes with lines between them, labeled by page name. Then make a list of the new content you want to add. Seeing it all on paper will help you decide what should go where, how it should be cross-linked, how the navigation should reflect the changes, etc.