Best Practices in Online Real Estate Marketing

If you are not doing any online real estate marketing, then the chances are that you will never sell a house. Lately, nearly everyone who wants to buy a house start their search on the Internet. If you can get in early and catch their attention before anyone else does, your opportunity to sell them a house opens up quite dramatically.

There's more to online marketing than your average add consisting of one photograph added to a short description and price. Real estate marketing has progressed in leaps and bounds, and now includes virtual tours of homes for sale, and market value calculators, mortgage calculators and online appraisals - all at the click of a button.

However, as there is a downside to everything, and online marketing makes no exception, you run the risk of disconcerting potential clients if you saddle your website with too many implements. If you want to enjoy a successful online real estate marketing try to observe some simple rules:

What You Should Do:

Do hire a professional website designer to design and develop your website. They know how to make a site look professional, as well as how to design a site that is easy to navigate so that visitors can find what they are looking for.

Do use photographs - the more the merrier. Some buyers prefer to see the entire house lined up in photos before bothering to go on location and make a tour through it. Make sure the photographs are good quality, close-ups rather than wide, far away shots, and the right resolution for web use.

Do make sure that your website is optimised for search engines. You are in a highly competitive market, so you need to make sure that when buyers search for real estate online, your website is one that they find regularly.

You must use email marketing, since it is low-cost, easy to activate and a most convenient means of bringing new properties to your clients' attention. Ask for email addresses every time you receive a query on the phone and start building your database of prospects.

The Dont's

Don't clutter your website. A competent designer will come up with a means of incorporating all the necessary information in such a way that your potential clients won't be exasperated into leaving.

Don't assume that you can get away with lousy photographs because it's a website. A great number of buyers will want to see high-quality photos when clicking on thumbnails.

Avoid the temptation to list every single property on your books. Unless you can afford top end hosting, more properties means more photographs and more time to load the site. If a potential client is drawn to a certain property you can always send them an email containing information on matching properties.

You must not disregard online video real estate marketing. You can provide your buyer with a repeated virtual tour of a house without either of you leaving your desks, or taking up of each other's time, which makes this like the breakthrough of the century in online real estate marketing.

You must not assume that your real estate marketing starts and ends with your website. A mix of marketing methods will reach more prospects and get you more leads - which is exactly why we market in the first place.

The internet has changed how the world finds information, and real estate marketing has moved online with huge success. Web 2.0 opens up even more opportunities for savvy Realtors, and social media should be used as a networking tool to extend your reach and drive traffic to your website. Online real estate marketing has moved forward and it is high time you did the same.