Real Estate SEO and Technology Blog

The public now has at its disposal a nearly inexhaustible supply of data and research on anything from how to buy/sell a home, environmental factors, mortgage types and forecasts and many other types of analysis.

REALTOR.org has a plethora of resources for not only agents but public as well. The Resources area of the site contains information on REALTORS® and Business Specialties, Association Executives, News Media, Home Buyers & Sellers and Diversified Real Estate Firms.

First of all, one of the best places that you can go to on the Internet is to Google the various major moving companies if you’re looking for information about your move or pricing. I’ll also be giving websites where pricing can be obtained from all the major moving companies from one location.

Some of the major moving companies that have great websites with good information are Allied.com, NorthAmericanVanLines.com, UHaul.com, PenskeTruckRental.com, RedmanVan.com, Mayflower.com and many others.

There are three basic ways for the public to go to get information on properties listed for sale. We’ve talked about two of them already. One is the major Board and Association websites that allow the public to not only search for homes for sale, but in many cases give them a host of tools to be able to use to compliment their search. All this has been covered previously.

The second most popular way that the public can get information on listed properties is by a myriad of agent/broker websites that allow the public to “Search the MLS”. While some of these sites ask/require the public to sign in, a growing number do not, giving the information out freely.

To begin, one of the greatest benefits that a good real estate agent offers to their public is the ability to price property properly. There is so much hanging in the balance that being off here by even a small amount (high or low) can cost thousands of dollars. If the property is priced too high, it can lead to longer sale terms which typically lead to distressed sales with low ball offers. On the other hand, if the property is priced too low, the seller will not realize their full equity potential.

At first blush it may appear odd to have a section on tools to help or assist the public with regard to various websites. This would be the old school of thought where the agent tries to keep all the information to themselves and away from the public. Here’s the new policy: give the public what they want and need.

Just as most Boards and Associations are now sharing the MLS data, agents should be assisting the public with pricing, searching the MLS, moving info, mortgage info and more.

Video has now replaced the newspaper for good. Not only does video add sizzle to your website, but it can add real estate SEO as well when either embeded into your site or used in YouTube. In fact, just look at how many newspapers are either going under, or are moving to the Internet. Video tours are now coming into their own. With faster bandwidth and more common video players and receivers, this is becoming the viewing method of choice.

Many video tours can give a floor plan of the home, and show a video of that room. Click on a different room and a new video pops up.

Dynamic pages of your website should be appealing and ready to make your visitors want to interact with the page and/or website. In other words they need to look totally professional with several interactive tools or widgets.

Dynamic page content is just the opposite of Static page content. Where Static page content can’t be changed by the viewer, it’s the purpose of dynamic pages to be changed by the viewer. Here are some good examples: 1. Quick Search tool 4.  Multimedia Virtual Tours, 2. Email New Listings 5.  Videos 3.  New Listing Alert 6.  Online Chat.

How does your Home page make your visitor feel? Remember this one word: Compelling. Is your real estate SEO text compelling? The question is how can you make your website more compelling? A great deal of this can happen because of your content. The question is how can you write the kind of text that will make it persuasive for your prospects to want to stay around? In this section we’ll talk about how to write better and more compelling content.

One thing that we know is that sellers want to stand out from the crowd. They want to know that their home and their situation is unique and worth paying more for. Therefore, your marketing much exemplifies this need. One thing that you want is to increase your real estate SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Let’s take a look at some good examples for this feature.

So what are those things that the client/buyer wants to see the most? Well we’ve already mentioned the most important tool that every buyer wants to see . . . “Search the MLS” or “Search All Properties”. But did you know that there is an even more important tool that you can use to solidify your relationship?

Excellent examples of this widget can be found at DeerValleySpecialist.com as well as PhoenixHomes.com. Both are not only excellent examples of professional websites, but also how to lead the viewer from lead to sale.

When creating a website, the agent must remember that they are an extension of their broker and therefore must get approval for the features and how they choose to “brand” their site. For example, the company name must always be shown on the website with the agent’s own name.

The agent has the responsibility to not only be fair to the public, but to their competing agents and broker as well.

Mashup. Just the word sounds unusual and “techy”. Many ask what this term means. We find from Wikipedia the following definition:
“In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services.” In other words it’s a convergence or combination of several tools or widgets.

The most useful mashup is the use of combining the  functionality of the IDX listing addresses with the Google mapping tool. This is probably the best of all real estate mashup tools. When doing a Map Search, after the search parameters are input, the map pops up with small balloons/pins indicating where each of the resulting matches can be found.