Digital Marketing - A Crash Course for Real Estate Agents and Property Managers

Know the Basics – Fundamentals of Search Engines and Digital Marketing.

Real estate and property management are very competitive when it comes to online marketing. You’ve probably heard it called by several names, digital marketing, internet advertising, SEO, PPC, web marketing, social marketing, etc. But as far as I’m concerned it’s all the same thing. For the purposes of this post, we will refer to it from now on as Digital Marketing or DM.

Digital marketing is the idea of using online resources to get potential customer’s attention.

Most of us are familiar with two main types of Digital Marketing –

SEO or Search Engine Optimization. The practice of bringing traffic to your website from “organic search” traffic ….
PPC – Pay Per Click or simply, paid advertising.

What’s important to remember is that PPC is paid advertising, and SEO is “free” (sort-of). Let’s start by discussing what a search engine is and how it works in general. Then we can discuss the concepts of SEO and PPC and how to apply them to your business.

Definition of Digital Marketing

Wikipedia defines a search engine as, a computer program that searches for and identifies items in a database that correspond to keywords or characters specified by the user, used especially for finding particular sites on the World Wide Web.

We all understand the concept of finding information through search engines. Most of us have used Google or one of the big search engines to look for information at one point or another. If you’re like me, you use it every day. Using a search engine is simple. We type in some words and look for results that match. Easy right? Well, it’s easy for the user at least. That’s the way it should be. We are living in an on-demand world, and when we want to know something, we google it and find the answer. But what is going on behind the scenes? In the back-end of the search engine software, there is actually an estimated 2 billion lines of code. That’s Billion with a B. So the question becomes, how did the question we asked Google, become the answer we received from Google?…. The answer lies in those 2 billion lines of code. The search engine itself is simply a computer program. Understanding how that computer program works will help you improve your digital marketing efforts. Below I will outline the benefits and disadvantages of both PPC and SEO.

When we use a search engine to find information, we enter keywords that we think should give us the correct result, then we scan the results page of all suggested websites, and hopefully find what we are looking for. Let’s look at an example of what a SERP or Search Engine Results Page looks like and how to identify the difference between paid and organic SEO.

Difference Between Organic and Paid Advertising

Search Engine Optimization: SEO – This is an online marketing strategy that involves bringing traffic to your website through organic traffic. Traditionally, SEO has been a very attractive strategy because technically it is free. You can get valuable traffic to your website at no additional cost. If you are able to earn a top spot in the organic search results, it can be very beneficial to your online presence. Because of this low-cost valuable traffic, everyone wants to get their website listed on the first page of the SERP’s. But it’s not really as easy as it sounds. Remember those 2 billion lines of code in Google’s software? Those algorithms and lines of code are what is determining the websites you see on the results page. The game is how do we get our website to be one of those chosen results.

While it would be impossible to completely understand all the code that Google uses, there are guideposts that Google provides, explaining how to best promote your website through their site. Google has created and is constantly updating, thousands of pages of documentation outlining what the best practices are. If you are inclined, you can read these guides at https://www.google.com/webmasters. There is a ton of free information here, and if you follow the rules you can get results for your website. But you must follow the guidelines. If you don’t, your website will likely never be found among all the millions of possible results that google has to choose from.

How does a search engine choose which results to display? It’s all done automatically through those billions of lines of code. But ultimately, the main purpose of a search engine is to provide relevant results to the user. They do this by weighing a bunch of data and various page ranking factors and determine what results are best based on the keywords entered by the user. The secret sauce for you will be to understand what those ranking factors are, and then figure out how to align your site and your content so that these factors are being addressed on your site. Google will reward you for this.

What are the page ranking factors that determine the search results? There are tons! But let’s only focus on a few most important ones to start. The list below is not all-encompassing but if you were to focus on only the 5 following factors, it would be very likely that you would get great results with your web marketing efforts.

But wait! Very important!** Before updating your page ranking factors you will want to take a deep dive into keyword research. It’s very likely that the keywords you want to rank for, are not properly implemented on your site or in the site structure.

