Once you have an agent website, you should make sure it’s optimized for search engines. But Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a long-term effort to get your site to the top of the search results. It can take months until your efforts pay off and requires constant monitoring and tweaking. In the meantime, for faster results, you can use Google Adwords.

What is Google Adwords?

Google Adwords is Google’s Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ad network.  PPC is an Internet advertising model, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. For example, if you work in Seattle, you would likely want to base your Adwords campaign on keywords such as “Seattle real estate,” “Seattle homes for sale” etc. If you manage your Adwords campaign well, your ad could appear on the first page of search results, under the “Sponsored Links” tab.

Why Use Google Adwords?

As explained by Google, Countless home buyers use Google to browse for real estate information each month. Google Adwords enable you to reach prospects in your region at all stages of their home search – while they’re looking for properties, checking out locations, and selecting an agent.

Google AdWords can be a very effective  tool for sending more traffic to your real estate site. Google AdWords  offers a measurable, pay-for-performance solution that enables you to determine your costs and only pay when a prospect clicks on your ad to visit your website. You can continually monitor your campaign to see what’s working and what’s not, and you can modify or halt your campaign at any time.

An important aspect of Adwords for real estate agents is that it enables you to target users by location. This allows you to reach home buyers and sellers specifically within your service area.

Controlling Your Adwords Budget

You should be aware that if you’re not careful, your Adwords budget can easily balloon and get out of control. If you’re just starting out with Adwords, it might be a good idea to pre-pay for your first campaign. This will ensure that you don’t go over your budget.

Converting Adwords Traffic To Leads

A well-managed PPC campaign is likely to increase the traffic to your site, but that traffic will stick around and turn into leads – and possibly clients – only if your site is attractive, rich in information and interactive. The last thing you want it to pay for clicks that end up bouncing off your site. Before starting your PPC campaign, make sure your agent site is as good as it can possibly be.

Nice Video from the UK with more information about google Adwords:

An introduction to Google AdWords

Adwords and PPC advertising for Real Estate Agents is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Ever wonder where your property website traffic is coming from? Over the past 6 months we have compiled analytics on over 1,400,000 visitors to approximately 15,000 single property websites and created this infographic to showcase our findings. Our study shows that having a top level domain name is clearly an advantage for both SEO and direct traffic.

Some of the highlights:

• Facebook has overcome Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow to become the #2 top referring website behind the King of all referrers – craigslist
• Mobile traffic is up 600% over the past 18 months
• Single Property Website can drive 55% more traffic to your listing than virtual tours or online flyers
• Google generates 80% off all search engine traffic

Single Property Websites – Traffic Report is a post from: Properties Online Blog

SEO, or search engine optimization, is important for any website, and this is true for real estate websites as well. Essentially, SEO helps to make sure that your website will be found on the Internet.

Optimizing your web site itself, or on-page optimization, is just part of your efforts to build a web presence, but it’s certainly a major part.

If a search engine bot crawls your web pages but your web pages don’t “tell” it what your site is all about, then the search engine will not be able to index your web site correctly, and people who search online for what you offer will not be able to find you.

For example, if you sell real estate in Austin, Texas, your site’s title tags and copy need to include related keywords such as “Austin real estate,” “homes for sale in Austin” etc.

Another important factor in determining whether your website will rank well for your main keywords is inbound links. Search engines show strong preference to websites who have links from other websites pointing at them. High quality agent site companies have tools in place to help your agent website get links.

Engaging in social media will also bring you links over time, because the people you connect with will learn about your site, and if you provide useful material, they may link to it.

Another important aspect of on-page search engine optimization is to add a blog to your real estate site. A blog, unlike a static site, tends to be rich in text. If you write it correctly and include your main keywords throughout the text, a blog can give your SEO efforts a significant boost.

Real Estate Websites: Why SEO is Important is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Over the years, Google has been fighting against spammers and their spam sites. It was almost like a game, but it was a high-stakes game: Google’s top priority was to only serve relevant, legitimate results to its users. Spammers had a different idea: their goal was to get their low-quality sites to the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs), even if for a short time, slap Adsense ads on those sites and earn nice amounts of money from all the traffic that would click on the ads to exit the disappointing site.

Determined to win this war, Google has tweaked its famous search algorithm, adding more and more tools and parameters that would make it nearly impossible for a spammy site to climb to the top of the SERPs. Google has pretty much won this war – and a big part of that is the insistence that sites have backlinks from other sites before they can get higher rankings (and in many cases, before they can be indexed at all).

What are Backlinks?

Backlinks are links that other sites are sending to your site, and they are essentially an indication of  your website’s reputation on the Web. A site that has no backliks is suspicious and won’t have good search engine rankings, because if other sites do not acknowledge its existence, then it could be a spam site, or it could simply be a low-quality site. Google doesn’t want to see either at the top of the SERPs.

