Century 21 Real Estate Presentation Post

Posted • June 28, 2010 • 1 Comment

What is search? & Why is search important to your real estate business?

What % of Real Estate purchases begin on line?

Google tells us that 80 to 90 % of all real estate searches start online, at either a computer or on a mobile device. Today buyers pull up page after page of homes, compare assets, price per square foot, every detail.

Buyers have even bought homes straight off the Internet, without ever visiting them in person.

Real Estate Shopping Online

Along with the advantages of real estate shopping online comes the risk of being taken in. And as web driven real estate marketing becomes more competitive and sophisticated, it seems likely the risk could increase.

Internet Savvy Real Estate Agents

Internet savvy real estate agents produce websites, create blogs, post to bulletin boards, engage in social networking, and learn just about every way they can to make themselves visible across the internet. Many of them also spend large amounts of money buying keywords and other tools that push them to the top of Google searches so that, for example, when you type in “Portland homes for sale,” their website’s are among the top few in the SERPs (search engine results page).

Pay-per-click campaigns can cost a real estate agent up to $2.00 or more per visitor, and not all of those are solid leads or in other words buying customers. Some agents feel it’s like throwing money away, but they need to market themselves in the world of web driven real estate. Since PPC is where each through is paid for by a bidding process, the more money the agent spends, the better their positioning. Often the search results end up with the largest, wealthiest brokerages getting the best rankings. You know, those brokers who get half of that 3 percent commission.

The Long and the Short of It All

Real estate agents are throwing money at the short-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords are the words that are more general and therefore closer to the beginning of the buying cycle. Statistics show that 60 percent to 80 percent of Google real estate searches are those long-tailed phrases. Long-tail keywords are those that are more specific and therefore closer to the end of the buying cycle.

When biding on keywords for paid search most real estate agents are focusing money on the short-tail keywords and in that case, throwing their money away.

Long-tail searches have a multiplier effect on your web listings. Thousands of pages of data are created from listings. Every listing that matches one criteria in a short-tailed search will spread out over the web to feed the longer-tailed searches. Not only will the long-tail search terms be more relevant but, the short-tail phrases like “Portland house for sale”, are hoarded by the big brokers. Long-tail phrases like “3 bedroom house for sale in north Portland” will cost realty agents considerably less, even as low as $.10 per visitor. Those leads will be directed toward a more-targeted audience, focused buyers who are further along in the buying cycle.

Research shows that over 70 percent of real estate searches are coming from long-tailed keywords, like “gated 3 bedroom home for sale in north Portland Oregon,” and these same long-tailed keywords are converting into better quality leads for the agents.

This can also help the real estate consumer by providing a faster search with more relevant data.

This could also ultimately lead to cost savings. Brokers know their days without a real online presence are numbered. The virtual brokerage is becoming reality. As consumers demand commission concessions from their agents, someone is going to get squeezed and it will most likely be the broker.

What are keywords?

Keywords are the search terms and/or groups of terms searchers are actually placing in the search box on the search engine page.

How to find out what search terms or phrases people are using to find …

There are plenty of free tools available out there to help with your research.

My favorite keyword research tool is Nichebot. This tool saves me lots of time and hassle when I need research keywords. You can even get a 2 week free trial for only a buck!

For more information on organic keyword research check out one of my earlier posts “Using Keyword Research for Better Results in the Search Engines“.

The above article deals mainly with keyword advertising. This is where you bid per click on individual keyword and keyword phrases.

You can also rank organically for keywords. This is where SEO enters the picture.

The big difference here is that PPC pay-per-click advertising costs money every time someone visits your site from the search results. Organic is the search listings in the search engines where you don’t pay for visits from the search engines.

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

This presentation is earmarked for:
Century 21 Peninsula Realty
6110 North Lombard Street
Portland, OR 97203-4122

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

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