John Jantsch is a marketing coach and author of Duct Tape Marketing. He wrote this post recently for Open Forum and we think it's definitely worth sharing. 
He has suggested some great tools that can help determine what keywords new home buyers may be using to search for their new home online. Competition for placement of keywords is fierce and the challenge is that there are constantly changes and updates. It can be tough to stay on top of it all.
Real estate marketing professionals need to dig through search data to find the opportunities to make their way to the top in search and then stay there!
Below are a list of five relatively unknown tools that as John Jantsch indicates “give you insight and a competitive advantage when it comes to determining the best topics for your new content and how to adjust existing content to rise in the search engines.”
- Topsy – Think of Topsy as a people trend engine for Twitter. Topsy looks at the way people are connected and the conversations they are having with each other all over the web.
- YouTube Keyword Tool – Most people are familiar with Google’s keyword research and related search tools, but did you know that YouTube (the second largest search engine) has the same tools? By visiting and using these tools you can find some great insights about video topics that are hot and ways to optimize your video content to take advantage of what people are searching for on YouTube.
- Facebook Posts by Everyone – There aren’t many ways to track what’s going on inside of Facebook (unless you are a large advertiser) but you can use the search function to do searches and get some insight into who is talking about key phrases and how you might join those conversations. Make sure you click on the posts by everyone and not just your friends. You might also consider taking a look at the search tool Kurrently.
- WordTracker Question Search – WordTracker is the paid keyword research tool of choice for most serious SEO folks, but they also have a number of great free tools. One of my favorites is the question search tool. A growing number of searches are questions posed by folks looking for something. This tool allows you to find search volume for questions related to your key phrases. When trying to determine blog post content, this is a killer place to look. If you can answer the questions people are asking most, you’ll score some big long tail search results.
- Bing xRank – xRank is focused on capturing what’s hot right now. There are a number of trending monitoring tools, including Google Trends, but Bing’s is a sleeper and returns richer results.
Do you have some favourite online tools? Let us know.
Real estate project websites have never been more important than they are today. This first impression of your project often determines if a prospect comes back or registers for more information.
But before these prospects even get to your website, they need to be able to find you. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important component to a real estate marketing professional’s strategy. In many cases, home builders and developers turn the website optimization over to their web developers and/or an SEO company. This is okay, but it’s important to have an understanding of how you can make a difference and contribute positively to improving your position in search. It’s all about being on page 1 on search engines!
Jim Adams, CEO of NewHomesDirectory.com has written a book called ‘Little Black Book of SEO Secrets – Search Engine Optimization Made Simple’.
All the SEO tactics presented in his book have been accepted, endorsed, and recommended by all major search engines, and will stand the test of even the most discriminating human reviewer.
The book is all about how to get your website found on search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and YouTube.
Not only does it cover the basics of what search engine marketing is, but it also covers:
- Keyword research
- Paid search vs organic search
- Website design and important elements that assist with search
- Developing compelling content
- How to hire a SEO company
Included are helpful tips as well as things that you should avoid. For example, having well thought out title tags on each webpage is an important part of a website strategy. But at the same time, it’s important to always avoid having pages with the same title tag, as well as just having your company name in the title tag. Read the book to learn why!
Jim has laid out the book in an easy to read, concise format that will get you on your way to understanding search and what you need to do to get your project website found!
To order his book, visit his profile page at www.jimadams.me
Search engine analyst, Jim Adams, recently presented the fourth webinar in Lasso's 2010 Homebuilder Webinar Series.
Entitled, What it Takes to Get Found Online, the 40-minute webinar is now available to view online and provides homebuilders and developers with a brief overview of why it's so important to be found online, how you can get found through search engine optimization (SEO), and where you can get found.
76% of Americans are online; and, we've heard over and over that 90% of new home buyers are starting their search online. We are living in an internet culture which has completely changed how we do business. With over 50 billion web pages, finding your site is like finding a needle in a haystack. Many homebuilders and developers hire website developers to look after search engine optimization; however, it's important to have some SEO knowledge to ensure you're on the right track. The webinar will provide real estate professionals with a good understanding of what's needed to improve your online presence.
View this recording, along with previous webinars that feature Mike Lyon, Jeff Shore, and Carol Flammer here.
How to Improve Your Online Presence and Get Found Online...
If you want to sell more houses locally, it's likely your goal is to be at the top of the list for most online searches. John Jantsch from DuctTapeMarketing.com has recently written an article on 5 Ways to Get More from Local Search. Here are some of the highlights that we think you will benefit the most from.
Real estate project marketing goals must include a strong online presence today, when a majority of prospective homebuyers turn to the Internet first when beginning their search for a new home. By following these tips, you can look forward to receiving more traffic to your website and to your sales center.
Increase your online presence by customizing your website, individual landing pages, online content, online profiles on social media networks, and more.
- Localize Your Website - Take the time to review your website. Add geography based terms to your page titles, footers, URLs and keywords on your website.
