The Next Generation Real Estate Franchise - Bottom-up Marketing
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There is definitely search engine clout from very large real estate search websites, but we all know that search engine algorithms change frequently, and hyper-localism is a concept that seems to be gaining ground with real estate websites. After all, real estate is local, and it is just about impossible for a national search site to do much in the way of very local coverage and linking for any one of thousands of areas where franchisees are located.
It's been proven that well-designed and executed local real estate websites, particularly blogs, can garner excellent top three to five position on Google and the other major search engines for local real estate search phrases. And, as the consumer becomes more savvy, they will gravitate more to local sites if they believe they're searching all the listings in the area on these sites. The national site loses power when compared to a local information-rich website or blog.
I believe that the real estate franchise of the future will not focus on top-down lead generation from a national site, but help their local franchisee brokerages to present a cohesive and branded presence, yet one focused on the local area. Using WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla, the franchise can create local presence sites that all present the same branding, features, and design, yet are completely local in their coverage. The large national site can still bring value, but do this by guiding the site visitor to the appropriate local site for their real estate search.
Properly designed, these local sites would be on blog platforms, and allow individual agents to contribute and create their own presence, all under the banner of the local brokerage and the franchise brand, and on a controlled platform. For one thing, it will stop the agents from creating their own sites, in effect competing with the brokerage for traffic. The benefits of having a professional presence handed to them will help in the recruitment and retention of agents.
By encouraging intelligent and informative agent blogging by setting up the site for direct contact to the agent whose post was the source of the visit, the site will begin to flesh out with great content quickly. This will attract the search engines and become a better strategy in the long run than the national site strategy. There can even be multiple IDX search pages, one for each agent, that will allow the agents to be proactive in sending visitors to the site via their own business cards and other promotional materials.
Other more traditional marketing methods can stay the same, but the Internet provides opportunity to cultivate the talents of individual agents in a way and on a platform that provides value to the agents and builds loyalty to the brokerage and franchise brand. One more value in SEO is not to be overlooked. These thousands of smaller sites will all be inter-linked, sending visitors from one area to others, but keeping them in the brand network. This linking is a powerful tool in gaining search engine prominence. The enterprising franchise may even find a way to work referral income into this strategy.
On the next page, let's look at the back office, contact/prospect management, and other tools that can be provided to the agents to make them appreciate their affiliation and stay around. It can be an extremely powerful recruitment tool.
There is definitely search engine clout from very large real estate search websites, but we all know that search engine algorithms change frequently, and hyper-localism is a concept that seems to be gaining ground with real estate websites. After all, real estate is local, and it is just about impossible for a national search site to do much in the way of very local coverage and linking for any one of thousands of areas where franchisees are located.
It's been proven that well-designed and executed local real estate websites, particularly blogs, can garner excellent top three to five position on Google and the other major search engines for local real estate search phrases. And, as the consumer becomes more savvy, they will gravitate more to local sites if they believe they're searching all the listings in the area on these sites. The national site loses power when compared to a local information-rich website or blog.
I believe that the real estate franchise of the future will not focus on top-down lead generation from a national site, but help their local franchisee brokerages to present a cohesive and branded presence, yet one focused on the local area. Using WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla, the franchise can create local presence sites that all present the same branding, features, and design, yet are completely local in their coverage. The large national site can still bring value, but do this by guiding the site visitor to the appropriate local site for their real estate search.
Properly designed, these local sites would be on blog platforms, and allow individual agents to contribute and create their own presence, all under the banner of the local brokerage and the franchise brand, and on a controlled platform. For one thing, it will stop the agents from creating their own sites, in effect competing with the brokerage for traffic. The benefits of having a professional presence handed to them will help in the recruitment and retention of agents.
By encouraging intelligent and informative agent blogging by setting up the site for direct contact to the agent whose post was the source of the visit, the site will begin to flesh out with great content quickly. This will attract the search engines and become a better strategy in the long run than the national site strategy. There can even be multiple IDX search pages, one for each agent, that will allow the agents to be proactive in sending visitors to the site via their own business cards and other promotional materials.
Other more traditional marketing methods can stay the same, but the Internet provides opportunity to cultivate the talents of individual agents in a way and on a platform that provides value to the agents and builds loyalty to the brokerage and franchise brand. One more value in SEO is not to be overlooked. These thousands of smaller sites will all be inter-linked, sending visitors from one area to others, but keeping them in the brand network. This linking is a powerful tool in gaining search engine prominence. The enterprising franchise may even find a way to work referral income into this strategy.
On the next page, let's look at the back office, contact/prospect management, and other tools that can be provided to the agents to make them appreciate their affiliation and stay around. It can be an extremely powerful recruitment tool.