Start with Keyword Research

What is keyword research? Keyword research is the act of determining and predicting what words your customers will be using to find what they are looking for. There are a number of ways to conduct keyword research. There are paid and free tools that help analyze this information. The easiest place to start is with the google keyword tool. You will need an Adwords account to use this tool but it is worth the effort. If you don’t already have an Adwords account, please get one and start becoming familiar with how to use the software, especially the keyword research tool. There are other ways to conduct research as well. One of the best ways is to simply google the keywords you want to rank for and analyze the results. This is also a great way to see who your competition is for these keywords. Remember to only look at the organic results when analyzing keywords and competition. Once you have a good keyword list of at least 15-20 solid keywords that you want to rank for, you will then begin updating your page ranking factors to increase your visibility to the search engines. *Note – Do not try to use more than one keyword phrase per webpage or blog post! Everyone makes this mistake. Trying to make your page encompass more than one keyword phrase will spread your keyword influence too thin, and you will end up not ranking for any of the search terms that you were attempting to be seen for.

Most Important Page Ranking Factors

What are the most important page ranking factors?

Page Structure.
Page Content
Links – Internal vs external
Location. Local search.
Social & Reviews

Page Structure. This part is a bit technical but so very important. If you have a website that you own, whether you realize it or not, there is already something on your site called meta-data. Meta-Data is defined simply as “data about data.” The metadata on your site tells the google software (robots) what your website is about. It is important that this information has an accurate description of what your website represents. Make sure that the description and keywords of your site in the page structure or meta-data are accurate and up to date. Most importantly this is referring to your title tags and your page description. Your webmaster or website provider should be able to help you with this. If this is something they won’t do, find a better website provider. If they won’t let you in your files or help you access and update them, something shady is going on and you might want to reconsider using a new host or website provider.
Page content. The page content is different than page structure and meta-data. Content is what your users and customers are going to see and read directly on your webpage. Meta-data is visible only to the search engines. Creating content should be your highest priority for your website. You may have heard the expression, “Content is King.” This is an accurate expression. But it should be revised to say, Quality Content is King. So many people have been going through the motions of creating content, but mostly they are making a few posts on social media and writing a blog post (once every 6 months). This is not quality content. There are also website providers that promote the service of creating and posting content for you. Do not be tricked by this. This will not help your search rankings. It is considered duplicate content. Duplicate content is potentially posted on hundreds of different websites in the exact same format. It is not unique to you and therefore the search engines will not reward you. You can check your articles to see whether or not they would be considered duplicate content by going to a free website called SIteliner at http://www.siteliner.com. Unfortunately, there is no getting around doing the work of creating content. You will have to find some time to create content or hire someone to create it for you. But this can get very expensive. What kind of content should you create? Make it specific to your targeted keywords. Too many people create content just for the sake of putting something on a web page, or they don’t have a solid list of highly targeted keywords that they focus on. But you want to be more strategic than that. Make sure you are creating content around your list of top keywords. Take one keyword or keyword phrase like “property management in Tampa, FL” and build a page full of content centered around just those words. Remember, be sure you are only targeting one keyword or keyword phrase per piece of content. Digital content can be anything from a blog post, a web page, a video or even an audio file or podcast. You will want to use these various types of content to promote your brand. Also, consider the channel where this content will be viewed. Content that converts well on Google may not have the same effect on Facebook, and vice versa. You will want to test different messages on different platforms and “channels” to see which work best for which. This can be tested and analyzed through paid advertising campaigns which we will discuss next, and also through the use of analytics. Which simply is software that keeps track of all the metrics on your website and generates a report that you can analyze. Google offers a free analytics product that I highly recommend installing on your website. In essence, however, the most important thing you can do is create lots of quality content as often as you can.
Links. Internal & External – Links are an extremely important aspect of building your digital footprint and creating authority so that search engines will rank your website at the top of your desired keywords. There are two main ways to focus on link building. Internal links and external links.

Internal Links – These are going to be links on your web pages and blog posts that link to other pages on your site. Building internal links is easy. It just requires that you create enough content to create a good internal linking structure. For example: let’s say you are creating some content based around the local keywords “property management in Tampa.” You write at least 500 words on the topic, and within those 500 words about property management, maybe you mention the process of screening a tenant. It will behoove you then create some content about the topic of screening a tenant and link to it from your property management article by hyperlinking the phrase screening a tenant. You will also find a way to link back to your property management content from your tenant screening content as well.. And round and round it goes. Linking articles and posts to each other throughout your site is the essence of internal link building.

