If your website isn’t working to bring you quality leads then there are a few changes you need to make.
Step One: Review Your Website
The first thing you need to do is have a non-real estate person take a look at your website. They should tell you if:
- It’s easy to navigate
- The contact form is easy to find and easy to use
- The website content is fresh and up-to-date
- The message of your personal brand is clear but not self-serving or too loud
It’s easy to generalize how people will use your website but keep in mind that only about 50% of visitors will start from your home page. If you’ve correctly “Search Engine Optimized” (SEO) your website content, visitors will enter from many different pages and they need to see what they expect to see, content-wise, on the page, distraction-free.
You may have a variety of sections on your website, and you should, but be certain that there are main content areas that are expected and easy to find, such as:
- Current listings
- Contact information (must be clearly marked)
- About me (this section can be used to showcase your accomplishments)
- Newsletter (preferably a monthly newsletter of tips relevant to your clients)
Step Two: Promoting Your Website Content
The biggest part of your website is having fresh content on it. You should be publishing regularly and using your website content as the backbone for all of your other online and offline marketing efforts.
As a real estate sales professional your content can follow the seasons, offering helpful advice for homeowners. You can also provide community event information. One content avenue you should access is to exchange content with the local businesses you already refer your clients to for help. This has the potential to build your audience reach quickly and without expense.
It’s easy to publish content and cross-promote it across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., using automation tools that are available. If your website is using a Content Management System (a CMS such as WordPress is ideal) then these tools should be built-in or added for ease-of-use.
When you are buying social media ads you should be sending the visitors directly to a specially crafted web page on your site and offering a free ebook or some other immediately available, downloadable gift in exchange for their email address.
Provide Clients with Information Not Marketing
Gone are the days when the loudest voice wins. Now you need to provide value to have a chance in the competitive online world. Short attention spans and an unending stream of feeds, postings and news easily divides the attention of your audience and minimizes the recognition factor of who you are and what you do, until such a time that your unique value has been recognized.
It’s in your best interest to select one or two social media channels and consistently publish to them. Follow the 80/20 rule of 20% your own business content and 80% fun things that your audience will identify with.
Take a few minutes and understand how to read your traffic analytics (Facebook: Insights; Twitter: Analytics; Google: Analytics) so you can see what is being read and when. Even this basic information will help you to determine the ideal time it is to publish content to attract your audience when it will appear in front of them.
Manage Your Online Reputation
It’s certainly not enough to publish and promote yourself, you need to monitor how your content is being shared, what people are saying about you and be ready to act responsibly if your online reputation is attacked.
The first think you should do is have “Google Alerts” (https://www.google.ca/alerts) set up to email you, daily, all the news and web links about the subjects you need to stay aware of. These include:
- Your name (and variations)
- Your email address(es)
- Brokerage name
- Neighbourhoods you operate in
Add to the list of alerts you create the titles of articles you publish and any online nicknames and usernames you use. This will help you to be aware of what is said about you and where.
You should assume that anything you do online will not be private. More than 140 million Americans had some of their private information hacked and released online in one way or another since 2014.
Be careful how you handle online reviews posted about yourself. Always apologize for whatever the misunderstanding is and offer to take the discussion offline to settle the issue. This is a not a “fight fire with fire” event. Everything online is public and can quickly go viral causing irreparable damage to yourself.
Should you find your reputation being damaged online and you cannot directly contact the person that posted it, you need to email the website and demand the content be removed.
A reputation management company, if needed, can advise you of additional steps to take, should you need help.
Summary
It is expected by clients, past and future, that they can easily get in contact with you, that your service and expertise can be relied on and that you are current in every way they need your help.
You need to manage your time, use the resources you have to their maximum and work hard at building your business reputation because only when you do will you be successful.
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