You Need Quality Backlinks

But it’s not enough to get backlinks. They need to be quality backlinks.  When Google first added the backlinks parameter, spammers were quick to create “link farms” – sites whose sole purpose was to send links to other sites. Since this process can be automated, spammers were able to send tons of links to new sites. As soon as the folks at Google figured out this was going on, they tweaked their algorithm yet again, de-indexed link farms, and they also added the requirement that at least some of the links that a new site receives need to be quality links, from reputable sites.

How Does One Get Backlinks?

So How do you get those coveted backlinks? The best way is to create a truly interesting, high-quality agent site; write an interesting blog; and connect with others in your space using social media tools. When you write your blog posts, link to other blogs (make sure they are reputable), and leave comments on those blogs. Sooner or later, one or more of the people whose blogs you frequent and the people you interact with using social media, is likely to link back to your own blog or site. If you get links from reputable sites or blogs, all you need is a handful of those links to convince Google that you are for real.

High Quality is Key

Another way to get backlinks is to submit real estate articles to article directories such as EzineArticles, including a link back to your site in those articles (follow each directory’s linking rules). But whatever you do to get backlinks, remember that gaming the system is pretty much impossible these days. Your material, whether submitted to a directory or published on your own blog or site, absolutely must be of high quality.

Google Backlinks – Why Do I Need Them? is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Many of us were quite suspicious about social media at first, taking a “wait and see” approach, unwilling to invest the time and work needed to participate in social media. But it’s becoming very clear that social media is here to stay, and that not participating in social media is quite costly in terms of lost business opportunities. Here are a few tips to help you leverage social media to promote your real estate business.

Accept That You Need To Be There

The first step is accepting that you need to have a social media presence – that social media should be part of your marketing mix and is just as important as email marketing or printed brochures. The main reason you should be there is that a big part of your audience is there – more and more people are using social media, and many are using the Internet, including social media, during their search for a home.

Choose Your Social Media Channels

There are lots of ways to connect and interact with prospects, including a blog, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare and more. But you don’t have to be everywhere. We think that a blog and a Facebook page are a must. All the rest are optional, and you can experiment with them as you go along and see if they work for you.

Why You Need a Blog

A blog is great for helping your search engine rankings, especially if you make sure you optimize your blog posts for search engines – figure out your main keywords, the words that people will use to find your agent site, and sprinkle them throughout your blog posts, but don’t overdo it! Always make sure your text reads naturally. In addition to being great for SEO, a blog is also a wonderful way to build your brand, show your expertise and establish credibility.

Why We Love Facebook

Facebook is such a rich social network, no wonder people are putting up with its less-than-stellar customer service.  You can create a personal Facebook portfolio, or start a Facebook page for your business. In either case, you can fill your Facebook page with notes, photos, videos, comments, and lots more – there are tons of Facebook apps that make this platform an amazing tool for showcasing your expertise and for interacting with others.

Do it Gradually

Social media can be overwhelming at first. Our advice is to enter this space gradually, starting with just one channel, and adding more channels to the mix only after you have mastered the previous social media channel.

Manage Your Time Wisely

Our last tip is perhaps the most important one. Social media can be a huge time suck – it’s very easy to spend hours writing your blog, adding plugins and tweaking with your blog’s theme, and the same is true for Facebook.  But you have a business to run after all, so make sure that you limit the time you spend on social media activities each day. We recommend spending no more than an hour each day doing social media activities.

Leveraging Social Media to Help Your Real Estate Business is a post from: Properties Online Blog

You probably already know that having a real estate website is a necessity rather than a luxury. We simply can’t imagine not having a website these days! Any business that doesn’t have a website seems dated and unprofessional – and this is true for the business of real estate too.

But having a website is not enough. Your realtor website should be optimized for search engines, to make it easier for prospects to find you. While the vast majority of clients still find their realtor via referrals from friends, a growing number of people start their search for a home online, typing certain keywords into the search engine search box. If their search results include your real estate site, and if your site is professional and filled with relevant information, they just might contact you and turn into leads, and maybe clients.

That’s why it’s important to choose a few main keywords for your site, and to optimize your site for those keywords. Optimizing means that ideally, your main keyword should appear in your realtor website URL, in your site’s title tags, and sprinkled generously into your website copy. Don’t overdo it though! Just write naturally, as you would write for a human reader. Writing for search engine bots is never a good idea.

For example, if you specialize in San Francisco real estate, a wonderful URL for your site would be SanFranciscoHomes.com (keep in mind that the best URLs are already taken, so you might need to compromise); your homepage’s title tag should say something like “San Francisco Real Estate | San Francisco Homes For Sale | Your Name” and your website copy should include these keywords too.

Optimizing your real estate website for search engines is pretty straightforward. Take the time to learn the basics of search engine optimization and do it. It could bring you clients down the road and will certainly help you to establish yourself as an expert in your area.

Real Estate Websites: Choosing the Best Keywords is a post from: Properties Online Blog

While you should definitely have an agent website, filled with information about you and with lots of real estate information, photos, and tools, a wonderful yet often overlooked marketing tool for agents is building real estate niche websites.

What Are Niche Websites?

