Top 7 Free Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Website
by Rich Page, Z57 Internet Marketing Manager
- Add More Listings - Get Free Exposure on Real Estate Search Websites.
One of the major ways of getting more free traffic to your website is by posting more home listings on your Z57 website. This is because all your listings get free exposure on popular real estate search websites like Oodle, Trulia, Propsmart, Edgeio, Vast and LiveDeal, all of which generate our clients thousands of clicks per month, all for free! Make sure you don't just frame your home listings into your website, doing this doesn't get you this exposure - use the listings manager in your MCC. - Craigslist/BackPage.com Postings
These two websites can generate you considerable buyer traffic for your home listings. All you have to do is look on either of these major websites and look for your nearest major city's version and make posts for your individual home listings (and make sure your post has a link to the listing on your website). Even if your nearest major city listed on there is an hour away, it's worth posting your individual home listings in that area to gain qualified traffic.
www.Craigslist.org
www.BackPage.com - Create Content/Start Blogging
A great way to get good rankings in the search engines and thus more free traffic is to create your own content. The more search engine friendly content you have, the more traffic you will generate. A great way to take advantage of this is by making use of your custom pages to build special promotion pages, or featured local resources and interview pages, and build your keyword phrases into them as much as possible. Blogging is also a great simple way of creating new content, which is great for search engine content and also very useful community resource for clients - it turns you into an expert and is great for driving repeat traffic. Here are some examples of good real estate blogs:
http://mirealestate.wordpress.com
http://www.raincityguide.com - Build up Your Link Popularity
It's no longer good enough to simply exchange links with other real estate agent's websites. You need to get popular websites to link to your website. This not only gets you visits from these websites, but more importantly improves your search rankings in Google because of their page ranking (PR) system. Try and look for popular business websites in similar industries, like mortgage and appraisal websites. If you download the Google search toolbar, you can see PR ratings for websites. Avoid links from 0 or 1 PR rated websites - the PR is a ranking out of 10, so look for 4s, 5s and 6s for best chance of success. For more information about how to do this, please talk to your Account Manager.
http://www.google.com/support/
webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34432 - Tie Your Offline Marketing to Your Online Efforts
All your offline efforts like bench ads, voicemail recordings and newspaper ads should all make sure they mention your URL and have a good call to action that will want to make them visit your website. This is a simple one, but we see many real estate agents forgetting this basic step. You are wasting money on your offline efforts if you don't direct them to your website with a call to action like 'get home search listings via email'. - Get a MySpace Profile and Start Networking!
MySpace.com isn't just for teenagers anymore - more and more Realtors are using this as a great way of networking with local businesses and potential clients. After all, the more exposure your website and brand gets, the more traffic and business you will generate - and MySpace is a perfect vehicle for this. It also gives your business the 'cool' factor with younger audiences. MySpace is one of the biggest websites on the Internet right now - why would you ignore it and the great networking it can do for your business?
http://www.myspace.com/finecoastal http://www.sundaymorningtalk.com/2006/10/20/
selling-your-space-on-myspace/ - Make Sure Your URL is Always in Your Email!
Lastly, another simple but often neglected one - emails. Don't forget to put your URL in your email footer, with a good call to action to get people to your website! Don't only put your URL either - give them a reason why they should come to your website. This can drive tremendous traffic to your website for free.
Some of these 7 methods may seem obvious, but if you are ignoring any of these, you are definitely missing important pieces of the 'how do I get free website traffic' puzzle. If you wish to learn more about any of these 7 methods and how to make most effective use of them, please contact your Account Manager.
