TOP FIVE WAYS REALTORS CAN USE DIGITAL MARKETING TO BOOST SALES

As a realtor, you may have experienced a major shift in the last ten years. Clients are beginning to buy houses in a different way, often beginning with online market research and a clear vision of precisely what they want out of their future home.

For best-in-class realtors, digital marketing has come to the forefront of their marketing efforts. From generating new leads to completing successful sales, the real estate industry is now reliant on digital marketing.

Real Estate and the Importance of Digital Marketing

Social media was one of the first game changes for realtors seeking ways to get noticed online. From purchasing Facebook Business Ads to sharing photo albums of new listings, various social media platforms allowed real estate professionals to build a brand and a booming business.

With 84% of real estate professionals using social media platforms, how can modern real estate brokerages and realtors in the United States further differentiate themselves in a saturated market? Your digital marketing strategy can have a much greater impact than traditional marketing strategies.

To jump-start your real estate digital marketing strategy, use the following 8 tips and tricks to get the results you’re seeking:

1. Create a User-Friendly Website

How many times have you opened a website only to close it because it wouldn’t load fast enough? With so many photos and links, realtor websites can sometimes be a web developer’s nightmare. However, with the help of a professional web designer and a knowledge of what your clients are looking for, real estate professionals can develop a responsive website that is optimized for mobile browsing.

Almost half of all web browsing is completed on a mobile device, so if your website is not designed to be responsive, your clients will not be able to browse your site comfortably. Your mobile-friendly website should include the following content in order to give your clients the best experience:

• A list of all new listings
• Content that will guide them throughout the home buying process
• Links to relevant moving-related services such as lawyers, movers, and home inspectors

In addition, consider implementing a live chat feature on your website. Your real estate business is extremely people-centric, meaning that it’s important to be available when they need to ask questions. Investing in a live chat software allows people to connect 24/7 and schedule appointments without necessarily speaking directly to you.

2. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-Per-Click – also known as PPC – advertising is an excellent strategy for realtors looking to generate new leads based on ads that they pay for every time the ad gets clicked on.

PPC is a great digital marketing option for real estate professionals seeking potential clients who may genuinely be interested in their offering, as they only pay when someone clicks through their ad.

Often, PPC ads can be targeted toward individuals who have searched for correlated keywords in Google or another search engine.

3. Host Virtual Tours

Virtual tours of a home are incredible pieces of content in a successful digital marketing strategy. Not only do these tours share video content – which generates revenue 49% faster for marketers than non-video users – but a potential client can get an idea of what a home really has to offer them.

Purchasing a home can be difficult, and as a real estate expert, your job is to make the home buying journey as easy as possible for your clients. Andrew J Carr shared some of the more critical qualities realtors should try to include in successful virtual tours, such as:

• Using real footage of the home, as compared to digital illustrations
• Ensuring the video of the tour is interactive and responsive across all viewing methods (mobile and desktop)
• Making the virtual tour 3D and user-friendly

4. Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy

It’s one thing to post real estate-related content on your Facebook account every once in a while, but a full-fledged social media marketing strategy is what truly yields the results you’re looking for. Some ideas of useful content to post on your social media channels include:

• New or existing listings
• Team bios (if you run a real estate brokerage)
• Case studies
• Relevant blog posts
• Success stories

If you're experienced in digital marketing, you may realize just how difficult it can be to create a social media strategy and to post regularly across all channels. However, tools like Buffer are designed to help make social media content development and scheduling simple and clear.

The most important rule of thumb for developing a social media strategy for your real estate business is to share varied content. Although sharing listings is an important factor of your digital strategy, you want to make sure that your content is useful for a broad audience, not just leads in the market for a new home.

5. Adoption of SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a critical technique to drive leads to your website. When done correctly, your website and web pages will show up higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) during relevant searches.

However, Google and other search engines are constantly changing their algorithms, so it's critical to focus on your SEO more than one time. Keywords are a basic aspect of SEO that can make a significant difference. To include keywords in your SEO strategy, make sure that you include high-ranking keywords such as your location and your industry throughout your blog content and website. There are other elements of a strong SEO strategy, including:

• Backlinks
• Meta titles and descriptions
• Social media pages
• Online directories

Because content is such a valuable asset to a good SEO strategy, make sure that you update your blog regularly. Typically, the material that is ranked highest on