Niche websites are websites dedicated to narrow areas of interest. Real estate niche websites allow you to be a lot more targeted than you can be on your agent website. This helps you establish yourself as an expert, because if you have an entire website dedicated to, say, a specific neighborhood and filled with lots of info, pictures and tips on that neighborhood, you will come across as an expert, and anyone looking to buy or sell in that area would be more likely to hire you.

SEO Benefits

Niche websites also offer important SEO benefits. It’s generally easier to rank well in search engines for a specific, long-tail keyphrase than to rank well for a general keyword.

Types of Real Estate Niche Websites

Niche websites are easy to build and very affordable, which means you can build as many real estate niche sites as you’d like. A niche website doesn’t have to be devoted to a geographic location. There are in fact three main types of real estate niche websites:

1. Location. This is the most obvious one. The more specific you can get, the better, so don’t hesitate to start a niche website for your city, one for each sought-after neighborhood in your city, and perhaps one for oceanfront locations.

2. Customer profile. You can target first-time buyers with information specific to their needs and worries, retirees, families with children, even pet owners! Answer each group’s specific questions and provide the information most relevant to them and, again, you’ll establish yourself as an expert.

3. Property type. Many home buyers search for very specific property types, such as a single family residence, a condo, or an apartment. Other niches could be luxury homes, starter homes, REOs, Short Sales, fixer uppers – or maybe start a niche site devoted to properties that in your opinion offer a great value to buyers.

Content is King

The most important thing about real estate niche sites is to pack them with lots of information relevant to each niche. Add articles, notes, thoughts, photos, listings, tools and widgets, and of course links to your social media accounts. Turn each niche site into a treasure of useful, trusted information, and chances are, prospects will come to see you as a treasure of knowledge and information. Mission accomplished!

Single Page Niche Websites from ListingDomains.com
Multi Page Niche Websties from RealEstateSites.com

Niche Websites: What Are They And Why Should I Care? is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Having your own agent website is incredibly important. It’s a great way to build credibility, to demonstrate your expertise to prospects, and to help people find you online. A good agent website that is filled with content and photos and gets updated frequently will help set you apart from the crowd.

But before you start building your agent website, you will need to pick a good domain name for your site. A domain name is your website’s unique address on the Internet. Here are a few tips for picking a good domain name.

Keep it Short!

A good domain name is a name that would be friendly to both human visitors and search engines. When it comes to humans, you definitely want a short, memorable domain name – something that would be easy for people to remember and to type. You also want a name that you’ll be able to print on business cards – so a long domain name, again, is not a good idea.

Keywords Are Important

When it comes to search engines, you should include – if possible – your main keywords in your domain name. This would enable search engines to properly index your agent site. This often means that you want to include your location in your domain name. For example, if you’re a realtor in Austin, Texas, your ideal doman name would be:

AustinHomes.com or AustinRealEstate.com

While the inclusion of keywords often creates a slightly longer domain name, the SEO benefits are generally worth it, as long as the domain name isn’t too long. As a general rule, don’t include more than 2-3 keywords in your domain name.

Dot Com Is Still The Gold Standard

Of course, most good domain names are already taken – especially the .com names! So you’ll need to be creative and search for the best domain name still available to you.

If you absolutely can’t get a good .com domain name, .net and .info are acceptable alternatives.

Should You Use Your Own Name?

Probably not. Although using your name would help establish your personal brand and help clients find your site, it won’t do much in terms of search engine optimization. After all,  buyers who are starting their search for a home on the Internet will type keywords, not your name, into the search engine search box.

Finding A Name

The website NameBoy.com is a great tool for finding domain names based on keywords. Going back to our previous example, a quick search for the keywords “Austin Realty” shows that AustinRealty.info is available (at least at the time of writing this article).

Once you decide on a domain for your site, you will need to register it with a provider such as godaddy.com, and then renew your registration every year.

SEO Tips: Choosing The Right Domain Name is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Another cool addition is our Google Analytic plug-in. Real Estate Site users have long enjoyed this feature but now Listing Domains users can add their Google Analytic UA # and track all of their website stats from one Google Analytic account. Our built in website statistics are great for tracking visitors and referrals, but Google Analytics goes much deeper. With Google, you can see where your visitors are located around the globe, what keywords they are using to find your site, and much much more.

Google Analytic Tutorial

New Meta Tag Builder from ListingDomains.com is a post from: Properties Online Blog

This is where search engine optimization becomes important. There are many things you can do to help major search engines such as Google index your site correctly, and we help you with them. One of the things you need to do is submit your website to all the major search engines. We do that for you – one less thing to worry about!

We also include a link exchange opportunity in our agent sites. When you get legitimate links from other websites that point at your site, you increase your site’s authority and therefor its visibility in the search engines.

When it comes to on-page optimization, or in other words the way you optimize your own site to include important keywords, our real estate sites enable you to modify your meta tags to include your surrounding areas and your areas of expertise.

We also provide tutorials on pay per click marketing using tools such as Google Adwords, on blogs (blogging is a great way to add relevant, optimized content to your agent site!), and other ways to help drive traffic to your real estate site .

Real Estate Websites: Why You Need Search Engine Optimization is a post from: Properties Online Blog