|
Real Estate and SEO - an Internet Romance
Commentary by Ernest Paul 04/07/06
With the heavy summer months of predicted cyclical real estate activity around the bend I would ask 'How are you preparing to manage that queue of frenzied clients rushing to have you list their home or assist them in finding a gem?
This year, there were already a record number of agents and other real estate personnel that entered the workforce to handle this huge anticipated rush of listings and a mad rush of buyers.
Well, wake up, it is not the gold rush and this is not the Yukon.
The marketing solutions that an agent receives from the broker are relatively nimble. To be ahead in the game there is a lot of prep work. Now, if you hobnob with the uppity crowd and sip Beaujolais with the philanthropists in town you may be in luck. You my dear have a god given gift and will be blessed with listings galore. And, for the rest of us, well, we have to think of something to get those leads. It reminds me of a great Jack Lemon movie, 'Glengary Glen Ross'.
To get ahead and to stay ahead is to keep pace with the technological shift. For potential clients there is listings information available on the web, they can do their own comps. There also, has been a demographic shift. Higher income residents increasingly use the web for information. Are you out there providing information? Can you be found on the web?
The agent websites that come with the house can not be found on the internet. Those of us who do have custom websites, we don't take the task of relaying that information to the client seriously. The bottom line is - you have to be found, it is not enough to have a site. You have to carry that big banner and say out loud - 'Here I am'.
| 
