My 2011 wish list for Estate Agents Online

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My 2011 wish list for Estate Agents Online

 

A New Year is upon us and with a New Year comes a New Start.

Not only have I pleaded for Estate Agents to start a New Year’s Resolution, but I have also decided to write my 2011 wish list.

This wish list is completely designed to improve an Estate Agent’s website and their overall online presence. Estate Agents, do what you want with this list, but remember that they’re all written here for a reason.

  • Do not only promote on social networks – the most common mistake when Estate Agents start using social networks is to only promote their own properties. As a social networking user, would you want your news feed to fill up with adverts or would you prefer to see valuable information.
  • Engage with people – Dubbed by Real Estate Agents in the U.S “become your local expert” is the process of engaging with local people online, so that when they have a property question, you are the Estate Agent that they turn to.
  • Write articles – Articles, if done right, are perfect for SEO purposes (getting your website higher in Google). Not only this, but you are able to complete the point above by sharing your articles via your various social networks. Try to write at least one article a week that is not copied and relevant to the property industry.
  • Learn to use URL shorteners – After you write a property related article for your website and upload it, it will be assigned a URL or ‘web address’ (the www.). Those pesky article links tend to be a bit long for social networks so it helps to put them into URL shorteners such as bit.ly, but the fun doesn’t stop there. URL shorteners also allow Estate Agents to count how many people have clicked on their shared links, therefore quantifying your actions online.
  • Website a hub – Your entire property portfolio is held within your website so you should make your website the ‘hub of all your activities’. Make sure all your social networks point towards your Estate Agent website and tempt the huge social networking traffic to your website by offering something of value, such as your property knowledge of the local market.
  • Featured properties – Try to change these at least once a week to pander to Google’s need for regularly changing content.
  • Do not auto share – This is a personal pet peeve of mine, auto-sharing may be an attractive way to save time but it simply looks terrible from a user’s perspective. Each social network even has its own way of presenting messages, take twitter for example, this goes as far as having its own language. Try telling a Facebook user about hashtags, @ symbols and retweets and they’ll stare blankly at you as if you’ve just told a dog to quack.
  • Video – Video has more SEO benefit than you realise. Simple as that, think outside the box and into a camera lens.

Troy Stanley, CTO of Resource Techniques comments, ‘Estate Agents, do you have anything to add? Contact us via our Facebook page or on Twitter.’

James Coyne – eMarketing and Social Media Consultant