- Create Individual Landing Pages - If your business serves more than one location or community, create individual pages that feature content exclusive to each of these communities. Add information about local community news and events, nearby facilities, schools, churches, etc. Remember to customize your meta-tag descriptions and keywords in the HTML for each individual page! Local SEO Specialist Dev Basu provides very helpful tips on How to Create Effective Local Business Landing Pages.
- Online Content - When adding videos, photos, whitepapers about your company on sites like YouTube, and Slideshare and Flickr, take the time to add localized descriptors, links, and filenames to your content information.
- Online Profiles - If you haven't already done so, create a business profile page on social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. This blog article from SitePoint lists 20 Social Networking Sites for Business Professionals. Browse through to find those that suit you best.
- Get listed on Online Business Directories - Sign up with popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL, Microsoft, and Ask.
- Tap into your Networks - Get your friends, associates, and happy customers to talk about you. LinkedIn offers testimonials and you can publish testimonials on your website. Create a Partners page where you feature and link to all the great people you work with from builders, developers, realtors, etc. Ask them to link back to your site.
In addition to the above, there are several real estate-specific directories that are worth exploring. These directories are typically focused on a specific location. There's been a lot of discussion regarding the importance of Craigslist and NewHomesDirectory.com is a directory service specifically for home builders. It positions itself well in the organic search rankings for keywords such as "New Homes San Diego" and "New Homes in Chicago" and their main objective is driving prospective purchasers to your project website.
A corporate blog provides a means to communicate news and information to website visitors, prospects and even purchasers. Ask yourself why you subscribe to certain blogs and it's usually because of industry-related information, education, or topics of high-interest. A corporate or project-specific blog is one of the easiest ways to provide information and value to your prospects, purchasers and website visitors. But it also has a secondary benefit - you're adding content to your website frequently (search engines like this); you're increasing the number of pages to your site (search engines like this, also); and, you can improve position for your keywords when you use them in your blog posts. Not bad for something that is inexpensive to start up and maintain! A definite advantage in your quest for getting found.
If you're struggling with what to write about, you're not alone; but don't let that hold you back. Start with topics about what you do and your industry. In no time, you will find a voice and the number of applicable topics will expand. Your posts don't need to be long, but should incorporate your keywords. Often a blog post will rank higher in search engines than a page on your website with the same keywords.
If you need some ideas or just want to have a look at some pretty cool blogs, here are a few favourites (including some Real Estate-related blogs):
- Seth Godin - he really is the master of blogging, along with holding the title of king of marketing. He's smart and concise (nice short, manageable blog articles).
- Copyblogger - this is a fantastic site for online marketing success - blogging resources, search engine optimization, and just overall great advice for marketers.
- Hubspot - these guys coined the term "Inbound Marketing" - they are smart and provide great education through their blog.
- New Homes Directory Blog - Jim Adam's blog specific to New Home Builders and Developers. Jim's an expert in social media, search engine optimization and blogging.
- Mike Lyon - Do You Convert? This is a fantastic example of using many different types of media successfully in your blog. Mike is a creative, smart guy who understands the challenges that home builders and developers face. His blog is informative and relevant.
- mRelevance - another blog specific to homebuilders and developers. Carol Flammer and her team offer great advice ranging from public relations to internet marketing and have recently launched a blogging platform specifically for homebuilders. Check them out.
The following is a list of a few of Lasso's clients who are blogging. Let us know who else has become a blogger and we'll feature you!
image source: istock
I have received a number of calls and emails in the last couple weeks asking about NewHomesDirectory.com. Several inquiries about the service and also about the nature of Lasso's partnership with NewHomesDirectory.com.
Basically, there are a couple of reasons for the partnership:
- Builder marketing and sales executives have repeatedly told us over the past couple of years that quality traffic is a major issue - whether it is referral, walk in, traditional ads or from online sources.
- And while most builders have invested in website technology (often substantial amounts), most are not aware of the challenges of getting found online. That is, the trouble in getting found by prospective consumers on Page 1 of Google (or Yahoo or MSN).
NewHomesDirectory.com does a terrific job of organic search engine optimization (SEO), catering to the 75% or so of prospective home buying consumers that start their search for a home on the internet.
The directories, organized by city, create a simple landing place, typically on page 1 of Google (see the image below where the Vancouver Directory places in the 3rd spot in Google's search for "Vancouver New Homes"), for consumers to click through to a comprehensive listing of new home communities and projects by region, by builder and by price categories. Plus, it is really easy for consumers to navigate because the directory is exclusive to new homes (no resale or rental listings), has no banner ads or other typical distractions. It is purposely a very simple site.
So for home builders that are interested in generating more traffic, especially of high quality, we think NewHomesDirectory.com is a natural, and very economical, extension of their advertising and online marketing strategy. And at $2/click with a monthly cap per community it is impossible to go over budget.