External Links – External links can be more challenging. Essentially, these are links from other sites and resources that link directly to your site. Google holds external links in high regard. They have been considered for a long time to be the most important factor in getting good SEO and high rankings in the results pages. In the early days of search marketing, entire services and businesses sprung up in response to the importance of external link building. However, please beware that many of these services are not acceptable in the eyes of google. 99% of them are going to be putting your entire website at risk of being penalized, or possibly even delisted from Google altogether. If you are found to be participating in link building schemes it can destroy your web marketing efforts overnight. Google’s engineers are smarter than we are. If you do it you will probably be caught. Stay away from services that claim they can get you external links fast. They can’t. Not legitimately anyway. There are plenty of link building techniques however that are legitimate, and once you do start earning external links you will see your search engine rankings grow considerably. Some link building strategies are to simply ask another website to link to you… Of course, you will have to deal with high rejection rates but if you are able to get someone to say yes, then you have struck gold. The only caveat to this is to try and make sure the site that is linking to you has some relevance or relatedness to your site or service regarding content and context. Guest blog posts, news articles, local neighborhood associations… Etc… Also please note that posting on facebook or other social media has very little SEO value. Google will not recognize links from sites like FB, Instagram or other big “social media” sites and giant directories. The key will be to network with related services in your field and get them to link to you. If you can find the time to write, find online publications that will publish your articles and also provide you with links. This is not an overnight exercise. It will take time. But if you make an effort in your link building, you will see results.

Location. Local search. – Local search is one of the fastest-growing, and in my opinion, the most important strategies for not only local businesses but for large corporations as well. For a long time, it was believed that local search was only for small businesses with one location. But that’s no longer the case. Everything is somewhere. Many brokerages and offices have multiple locations, and if you don’t have a strategy to address local SEO you are missing the boat. When it comes to local search, it’s not just about the physical location of your office or business. One of the fastest-growing keyword searches is “___ near me.” For property managers and real estate agents, that could read, “homes for rent near me” or “property managers near me,” and if you know how to leverage the key components of what search engines look for in a local search, you are in a better position to show up in the top of the results. So what is it that Google and the other search engines look for when it comes to local search? First, is the geo-modifier with geo- standing for geographic. This is a simple as putting the name of the city or town in front of the keyword. If you are publishing content about property management, add a geo-modifier like Tampa property management. Simple right? However, adding a geo-modifier is only one step in the process. Right now, Google is the biggest influencer in the local search market. They have recently taken a number of steps to grow their local influence. This is a great opportunity for all local search marketing. Google is currently promoting a free service called “google my business.” This is going to have a lot of influence on your local presence regarding search engines. It has a lot of great features and you will want to make sure that you use as many of these features as possible. I’m not going to go into every feature of the Google My Business listing but it holds a lot of influence over your local presence so be sure to create your local business page and try not to leave anything blank. If it asks you to upload some pictures of your business, make sure you do. Ensure all fields are complete and accurate. You will be rewarded for this if you do it right. This will also be where you should direct your customers when asking for reviews. Reviews and ratings are very important as well, and we will get into them in the next section.
Social & Reviews – I have lumped social media marketing and reviews into the same category because I feel as though they go hand in hand. Let’s define social media marketing. When I refer to social media, this includes facebook, Instagram, linkedin, snapchat, or any other “social” platform that you may be aware of or participate in. There are also many services and businesses out there today that are offering to give you an edge when it comes to social media marketing. Personally I wouldn’t hire any of these companies. They may provide some value depending on what your business objectives are, but for the most part, there isn’t anything they will do for you that you can’t do for yourself. (Note: I’m not referring to paid ads on these platforms, we will discuss paid advertising in the next section). The social media marketing I am referring to in this section is the organic aspects of the platform. The essence of social media is communication. Yet I see so many people who just post something about their service that is about them only. It’s a typical “look at me” post that offers practically nothing to your audience and simply becomes filler for your social efforts. The real key to social media marketing will be communicating directly to those you are trying to reach. Figure out how to provide value and connect with those who are looking for the value or the solutions you can provide. This will require you to also go “off-page” which means finding other pages and people who you want to connect with and start communicating with them directly. It seems simple to say but so many people simply automate their posting to post random stuff in hopes that people will engage with it. Or they just post things like, “looking to sell your house? Call me!” I would be willing to bet that only works 1 out of 100 times. Really effective social media marketing requires old fashioned one-on-one communication. Search out those who you would like to connect with, and message them or make comments on their posts. But not just any comments. Be specific and provide a solution to their problem. In fact, do not promote your service at all. Simply give something of value and expect nothing in return. This is really the only true effective social media marketing. When it comes to making posts that you are hoping will engage with large amounts of people, leave that to paid advertising. Granted, you want to post links and articles that lead back to your website. But when it comes to organic social media, slow down. Put in the work and give something for nothing. Make it about them and you will see your true, genuine connections grow. The same thing goes for reviews.

