Videos.  They’re the latest craze online.  The search engines are ranking them, people are watching them, and real estate websites are a perfect place for them.

Video Creation Resources

If you’ve been thinking about taking the plunge, here are some resources that can help.  First, you need a way to film the videos.   Take a look at using a Flip video for real estate applications. 

Second, you need a place to host the video.  You might want to consider hosting your real estate videos at WellcomeMat.comif you don’t have a host site of your own.  Since that post about WellcomeMat was written, several things have changed, including the fact that hosting at WellcomeMat comes in both free and paid flavors.  You can get the updated information by following the link in the post.  And, if you don’t want to do your own videos, WellcomeMat gives you an excellent opportunity to find a local videographer.

Six Ways to Use Video on Your Real Estate Website

Once you’ve figured out how to produce a video, your next challenge is deciding what kind of a video to create.  Here are a half dozen topics to consider:

1. Home Tours - If you took a look at the video noted in the post about WellcomeMat, you saw a personally hosted video tour of one agent’s listing.   If you’re wondering what the impact is of that type of tour, listen to another agent’s experience.  Attracting listing clients can be a lot easier if you first WOW them with one of your other listing’s video.
2. Community Information - Think about what someone who is moving across town or across the country wants to know.  Any type of community information would be worthwhile in a video.  Think about neighborhoods, shopping areas, things to do, parks, recreational venues, restaurants, special events, and well, you get the idea.
3. Schools - Especially if you’re selling in a family-friendly area, a video showing schools in the neighborhoods you target would be a welcome show for parents and kids alike.
4. Testimonials - If done properly, a video testimonial can be very effective.  Make sure that you choose clients who aren’t camera shy and come up with a list of questions or topics you’d like them to address.  A rambling testimonial isn’t going to help.  The rules for obtaining effective real estate testimonials apply to both written and video versions.
5. About Me - Every agent has a page on their website that is intended to introduce them to website visitors.  The most effective ones focus on the benefits of the service provided rather than the person themselves.  Think how effective a video would be to reinforce who you are and what your business can offer.  Are you nervous in front of a camera?  If so, you might want to set this video up as an “interview”.  Even someone off camera asking questions can give you a safety net.
6. Real Estate Tips - Here’s just one example.  Let’s say you’re a Buyer Agent and you have a page on your website about Buyer Agency.  You can list out all the reasons why a home buyer should have their own representation.  But, with a video… you probably have a client who tried to go it without a buyer agent in the past.  Why not tape the two of you talking about potential pitfalls and reasons to have representation?  Not only can you bring home a very important point, but what better way is there to let your site visitors get to know you as a person?

Got any other good topics?  Any experience is using video?  Let us know about any tips you can pass along!

Most of us hate being left hanging.  And, we’re especially testy when it comes to surfing the ‘Net.  When we’re looking at websites, we want everything handed to us.  Whenever you go to a new website, there’s a certain “learning curve” that you need to work through.  You’ll end up with questions like:

1. Am I in the right place?
2. Will this website give me information or tools that I need?
3. How do I find my way around this site?
4. How fast can I find what I want?

There are a number of things you can do to address those questions.  In this post, I’m going to talk about a couple of the more common issues I see on real estate web sites that really leave an Internet visitor hanging.

Am I in the Right Place?

One of the most obvious problems I see with many real estate websites is this: there is absolutely no indication of a target market.  I land on the website, and I’m not sure if the web owner is serving buyers and sellers in Alaska or Maine.

Don’t leave your website visitor hanging.  Add an obvious indication of your market area in the header on your site or at the very top of the page.  A simple statement like “Atlanta Real Estate” will assure your visitor they’re on the right track.

How Do I Find My Way Around This Site?

This is a question your visitors should not have to ask themselves.  Or, if they do, they should find the answer right away.  One of the more common ways you may be keeping your website visitors off balance is to make them work for every piece of direction or critical piece of information.

Don’t leave your website visitor hanging.   First, what is more critical (hopefully to your visitors and certainly to you!) than an easy way to contact you?   Make sure your telephone number and a way to send an email is very visible.  We usually create a “contact image” that we put at the top of each page.  This image contains the web owner’s telephone number, and an email form is just a click away.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to find a telephone number on a real estate website and came up empty.

Secondly, don’t make your visitors poke around trying to find things on your website!  For example:

• If you write “Contact us”, put your phone number in there!  It should be something like “Contact us at 555-555-555″.  Can your visitor find your phone number at the top of your pages?  They should be able to, but why make them look??
• If you direct visitors to anything on your website, include a link that will take your visitor there!  I hate it when I see something like “Find more information on our FAQ page”.  What do they think - I’m a mind reader?  Am I going to take the time to figure out how to get to the FAQ page?  I don’t think so.

Besides making navigation easy for your visitors, you need to add links to other pages on your website for SEO purposes.  Your “internal linking structure” is one of the ways that the search engines figure out what your site is about.

