The main websites that will link traffic/prospects to your website are Trulia, Craig’s List, Zillow, etc.
Why Brokers Trump Agents Everytime
A major part of SEO is the number of ‘quality’ links that point to your website. Quality in this case means other real estate related websites. Google figures that if other websites that it has already classified as being real estate websites are linking to your website, then it must mean that your website is really good. The better Google thinks your website is, the more likely it will be shown to its users when they are searching keyword terms that would lead them to your website.
This means simply, the more listings on all of these websites that are pointing back to your website, the more powerful you website becomes for generating traffic via SEO in addition to the Website Referral Traffic.
Agents at best have several listings that just simply do not compare in being able to attract SEO and Website Referral Traffic of the broker.
Most top offices now have their listings fed to Trulia via XML though there are many offices where it is left up to the agent to put their listings on, and then the listing points to an agent site or worse a single property website. NOTE: I do not think a single property website has ever come up on a Google search for ‘homes for sale’ or ‘real estate’ the two major keyword groupings along with the location name.
Or worse, the listing could be on Trulia but linking to the corporate website which then either takes hours or days to get lead information BACK to you or they send out a form email with the filled out data that really does not tell the agent much.
Imagine having every single listing going back to your broker website, where you have email/phone 800 prominently displayed going to a single point of contact to appropriately handle all inbound inquires.
At Craig’s List it takes Server and FTP access to create the level of traffic potentially available. Very few agents have Server and FTP access. Email me a request for a link to a current Craig’s List Ad. My Craig’s List Ad’s are better at generating web traffic and leads than Craig Procter’s and I’ll show you!
Broker website traffic from Craig’s List can be as high as Trulia and much higher than any other source on the Internet when done right. And the data from Google Analytics shows that Craig’s List traffic is very good traffic.
See a broker profile on Zillow here and a listing here. Notice the 800# in the listing information (yes, people call this!) with customer service personnel ready to answer, qualify and route any lead as necessary.
By having all the listings on all these sites means that potentially 1,000s of great SEO links are helping to increase your SEO standing! Vs. every agent having a dozen or so links going to their website which would obviously not compete with a broker.
Setting it up for Success
How you get your listing’s on these crucial sites is as critical as putting them on there in the first place. If you use an intermediary service that step’s in between you and the prospect, then it is probably hardly worth the money or time. The listings need to be branded by you, not a third party vendor linking back to them or one of their sites.
By creating an Office Profile you present a clear brand to the market and ensure every listing is posted which creates more Referral Traffic and SEO Traffic (surveys show less than 30% of office listings are on Zillow and of those 15% are posted by OTHER AGENTS!).
Also consider that it is a common advertising maxim that it takes many impressions of your message and brand on a person before it has an impact, let alone a desired result. Again, the broker has as many opportunities as the office has listings to achieve this goal vs. each agent’s 1-3 at best.
Now that you know how to leverage your listings and other information to maximize your website traffic via SEO, SEM and Website Referral Traffic, what you next is the key between a website visitor and a lead for your agents.
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