When it comes to reviews, people don’t really want to take the time to sit down and write a review. The most motivated review writers tend to be people who are angry or upset at you and no matter what, there will always be those individuals. Don’t focus on them. Just focus on providing good service and the good reviews will come. But you have to ask for them. That’s why developing real connections with your customers is so important. Be persistent and polite. You may have to ask a few times before people actually do the review so just keep reminding them. When you do get reviews, be sure to follow two main rules. Rule number 1; respond. You should always respond to your reviews. Clearly, if it’s a positive review the response is easy. A simple thank you or whatever the situation calls for will suffice. But if it’s a negative review, follow rule number two before you respond. Rule 2 is: Be professional. No matter what the negative review says, no matter how wrong or incorrect the person is, you must respond professionally. Do not get into an argument or try to defend your position. Your ego will want to. But don’t do it! Here’s why. You’re not actually responding to the person who wrote the review. Technically it may seem that you are, but you’re not. Your response is actually there for other potential customers who might read it. Most people will dismiss a few negative reviews when it comes to choosing a service provider. Especially if the business responds professionally and with empathy and concern to the person who wrote the negative review. So don’t worry about them. Write a response that you want other potential customers to read and think that even though you had a customer who was unsatisfied, you’re clearly making an effort to improve and provide better service in the future. That’s the perception you want to create.

If you focus on those 5 main categories when developing your web presence you will see results. The world of search marketing and SEO is vast. You will never learn it all. There is too much to cover and some of it is just too technical to even bother with.

Other Important Factors in your Digital Marketing Efforts

However, another important factor that isn’t in the list above but is definitely worth mentioning is what’s called, page load speed. You can check your page speed for free through the google developer tools at https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ – the report that is generated will give you a wealth of information regarding the loading speed of your website. Google has said directly that page load speed is an important factor when it comes to SEO. It is believed that page speed does affect your ranking. The information you will get from the PageSpeed Insights report will be a bit technical. If you have a webmaster who handles the technical side of your site, give them this report and ask them to make the suggested changes. If you are interested in learning how to do it yourself, then feel free to dive in and get acquainted with the aspects on your website that are affecting the loading speed.

Some common questions that people ask are:

How long does it take to get SEO results?

The answer is it depends. Don’t expect much for about 60 days. But the truth is to count on 6 months or so. Not to mention that SEO is always evolving and is a constant practice. The best thing to do is get in a habit of consistently writing and creating content. Stick with it and follow the rules, and eventually, you’ll get some traction.

How can I ensure that only certain pages are displayed on the SERP?

You can’t. The search engines decide what pages they want to display. If you focus on your specific keywords and follow the rules you can have a likely result, but there is no guarantee when it comes to organic SEO. This is one of the main differences between paid advertising and SEO. With paid ads you have full control over what pages and content are promoted. With SEO it’s up to the search engines. Which leads us into the next section – Paid Ads.

Paid Advertising –

Paid Ads or PPC which stands for Pay Per Click. It is a form of advertising on search engines that allows the advertiser to have full control over what’s displayed and what’s seen. The results are also immediate and on-demand. Just like going to the grocery store when you need food, you can buy search ads when you need traffic to your website. Paid advertising is unique and has many different characteristics from SEO. The strategies are also much different and it will be important for you to understand these differences so that you can be successful in your paid advertising efforts.

As you read this, many of you might be saying, “I tried pay per click, it didn’t work. It was expensive and I didn’t get any results.” That is completely understandable. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can blow through your budget in two seconds with no results. Of course, you would think it doesn’t work! However, I have to be honest here – it’s your fault it didn’t work. Google and Bing and Facebook make billions of dollars on advertising revenue. If it didn’t work, no one would do it. But you have to be sure you’re doing it right. Most people don’t. This section will hopefully help you figure out why it didn’t work and to correct the issues you had so you can move forward with more success.

It’s been said that when it comes to search marketing, paid advertising is equal parts science and art. Without the right creative displays, headlines, or calls to action, it won’t work. But if you don’t understand how to read the data and implement that information effectively, your beautiful and creative designs will never be seen by the right people.

