Written by Nick Lovegrove of limeyboy.com.

limeyboy.com has spent over a decade helping real estate agents get more from the web, whilst trying to insulate them from the really geeky parts. We help agents define their online brand through building real estate websites, integrated blogs and social networking strategies around them. We are dedicated to helping you find the web approachable and fun, and yet have no desire to turn you into a geek.

Website: http://www.limeyboy.com
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Twitter: @limeyboyweb

Ask any real estate agent what they want their real estate website to be about and they will tell you that it has to reflect their track record, their successes, communicating their area knowledge, their expertise and that certain “je ne sais quoi” that just makes them special.

Ask buyers & sellers what they are looking for, and they will tell you that it really boils down to two things: the actives and the solds.

Now, ask any real estate agent what they want their real estate website to do and it really boils down to one thing: get them leads.

There lies the fundamental problem with many real estate websites and it’s this discrepancy which is why many of them aren’t generating leads.

You see, if the content of your real estate website is predominantly concerned with information about you, it’s highly unlikely to show up at search engines when people are looking very specifically for actives and solds. Which, incidentally, is where you get the leads from!

Most agents say that they know that people are not searching for real estate agents, however many agent’s websites makes me doubt they really believe it.

“Were you looking for me? I’ve been waiting for you….”

Many agents will tell you that they show up for their name. However this really should be the bare minimum, as many names are fairly unique keyword phrases. If people are searching to find you by name, they already know you on some level. What a good real estate website can do is to help you be found by people who don’t know you, which is how you grow your business.

However showing up for real estate terms is a different matter altogether. Furthermore, if your website’s content isn’t aligned with what people are searching for it isn’t going to stand a chance of showing up online.

So What Are People Searching For?

If you decide the leave the safe harbor of your ‘about me’ online resume, I mean website, for the uncharted territory of aligning your website’s content with what people are searching for, there is a great tool to help you plot your course.

google offers something called their Keyword Tool to help you figure out what people are specifically searching for in your area. Once logged in, (you may have to sign in with a gmail account) you can experiment typing in various keyword terms and see the amount of search volume for each term or phrase.

For many agents this is both humbling and insightful. It’s insightful in that it gives you the simple facts of what people are searching for in your market area. Where it’s humbling is that it always reveals that hardly anyone is searching specifically for you! Often times the only person searching for you is…well, you! This is precisely why your website’s content should not be about yours truly.

By using this tool at the beginning of a project, you can ensure that your site’s content is aligned with what people are searching for. I think that a lot agent websites are still being created with little consideration of aligning with what people are searching for. That’s a rather large consideration to ignore.

An effective website should not be a 10 page online resume. What’s the first rule of resume writing? It has to fit on one page. So dedicate the other 9 pages to providing the information that people are searching for that’s been defined for you using the keyword tool.

“Is this what you think buyers and sellers are doing at google?”

Remember, search engines essentially only have the content within your site to make a determination of its relevance against what keywords people are typing into search boxes (inbound links aside). If your site is full of keywords such as ‘integrity’, ‘experience’, ‘trustworthiness’ and people are searching for ‘condo’ or ‘apartment’ you can kind of see the problem.

If you are serious about showing up online, you have to be serious about crafting content that is aligned with the demand for it.

FOREM reader’s: How are you making sure your website’s content fits with what people are looking for?

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With all the talk this week of the new online advertising options for Realtors (see John Cook’s HouseValues, HomeGain and Zillow for a good rundown), I thought I would zig as everyone else figuratively zags (or is it that I’m zagging while they’re zigging…), and talk about an interesting new way to take some of your advertising offline.

Google has finally integrated their acquisition of dMarc automated advertising platform and launched Google Audio Ads, which now allows advertisers to purchase radio spots through their AdWords account. They are currently rolling out a limited test of the system.

From the Inside AdWords blog:

Google Audio Ads brings efficiency, accountability, and enhanced ROI to radio advertising by providing advertisers with an online interface for creating and launching radio campaigns. You’ll be able to target your customers by location, station type, day of the week, and time of day. After the radio ads are run, you will be able to view online reports that tell you exactly when your ad played.

This is a win-win for everyone (well except for media buyers, I suppose). Google hopes to use its weight to negotiate more competitive rates and lower the barrier to entry for smaller advertisers. For radio stations, they have access to Google’s huge network of online advertisers and the ability to unload any of their excess inventory to advertisers who may not have previously considered radio.

A radio campaign works much like your online advertising buy. You set the budget and determine the maximum amount you’d like to spend each week. Audio Ads will show you exactly how the budget will be spent, based on the specific criteria (station format, time of day etc.) you have established.

As far as creative, all Google requires is a 30 second MP3 file. If you need help creating an ad Google has created a directory of talent that can help you with each step of that process, from script writing to recording and delivering the completed file. If you go that route rather than DIY, Google estimates it will cost between $100 and $1000 to create an ad. (More on the Google AdWords Help Center)

If this sounds like a familiar, it should. SpotRunner (which I wrote about in On the Tube, On The Cheap) has been doing pretty much the same thing with television advertising, as Google Audio Ads hopes to accomplish with radio. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Google were to buy SpotRunner and expand their portfolio of offerings at some point in the very near future.

Radio advertising may still be too expensive for all but the highest-producing Realtors, but for Brokers looking to make more of a brand specific statement, Audio Ads might be a good option to explore.

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Techcrunch is reporting that Google is launching a new beta program for webmasters or web site publishers who have AdWords accounts. Website Optimizer is designed to allow you to design different versions of your landing page, which will get served up randomly to visitors entering your site through the AdWords keywords you’ve bought.

The idea is that you’ll be able to see which versions results in the most activity and therefore, the highest number conversions from your ad buys.

I’ve signed up to be part of the beta and I think this would be a very useful tool for any Realtor either currently running AdWords promotions or actively considering Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Though I’m not running any PPC campaigns right now (this blog gets pretty good SEO results on its own) I’d be very interested in seeing what results anyone who is, has with this program.

Personally, I still think it’s more effective to concentrate on developing highly placed organic search results through good content and effectively linking strategies. Though supplementing that with a few Long Tail Adwords couldn’t hurt, I suppose.

To that end, HitTail is another beta optimization service I’ve been playing around with lately. HitTail analyzes the content you post on your web site or blog and suggests underused keywords for you to buy as part of your marketing campaign. Interesting concept, though it remains to be seen if it works in practice.

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