So, if you are going to refer a visitor to your FAQ page, make sure you use the appropriate anchor text to get them there. 

DON’T:  For more information visit our FAQ page.

DO:  For more detail, visit our Atlanta Short Sale information page.

Are you keeping your real estate website visitors hanging?  If so, shame on you!  Go fix that - right now!

This guest post was supplied by Roger Martin who owns a boutique real estate agency in Houston, TX specializing in West University real estate.

Getting the Most Out of Your Real Estate Website Pay-Per-Click Advertising

With a lagging economy and sluggish home sales, many real estate professionals are looking to pay-per-click (ppc) advertising for new business opportunities. A carefully crafted ppc campaign can provide a steady stream of qualified, targeted leads to your website within a few hours of implementation. Make sure you are getting the most out of your real estate marketing dollars by leveraging some of these basic but fundamental principles of pay-per-click advertising.

1.  Organization

Keeping your ppc account well-organized is a must. The major advertising platforms (Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter) require that you create separate ‘Ad Groups’ within each campaign.

Make sure that each of these groups is organized by theme, keeping all of the keywords, ad copy and landing pages relevant to the subject matter. Not only will you save time navigating your account as it grows in size and complexity, you will save money in the long run as all of the major platforms reward advertisers with tightly themed ad groups.

2.  Landing Pages

A common mistake that many real estate professionals make is to direct all pay-per-click traffic to the home page of their site. Although in some cases it may be appropriate to send certain users to your home page, often there are other pages on your site that are much more relevant to the searcher.

Remember, the goal is to make it as easy as possible for your website visitors to quickly locate the information they are looking for. And as mentioned above, the stronger the correlation between your keywords, ad copy and landing page, the less you end up paying for each click.

3.  Match Types

The success of your pay-per-click marketing efforts hinges on the careful research and selection of your keywords. Most of the advertising platforms allow you to select the ‘match type’ of the keyword you are bidding on.

You can specify whether you want your ad displayed for queries involving only ‘exact matches’ of your keyword, or alternatively, broad variations that may include your keyword within the context of longer search terms. Great care should be taken in the selection of keyword match types, as increased website traffic does not always correspond with an increase in quality leads.

4.  Geo-targeting

Geo-targeting gives pay-per-click advertisers the ability to display their ads to users based on physical location. When implemented properly, geo-targeting can be especially helpful to real estate professionals seeking to target internet users based on demographics. For example, separate campaigns can be created to target home buyers within a local metropolitan area and buyers outside the same area who may be planning to relocate.

5.  Testing

Unlike traditional advertising, pay-per-click advertising gives real estate professionals the unique ability to accurately track and measure the results of their online marketing efforts. More time, effort and money can be allocated to the strategies that deliver quantifiable results. As such, it is critical to assess and fine-tune every aspect of your ppc campaign regularly, testing ads against one another and constantly brainstorming for new and more creative keywords.

Pay-per-click advertising, when managed properly, can be a great way to ramp up business fast. Whether you handle it in-house or outsource it to an internet marketing service depends on your particular skills and resources. The bottom line is this: if you aren’t using ppc to generate new real estate leads, it may be time to start.

If you have a real estate website, you need a strategy for driving traffic to that site.  Real estate professionals drive traffic to their websites using a variety of methods, including Craig’s List ads, print ads, listing syndication, Pay Per Click campaigns, direct response mailings and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

It doesn’t matter how you get traffic to your website, don’t let the search engines ignore it!

Set Up Your Site to be Search Engine Friendly

Let’s say that you don’t plan to do aggressive SEO to drive traffic to your website.  If you have some other strategy for accomplishing the same result, that’s fine.

But, consider that your website is out there on the world wide web.  As long as it’s there, you might as well make it attractive to the search engines. 

Getting ranked in the search engines is something that happens over time.  It’s not an overnight thing.  Let’s say that 3 years from now, you decide to add being found on the search engines as a strategy for driving traffic to your website.  If you have done nothing to make your site attractive to search engines, you’ll have to start from scratch.

I’ve seen many real estate websites that have been online for years without having gained any Page Rank or standing in the search engines.  Some aren’t even crawled by the search engines on a regular basis.

Get Your Site Noticed by the Search Engines

Regardless of your traffic strategy today, invest the time and effort in getting your website noticed:

•  Choose reasonable keyword phrases to target
• Add information-rich pages to your site that are optimized for those keyword phrases
• Build some incoming links to your website

To assist you, we can offer a reasonably priced Link Building service.  With some initial link building and an optimized site, you’ll start the SEO process.

And, if you’re interested in being the “general contractor” for doing SEO for your website, we offer an SEO Coaching service.  You’ll avoid the learning curve and trial and error, and you’ll develop and implement an effective SEO strategy, outsourcing those tasks that would be too time consuming for you to do yourself.

Don’t let your website just sit there.  Get started on SEO - you never know when you’ll need it!