Utilizing 40 years of real estate training and professional education experience, Florida real estate school Larson Educational Services is the premier provider of Florida real estate licensing, exam preparation, post-licensing, CAM licensing, mortgage loan originator licensing, and continuing education in Southwest Florida. Classes are available in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, and online. We are an approved Florida Real Estate School (License #ZH1002299), Florida CAM School (License #PRE31), Florida Insurance School (License # 370501) and NMLS Approved Course Provider.
As a new agent, if you want to reach these many potential clients online, you need to optimize your website to get the most traffic you can.
Follow these steps to improve your SEO.
1. Utilize local keyword phrases
Most home buyers start their research with local keyword phrases like “Fort Myers real estate.”
Although over time you may expand your business to include multiple regions, when you build your website at the start of your career, you’ll want to focus on a single area.
Once you’ve established yourself as a market expert in the first area, you can then expand to target other surrounding areas.
To optimize your website, blog, and articles you should choose search phrases like the following:
Fort Myers real estate
Fort myers realtor
Fort Myers real estate agent
Fort Myers homes for sale
The more targeted and specific your website can be, the better.
As a new agent your goal is to capture local internet traffic, not traffic from all over the state or region.
At the start, avoid key phrases such as “Florida real state agent,” since you’ll be too small to compete for that kind of keyword.
Although you may list dozens or even hundreds of listings at a time, you will certainly have a select few properties that you really want to sell.
Writing a blog post about one of those properties could do wonders for securing more prospects.
For this kind of blog post, the optimized keyword would be the property’s address. Be sure to include the address in the following places:
The meta descriptions
The file names of the photos
The alt tags on the photos (which you can usually edit once you have uploaded the photo into your blog/website)
URL
Title
Create about 200-350 words of unique writing that describes the home features using the best practices for home listings along with the standard description.
Note: for other blog posts not targeted for a specific property, there is no perfect number of words. However, longer content tends to be more helpful for users, and will therefore be rewarded more in Google’s search rankings.
You will also want to get as many backlinks from trusted websites as you can.
3. Off page SEO
You can establish authority in Google’s algorithm by submitting your website and business info to directories such as the Better Business Bureau, Yellowbook.com, Local.com, YP.com, and more.
Also, be sure to claim your business on Google (don’t forget about Yahoo and Bing, which both receive more traffic than most people realize).
By claiming your business, Google will see you as a trusted website, meaning they’ll put your site in front of more potential clients.
Get on the following sites:
Trulia
Zillow
Redfin.
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest (with images of your listings)
Youtube (with video tours of listings, which can be huge for gaining traffic)
Instagram (with quality images of homes)
Your website doesn’t have to be perfect: the main point is getting started. Creating quality content consistently is the best and most efficient way to be found.
Perhaps you don’t have any skills with video creation but you enjoy writing—then write incredible content. Maybe you have excellent photos—utilize them. Anything you can do to create valuable content will help you sell homes.
About Larson Educational Services:
Utilizing 40 years of real estate training and professional education experience, Florida real estate school Larson Educational Services is the premier provider of Florida real estate licensing, exam preparation, post-licensing, CAM licensing, mortgage loan originator licensing, and continuing education in Southwest Florida. Classes are available in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, and online. We are an approved Florida Real Estate School (License #ZH1002299), Florida CAM School (License #PRE31), Florida Insurance School (License # 370501) and NMLS Approved Course Provider.
To learn more about LarsonEd’s Florida real estate and Florida insurance courses, visit LarsonEd.com or give us a call at 239-344-7510.
About Larson Educational Services:
Utilizing 40 years of real estate training and professional education experience, Florida real estate school Larson Educational Services is the premier provider of Florida real estate licensing, exam preparation, post-licensing, CAM licensing, mortgage loan originator licensing, and continuing education in Southwest Florida. Classes are available in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, and online. We are an approved Florida Real Estate School (License #ZH1002299), Florida CAM School (License #PRE31), Florida Insurance School (License # 370501) and NMLS Approved Course Provider.
