Real Estate SEO Blogs by Key Yessaad

This question is not an exercise in futility, it is a necessary confrontation of the speed with which the internet is changing the relationship of the Real Estate Industry to the Consumer.

There are hundreds of undercurrents with this question – some believe that the Brokers ought to handle all Web Services and focus the agents on Customer Service – this answer sounds lovely until you realize we also ask agents to be in charge of generating their own leads.

Yet others argue that agents are the most important building block in Marketing – yet they are scared from embracing Internet Marketing by Vendors who keep making tools only geeks can get excited about – what gives?

It is not my job to encourage or discourage the desire of Real Estate Professionals to run their own Web Services – I see my job as offering the best understanding required so each agent can choose or not choose their next move. (This is very important to understand – I choose to be Vendor-Agnostic and Agent-Centric.)

But why not go to the heart of the matter – What is a Real Estate Website?

[I will suspend from the jargon, the tech talk, the how, and focus on the big ideas…]

A proper website designed for Real Estate Agents must contain Essentials Ingredients:

1. It must be very easy and run by the agents themselves.

2. It must fully Integrated with MLS Search and Listing Marketing Tools.

3. It must be very easy for Storytelling

4. and it must be fully integrated for video, Social Media, and Live Chat.

Without these essentials ingredients all Real Estate Websites are essentially clones of each other, and therefore offer no distinguishing focus.

Real Estate Agents, those who truly get that they are in the Business of Marketing, become storytellers; they are the local experts in their communities, and they share that expertise via the web – some may not understand what I mean by stories, so let me explain:

1. Marketing a Listing is a Story.

2. Doing a Walkthrough a property with a video that is shared with potential buyers is a Story.

3. Sharing the changes with local schools, Parks, taxes, are stories.

4. Posting Photos, sharing Local Events, promoting local businesses and colleagues are stories.

5. and I can go on and go on…

The idea that Real Estate Websites are about generating Leads is weak and becoming more and more irrelevant; Leads are now generated by being truly connected and by being unique on the Internet. (This is the essence of Organic SEO.)

So should Real Estate Agents own Websites? For me a better question is – Are you going to take charge of your Stories?

Most Real Estate Agents do not understand Blogging – they reduce it to sentences and paragraphs put together in bizarre channels for the benefit of other bizarros… For me a picture is a blog, a video is a blog, a description of a property is a blog – and so on…

The essence of it all is that your Website is the amalgamation of all your stories.

Happy Blogging – Key Yessaad, Real Estate Internet Marketing Trainer