It’s not easy to stand out in such a competitive arena as real estate. So, if you’re a real estate broker, it’s very important to take advantage of every possible platform where you can get prospects and hopefully turn them into clients. Building your online presence is one of the best ways to do that.
Here are some smart strategies that you can follow to find the best clients online:
Try paid ads to instantly generate a huge amount of traffic
In 2019, 50% of home buyers found their home on the Internet, and that says a lot about how consumers are finding it easier to search for homes online rather than scour listings themselves.
As a real estate broker, you need to capitalize on this trend and invest in paid advertisements that will not only give you more leverage in searches but also allow you to target your ads to a specific local audience. By narrowing down your exposure to your target market, you’ll get better chances at increasing traffic to your website or listing without having to spend a lot of money on marketing.
To ensure the efficiency of your paid ad, you need to take advantage of geo-targeting in your campaigns. In Google Ads, for instance, you have the option to target your ads only to specific areas, down to where your listings are and where you’ll most likely find suitable customers, and restrict them in areas where you don’t have a lot of target customers.
You should also make sure that your ads are optimized for mobile devices, especially since most new home buyers use their phones to initially search for properties online. Of course, you also have to write an engaging copy that offers value to potential clients. Once you achieve that, you can easily start to see more traffic going into your website.
Drive organic traffic with SEO
It’s a known fact that without SEO, all your online efforts are basically worthless. It doesn’t matter if you have a beautiful website. If you are not optimizing it properly, you’re still missing out on a lot of opportunities to generate organic traffic, get more exposure, and convert more sales from your prospects.
Effective SEO begins with a full audit where you can determine whether your webpages are doing well or not. If your website doesn’t rank locally, or if it’s getting enough organic traffic, you will need to make changes with your SEO strategy to get more positive results.
After addressing the issues that you diagnosed through the audit, you should focus on doing keyword research, optimizing your titles and meta descriptions, building proper inbound and outbound links, optimizing content and images, and implementing off-site SEO strategies. All of these will help you rank better in organic search results.
You should also make sure that your website is accessible to everyone by making your functionalities as simple as possible. Remember that some home buyers may not be “techie” enough to figure out how to navigate a website, so you need to keep your pages simple and easy to navigate.
Optimize your website
Once you have your SEO strategy in place, you shouldn’t stop working on optimizing your website. Make sure it stays relevant in organic searches. You will need to update your business information if you move to another address or change your phone number. You can also work on boosting your website’s exposure by adding it to Google My Business and other relevant directories.
Another thing to note is to take advantage of both online and offline strategies to get more people to know about your website. For instance, you should include your website address in your calling card or mention it in your emails as a primary source of information about your listings.
You can even add your website and social media handles in your print advertisements like flyers, posters, and billboards. Of course, you need to do more than just promote your business up front.
As a real estate broker, you can differentiate yourself by offering value to customers. You have to position yourself as an authority in your area who can offer advice that will help home buyers find their way through the sales journey. One of the best ways to do that is through good content.
Create quality content
You might be one of those brokers who ask: “why do I need to write articles, take pictures, and put together videos if I’m just selling properties?” The answer is simple: because content is still king no matter what your field is.
Quality content will help you establish yourself as an authority in real estate. It helps build trust with your target audience; it gives you something valuable to share with the online real estate community; and, most importantly, it is still one of the most efficient strategies to drive organic traffic to your website.
Good content is not only about blogs. In fact, you need to start with a good website experience. Don’t be afraid to leave some white space in your web pages so all the important text can really shine through. You should also make sure that your website is navigable and that you offer a “call to action” on every page to encourage clicking.
When writing content for your real estate website, think about your customers. What could be their most common problems or challenges in buying a house? Put yourself in your buyers’ shoes and stick to topics that can offer advice or a solution to their potential problems.
Of course, it’s very important to make your content shareable. Write content that’s easy to digest and that both first-time home buyers and pros alike can relate to. You also need to think about writing articles that people would want to share with their friends or post on their social media accounts because they believe that these articles would also be helpful to other people.
Use social media platforms to your advantage
Social media is still one of the most powerful platforms for real estate brokers. With millions of people relying on social media for just about everything, it’s crucial to establish your presence on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to increase your chances of getting noticed by prospective buyers.
Before putting out anything, make sure to study what your target market is talking about and then create your social media content around those topics. Be interactive on your social media platforms by answering queries promptly and commenting on issues that are related to your industry.
Don’t be afraid to self-promote your website on social media because that’s one of the easiest ways to get more people to look at your listings. And it’s free, too!
Influencer marketing works wonders
A lot of hype has been going around influencer marketing as one of the best ways to find online clients for real estate brokers. You should not miss the opportunity to leverage your website by drawing potential clients through engaging, valuable, and relatable content.
To get the best out of influencer marketing, you should start by finding the right influencers to collaborate with. Remember that not every influencer out there will work well for you, so make sure that you find people who your target audience could relate to.
In real estate, most homebuyers tend to follow influencers who they can relate to in terms of the lifestyle they want to achieve. So, if you’re selling high-end properties, for instance, you need to go for mega-influencers who are followed mostly by people who want to enjoy the life they’re living and can afford it.
But if you’re targeting millennials who are getting their first apartment, it’s best to go with macro-influencers who are more relatable to this demographic.
You should also work with influencers who know their way around promoting on social media. Facebook, for instance, is a powerful platform where influencers can promote your business through their personal pages, business pages, and groups. It is also a great tool to build a good relationship with new and existing clients because something as simple as giving a client a “Happy Birthday” message can go a long way in making them feel valued.
Aside from that, you need to be extra creative when putting out content with influencers. Your content should always be genuine and accurate because that’s how you build your credibility in the eyes of potential clients.
Final thoughts
Today, the real estate industry is as competitive as it can get, so you need to pick up the slack and really work your way to getting better leverage online with both new and existing clients. The good news is that you can now easily employ the real estate SEO services from Ardor SEO, so you don’t have to go through this process alone.