No matter how far along you are in your career—whether you’re a real estate newbie or a seasoned veteran—you won’t succeed without a well thought out plan.
And when we talk about a marketing plan, we’re not talking about your ideas to write a blog whenever inspiration hits, or to create videos when you have time (if your plans are only in your head, they are little more than pipe dreams).
We’re talking about a detailed plan to jumpstart your business through specific actions.
A marketing plan is:
a document that details you or your company’s marketing goals for a specific timeline, including a detailed step-by-step framework for achieving those goals.
Think of it as the blueprint you’ll use to guide the construction of your real estate career—your process for promoting your services.
Some quick tips for getting started:
Allot a significant amount of time preparing the plan
All goals within the plan should be reachable (with specific steps for reaching them)
Keep it easily accessible for reference
Share with the necessary people who can help enact the plan
Refer to it regularly (say every quarter)
Be willing to adjust it
How to Create Your Marketing Plan
Without clearly defined goals, your time and money with both be spent inefficiently.
Whether you’re an agent, home inspector, mortgage loan originator, appraiser, or notary public, just joining a team or setting up your office is not enough to attract customers.
You need to find them through marketing.
Although the details of marketing plans may vary, there are still some universal elements that every plan needs.
1. Clearly define your goals
Every subsequent step is based on this one, so it must be right. Maybe you have one specific goal or several—whether it’s driving more traffic to your website, increasing your number of clients, or reaching a higher revenue point—you won’t accomplish any of it without writing it down first.
2. Find your niche
What separates you from your competitors?
The answer to this question will help guide you to discovering your niche in the market.
Once you discover your niche, that knowledge will drive the tone of your marketing plan.
3. Find your target market
You cannot reach everybody.
Trying to reach every person is the same as attempting to reach nobody. Because time and money and effort are finite resources, you must necessarily exclude some potential customers in your marketing plan in order to more directly reach your target clients. (This comment is called “Hiding in Infinity.” Read more about it here.)
4. What’s your message?
Here’s where you get to have a little more fun.
What do you want to say to your audience and how do you want to say it?
Are your marketing materials going to be playful, professional—maybe a little bit of both?
Without a game plan going into it, your tone will be inconsistent.
Take a mountaintop view of your marketing plan and imagine how your brand will appear across various mediums and social media platforms.
5. What’s your budget?
How much are you going to spend on your marketing plan every month, quarter, or year?
It’s possible that the amount you spend could be zero—it’s possible (at least as far as money is concerned). However…
Remember that your budget includes time, as well.
Defining a budget helps you cap expenditures before you get ahead of yourself trying to reach goals that may not be within reach yet given your revenue.
You may hate crunching the numbers, but it’s a necessary step, otherwise you may find yourself with a plan that has no financial backing.
What about traditional marketing like magazine and newspaper ads, direct mail, and perhaps even billboards?
You don’t necessarily need to be everywhere, but you do need to think of the best channels through which to reach your audience.
Where do your potential clients?
Where do they spend their time?
You need to be right there with them.
7. Cultivate a content expertise
Try adding a blog to your website to share and post original content. Contribute to other real estate websites. Stay consistent and, over time, if you are adding value to people’s lives, you will be seen as a market expert.
People will begin to trust you.
Google will begin to trust you.
Your website and related content will rise in Google’s search results.
More clients will come to you.
8. Delegate
Your team (if you have one) needs to know about your marketing plan in order for it to come to fruition.
Get their buy-in from the beginning and set the plan into motion.
To sign up for classes with Larson Educational Services, visit our website, LarsonEd.com, or give us a call at 239-344-7510.