Start with your keywords. Choosing the right keywords in your paid ad campaigns will be the first major step. As a real estate agent, have you ever run a paid ad campaign with the keywords “Real Estate” – Every time I ask that question I inevitably get people who say, yes of course! I cringe every time.

Here’s why. Do me a favor, put this book down and do a web search using the keywords “real estate”. What are the top results? As of this writing, the top results are; Zillow.com, Trulia.com, and Realtor.com… These are the largest and most successful real estate websites in the world. Are you telling me you want to compete with these companies? Don’t even try! These businesses have huge budgets and huge influence. You have no chance. As an individual agent, you have to be creative. Use keywords that include geo-modifiers. Use keywords that identify your niche. Use longer keyword strings for a more targeted effect such as “real estate agents near me in Tampa, FL” or maybe instead of just “property management” try “property managers for condos” be specific. Yes, there will be less traffic for these types of keywords, but your budget will stay under control and the traffic you do get will be much higher quality since the keywords are more specific. Which is the name of the game, quality over quantity. Let’s get into how to maximize quality in your paid ads.

Match type. Did you know that there is a difference between the keywords property manager the keywords “property manager” and the keywords [property manager]? Do you know what the differences are? Yes, one has quotes and another has brackets but in the world of search engines, there is a major difference. The difference is what is called match type. These are settings in the Google ad platform that allow you to make some specific requirements to how and when your ads are displayed. Many people are not aware of this and it is the number one reason why people see their ad budget gets blown out of the water without any results. Let’s say you decide to run some paid ads on the Google platform. During the process, Google will have you add the keywords you want your advertisements to be displayed for. You add your keywords and move on to the next step. But what you don’t realize is that you have just set your keywords to a “broad match” match type. This is the default setting for Google, but it is the most ineffective keyword setting there is. There are three types of match types. Broad Match, Phrase Match, and Exact Match. Each one has very distinct characteristics. For example, if you are planning to use the keywords real estate agent and you have it set to a broad match, what you may not realize is that your ads can show up under almost any combination of those words, with the most likely scenario being that you will show up for the search “real estate” without the word “agent.” Even though you thought you were just getting traffic for the entire keyword string, because it was set as a broad match, you still showed up under the term real estate. Do you remember the problem we discussed previously about that very general phrase? It’s not specific enough and even though you thought you were being specific, because it was a broad match google showed your ad even when someone just typed the words real estate. In turn, this will show your ads to the wrong people, your budget will be maxed out, and you will get very poor results. The solution to this is to make sure that when you are creating your ad campaigns, your keyword settings are set to either phrase match or exact match. Phrase match says to google that you only want your ads shown to people who include all the words of your keyword string. So if your keyword string is real estate agent, then phrase match will ensure that your ads will be shown only to people who have all those words in their query. The big difference between phrase match and exact match is that phrase match could have additional words such as real estate agent for buying a home or a different order to the words, etc. While exact match requires the exact words in the exact order. I tend to recommend phrase match simply because unless your keyword is getting huge traffic exact match will exclude too many people. There is definitely a time and a place to use exact match but just be aware that this will create your smallest audience. So when setting up your advertising campaign be sure to check your keyword settings and use at least a phrase match. This will help you keep your budget in check and you will have higher quality conversions which are what’s really important.

Landing pages. If you have run paid ads before, where did you send the visitors who clicked on the ad? Did you send them to your homepage? I hope not! But it’s likely that you did. This is a huge mistake that I see people making. DO NOT use your homepage in a paid campaign, ever. Remember those blog posts and keyword specific pages you’ve been writing, send them there. If you wrote a post about property managers for single-family homes, your ad needs to have a set of keywords that would match up with that intent, and then make sure your ad links directly to that page discussing property managers of single-family homes. Take them right to the related content, or landing page. It’s called a landing page because they will land on it directly from the ad. Don’t leave it up to your customers to find the info from home page, they will simply just leave. This will have a huge impact on your conversion rates and Google will reward you for this as well. Always use landing pages and never send people to your homepage within a paid ad campaign.

I could write an entire book dedicated to the ideas and strategies of digital marketing. Not to mention it is a constantly evolving industry that needs to be kept up with. The scope of the subject is too vast to be covered in this article. But check out my articles if you want more info on how to grow your business real estate and property management business with digital marketing.

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