At Lasso we have historically been all about Real Estate CRM technology to capture, target and close prospects. Now we are extending our reach to offer additional services that will help developers and builders market and sell their projects. We think helping them drive more quality traffic and also providing our expertise in online marketing ultimately helps with the number 1 priority - More sales!
A recent post by Sarah Yaussi of Big Builder is worth a read if you are ready to take the plunge into blogging - BigBuilder Online: Builder Blog Basics.
It's no secret that blogs are a fantastic way to improve your position for keyword searches. Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! are looking for fresh content and blogs certainly help with Search Engine Optimization. (Want more information about SEO? Here's a link to a favourite blog - www.ducttapemarketing.com and a recent article called The Simple Math of SEO. The ebook: Let's Talk - Social Media for Small Business is also a great starting point as an educational resource.)
Start blogging. We did and it's working. Our primary objective to blogging was to provide relevant and interesting information to home builder marketing and sales professionals and we've seen the added bonus of improving our position in keyword search. We are coming up in searches that we never did before and it's due to the efforts we've made to our blog.
In addition to improving search results, the Social Media Ninja (as Mike Lyon affectionately calls Sarah) points out the additional benefits of blogging:
- Simple to implement (there are many user-friendly templates available)
- Low cost (some blog hosting services are free)
- News focused (fresh content drives Web traffic)
- Authoritative (promotes link-building)
- Highly interactive (comment features are king)
- Spread easily (think RSS feeds)
My only comment about Sarah's blog post is the frequency of postings. Yes, I'm sure it would be wonderful to have daily posts or as Sarah recommends, 2-3 times per week, but quality trumps quantity and think about your email subscribers. You want to make sure that you blog frequently enough for them to remember that they subscribed and for them to anticipate your posts but don't post just for the sake of posting and you may want to consider posting on the same day each week. Also, be somewhat wary of the free blogging software out there - free is a wonderful thing, but sometimes there are restrictions and you don't want to discover that you're limited to what you can do.
Share your blogging ideas with us! We're launching a new blog in September that will showcase our clients' new real estate developments. Send us your project information and we'll post it.
Now you can gain valuable insight into your leads and prospects' actions and buying interests on your project website ... even before you make a phone call!
Over 80% of new home buyers start their search on the web. This is a pretty radical change from even a few years ago. What does this mean?
Quite simply it means that:
- A real estate project's website is more important than ever.
- Finding ways to get traffic to your website is vital.
- Knowing key information about your website traffic, where they spend time on your site and how many times they visit is intrinsic to relationship building and selling.
Improve your sales team and your marketing intelligence with Lasso's new Website and Lead Tracking for one or more of your projects. A 60-day free trial test drive available now!
Sales will know exactly what web pages were visited, what forms were filled out, and how the site was found. Have information at your finger tips to determine prospect interest level and sales-readiness, plus differentiate yourself from the competition.
And receive real-time email alerts every time a prospect comes back to visit your website!
Track website and lead traffic:
- Number of visitors, number of repeat visitors and number of new Registrants.
- Website pages a Registrant has viewed as well as how many visits they have made to your site.
- Your lead sources/referrals - is it organic search or paid search that has the biggest impact for you?
Creating blogs, link-building, and pay-per-click campaigns are all popular ways to generate interest and traffic to your website. Many new home builders and developers are using facebook ads, Twitter, Google Adwords and websites like www.newhomesdirectory.com to establish a strong presence on the internet and generate traffic to their project website.
Lasso's Website Tracking provides additional detail that isn't available through Google Analytics. You will see specific lead details - like exactly how this lead found your site and you'll be able to analyze how effective your marketing efforts are.
This functionality isn't only for new online Registrants - you can also track web activity for existing Registrants.
We're excited about these new features. They provide our clients with a significant competitive advantage during these times when there's much focus on generating website traffic and lead nurturing.
Almost every developer is in varying stages of trying to leverage ‘inbound internet marketing' --- getting quality traffic to your website --- via that sometimes confusing and complex combination of website search optimization (SEO), blogging and social media. In their quest to get found by quality leads, many builders use disparate approaches to each and regularly spend substantially on external expert agencies; with varying degrees of success, but much too often with mixed or little concrete results.
Enter HubSpot.
In short, HubSpot offers:
- A very informative website, sort of like Inbound Marketing 101, that provides clear and easy to understand information and white papers about internet marketing. For both the novice and the more sophisticated.
- A website and keyword grader that quickly evaluates your company or project website.
- Search optimization, that can be done internally by marketing (no techie required), that focuses on driving traffic & leads organically more than by paid search techniques.
- A blog format that is easy to get going (please note the functionality for community forums is limited).
- A framework that comes with valuable advice for effectively participating in social media.
- At Lasso, we use HubSpot and have found their knowledge and advice helpful, friendly and prompt.
Taking 15-20 minutes to visit their website should be a most rewarding experience. And please let us know what you think.