Internet Marketing

What is Internet Marketing?

Many things come to mind when someone uses the term Internet marketing, especially when you are applying it to Real Estate and new home construction. It could refer to placing a new home community on an Internet listing site like move.com or Atlanta New Homes Directory, bidding on keyword clicks at sites like google and yahoo or it could be altering the title and meta tags to make the website come up in search engines. Being found on the Internet is the most important thing for a website. You spend money to have the website designed and hosted so that it can provide the story, the information about the new homes you have to offer, but if no one ever sees it or they can't find it, you have probably wasted your money on building a website in the first place.

Internet Marketing begins with proper website design and functionality. Using the search engines, the listing sites, tracking statistics, email marketing programs, and lead management software are all parts of effective Internet Marketing strategies.

Does your website get home buyers to respond?

If you have noticed, my lasts few posts are continuing with the same theme.

There are a lot of fancy websites out there that are built to market new homes and condos. I find many of them are using the latest and greatest techniques to wow the site visitor with flash, graphics, or sound. They lack the marketing message. What are you selling? Where is it located? How much does it cost? When will it be ready? What do you want me to do next?

The most visited new home real estate websites are the Internet Listing Sites; sites like Realtor.com, Move.com, NewHomeSource.com. These sites provide a basic search feature to allow the home buyer to search by city, price, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms. A list is given with lots of information. These sites are all in the business to make money from advertising. They provide a service to get the site visitor to your website that should give more information about the home they just saw. In many cases, websites advertised on these listing sites do not even answer the basic questions. How much do your homes cost? When will they be ready? I have had to hit the back button sometimes to get back to Realtor.com to figure out if I was on the right website.

Homebuyers on the web are searching for information. Holding it back will get a few people to contact you and ask the questions; "How much do your homes cost?", "When will these homes be ready?", "Where exactly are you located?". I feel that many homebuyers will simply move to the next website where their questions are answered.

Look at your website. Ask yourself the basic questions. Would the website make you want to go to the next step? Make a phone call? Visit the sales center? Request more information via email? If not, it may be time for a new website or at least some website modifications.

Contact Form needs Contact Information

This is pretty simple, but often overlooked. I frequently run across new home community websites with no contact information on the Contact Us Page. The person could be looking for a phone number. If they have to search very long, they will probably just move on to the next website or try to find the information they are looking for somewhere else.

I typically recommend putting the phone number, the sales center address and preferably a link to get directions or a link to location map on the Contact Us Page.

If you are trying to sell new homes, make sure the person knows how to take the next step. Tell them to call the sales agent, visit the model, schedule an appointment, or request information via a contact form sent via email and tell them these things often, not just on one page.