About Larson Educational Services:
Utilizing 40 years of real estate training and professional education experience, Florida real estate school Larson Educational Services is the premier provider of Florida real estate licensing, exam preparation, post-licensing, CAM licensing, mortgage loan originator licensing, and continuing education in Southwest Florida. Classes are available in Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, and online. We are an approved Florida Real Estate School (License #ZH1002299), Florida CAM School (License #PRE31), Florida Insurance School (License # 370501) and NMLS Approved Course Provider.
Sometimes, the best move is to stop producing and contemplate.
Real estate is a notoriously fast-paced industry that requires a hustler’s mindset.
Similarly, the internet is a fast-paced medium that creates the illusion that you must constantly produce content.
When you add these two factors together, you get a lot of white noise—people producing online content just for the sake of producing online content.
But how often do we stop to ask ourselves:
“Is my content adding value to anyone’s life?”
I’ll admit it: we’ve been guilty of producing white noise in the past. Look back in our archives and you’ll see “press releases” that were little more than thinly-veiled advertisements.
Or we’d post surface-level advice articles that did little more than repeat what already existed elsewhere online.
At one point or another, we’ve all produced spam-y online writing material.
Sure, there was a time when pumping out a keyword-heavy blog post every day would improve your search ranking.
Nowadays, this technique of jamming keywords into blog posts or YouTube videos in the hopes of boosting your SEO is no longer viable.
Google won’t reward this kind of writing in the search results and potential readers will quickly move on to something more interesting online.
Do you really think you can compete with 10 hours of cat fails!?
Content is King
Google is constantly trying to improve its search algorithm to provide the best content for its users. You can read more about one of its latest major updates here: Google Webmaster Blog* (see footnote for more info).
Marketing used to be focused on the products we sell. Now, marketing is all about the stories we tell.
An easy way to get started telling stories is to provide your prospects with insight into your business. People love the idea of having a behind-the-scenes glimpse into an industry.
Share part of your sales process or a personal success story from your business. Or write a blog post about the time you failed miserably and what you learned from it.
By telling these stories, you provide value to your sphere of influence.
Thought Leaders
You need to read more.
We all do. Reading is how we make sense of the chaos in the world—reading is how we get new ideas, whether professionally or personally.
Don’t know where to start?
I would begin by finding 5 to 10 SuperStar Agents that I admire and reading the content they’re producing online if I don’t already: their personal blog, their ActiveRain account, etc.
Don’t stop there—get in contact with them.
Find out what books they’re reading.
Ask them what books have had the greatest influence on them. The answers to these questions will provide you with a ready-to-go reading list.
Because successful people, in all industries, are molded by the books they read.
Hiding in Infinity
It’s easy to think about dominating an entire state or region. You tell yourself you’ll be the best real estate agent in Florida. Or the best in the southeast. Or the best in the world!
But can you be the best real estate agent in your own neighborhood?
Seth Godin, the author of 18 bestsellers about marketing and leadership, calls this tendency to think big as opposed to thinking small “hiding in infinity.”
He says:
“Whenever possible, ask yourself… ‘what’s the smallest group of people I could make a difference for?’ Smallest feels risky. Because if you pick smallest and you fail, now you’ve really screwed up. We want to pick big because infinity is our friend. Infinity is safe. Infinity gives us a place to hide.”
So find your niche—whether it’s selling waterfront properties in Naples, Florida, or selling chocolate-covered frozen bananas (I’m just spit-balling here)—and become a thought leader for everyone who’s interested in your little sliver of the world.
*Footnote: Anyone who’s interested in SEO should follow Google’s Webmaster Blog. For the longest time, I could never find a primary source for Google’s algorithm updates. Any website or article you read about Google’s updates are using this blog as their source material. Rather than rechecking this site every few weeks, I would suggest signing up for their email feed—they’re quite infrequent, so they won’t clutter your inbox. Just click on “Feed” on the right side of webmasters.googleblog.com then click on “Get Google Webmaster Central Blog delivered by email” as seen in the pictures below.
Naples Real Estate School 