Posted on September 28, 2018December 26, 2019 by Mike Goldstein

Top 5 ways to attract online real estate leads

As of 2018, the real estate industry has grown enormously by 11.4%. This growth presents a golden opportunity for real estate agents to land more real estate leads and improve their earnings.

The internet has not only enhanced real estate, it has revolutionized the way agents generate real estate leads. If your website isn’t optimized for improved lead generation, then you are really missing out. In the next few years, Millennials will make up 33% of real estate market. Of those, 90% of them will search online when they are looking for a home.

The real estate market is a very competitive one. So competitive that finding a customer who will patronize you is extremely difficult. If you don’t have a network, especially if you are just starting out, it is even tougher.

For agents finding it difficult in this industry or pushing for more publicity and productivity, these helpful tips demonstrate how to attract online real estate leads.

Website Optimization and email list sourcing

Your website is the primary source of lead generation online. It is an opportunity for you to offer your visitors real value and help them establish helpful interaction with your brand for the long-term.

Many agents miss out on this aspect. It isn’t just an opportunity for you to post content about your expertise in real estate. Rather, it is a platform to create valuable content showing your visitors how much value you can offer and how much help you can provide.

A simple way to check if your website is too company focused is by checking how many times you have written “We”. This practice is very bad because people are seeking answers for questions they have typed into Google, therefore connect with your leads by using the word “you” more often. You also may want to consider providing some type of free report on your site which will be provided after a potential client adds their email address to your mailchimp or constant contact account, as a way to gather emails addressees for a future e-mail campaign.

Use the Social Media

There are several ways to make generate interest via social media. One way is to constantly appear on local users timelines. About 1.5 billion people use Facebook and a lot of real estate agents generate up to $10,000 revenue monthly by harnessing their network Facebook. You can use Facebook for your main strategy for lead generation, but then it comes with the price of connecting with others. The most effective way is to use Facebook Ads to target potential customer across the network based upon where they live or work, and if they own a home. It converts to sales faster than just building your followers from organic posts.

Instagram is another way to connect with potential buyers because pictures and videos are proven ways to generate leads faster than contents. Both strategies require time and dedication to connect, engage and provide support.

Blogging

Blogging is arguably one of the best avenue to generate leads online. But you don’t expect an old corporate blog about your company’s events to generate real estate leads. To attract prospects and convert home sales, you have to provide your readers with valuable and actionable contents. These include real estate news, tips about working with realtors, listing their home or mortgage tips. It is also very important to syndicate your blog on your social sharing sites such as Twitter, Readit, and Linkedin so that others may share your content and give your article more traction.

Video creation

Videos are great tools for lead generation for any business. Utilizing videos to give a virtual tour of a house or apartment for sale is a wise way to engage your audience. Videos convert up to 33% of the leads on the internet. Videos do not only generate leads and engage them, it also push them to get in touch with you.

If you would like to learn more about generating prospecting online, schedule a call with VRG Web Design today.

Posted on September 26, 2018December 20, 2019 by Mike Goldstein

Why Real Estate Agents Should Have their Own Website

When looking for homes, people surf the internet for real estate information. In past years, people surf for properties on their desktops, on maps or drive around to look for vacant residences. However, today, you can search for houses on your smartphone on the go because of the massive adoption of the mobile internet in the real estate industry. In order to generate interest in homes, real estate agents need to have and improve their online presence by having their own website. Most importantly, they must harness the SEO advantages of responsive web design to be found on Google and Bing.

With multitude of agent competing in for their own share of the real estate market, it may be hard to gain the attention of potential clients. In order to thrive, you must find a way to effectively market yourself. If your market strategy includes sending bulk emails, placing newspaper ads or even craigslist, you need to think twice because they are obsolete.

Reasons to have your own website

Brand yourself

Stay out of the fray in the competition, you don’t just want to be another new face on a corporate website, like Century 21, or Remax. By hosting your own website you are establishing your own online brand because your website is the reflection of your services, authority and goals. Both home buyers and sellers want to work with someone trustworthy. Information from the National Association of Realtors states that 64% of sellers and 54% of buyers found their agent either from a referral or stick with the agents they have done business with before. One of the SEO advantage of responsive web design that you can be found on a Google search for your name. With solid SEO and a responsive website, you can rank high on real estate related searches on mobile and PC. It is the ultimate referral!

Be the number one support for your clients

It let your clients know about you and the services you offer. A website is a great place for the buyers and sellers to learn about you and affirm that they made the right choices by choosing you as their realtor. Providing home buying information and tips, information on loans and resources like mortgage calculators will increase the value of your website. It makes your website the first choice for support for your clients.

Become the local real estate agent

Another SEO advantages of responsive web design is the ability target specific geographic areas. If there is a specific area of a town you want to focus on, it can be easily integrated by implementing targeted keyword in your website contents and other SEO strategies, such geo-targeting title tags. When potential buyers search for real estate in your targeted location, there is a great chance that you will pop up on their search result.

Build your network through blogs

Creating a blog page on your website will definitely help your attract an audience. This would be great way to showcase your knowledge of the industry, build your trust and improve you readership. With a blog section, potential clients can also connect with your by asking questions which builds your relationship with them. You can also link your blog to your social media pages like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Posted on September 14, 2018December 28, 2019 by Mike Goldstein

VRG is Google Analyitics Certified

VRG Web Design is proud to announce that our Senior SEO Analyst, and founder, Michael Goldstein has passed Google’s certification exam for Google Analytics. Let Michael and our team help show you data from all channels that are directing traffic to your website, including:

Organic Search (search engine ranking)
Paid Search (pay per click)
Social Media
Referrals (Whomis sending trafic to your site)
Direct Traffic

Being able to monitor all the platforms allows you to review what is working well in terms of advertising, and what isn’t. Having all the data in one place makes it easy to compare the different channels. If you are currently putting money into your SEO, PPC, or Social Media Marketing, you can monitor your ROI. Perhaps you need to find out how you can maximise your social media strategy. Or your PPC campaign is not performing as well as you thought. A look at metrics like bounce rate and time on page can show you if you need to improve your landing pages and get a better return on investment.