What is search engine marketing (SEM)? and why it's important for getting ahead of your competition in real estate marketing.

1. Sponsored (paid) listings are a great way to get fast visibility on the major search engines. Also called pay-per-click, (PPC) sponsored listings are those that show up at the top of search engines such as Google in a blue box or in a column along the right side of the page. These results are clearly labeled "Sponsored listings." The more popular the keyword, the more paid listings come up.


2. Lead tracking can help your real estate business become stronger by attracting quality leads. Lead tracking brings both short- and long-term benefits to your company - giving you instant access to information about each sales prospect while also helping to streamline and manage the sales process.


3. Email marketing is the icing on the SEM cake - it impresses your prospects by allowing you to send them valuable information on the market and it helps you to stay fresh in their minds.


4. Third-party SEM providers can take the mystery and work out of effective marketing. If you do not have the time to do a comprehensive SEM campaign, or you simply want to spend less time on the Internet and more time with your customers, you can go through a third-party provider to run your SEM campaign for you.

But before you start your campaign, you have some work to do.


Targeting your customers

Most likely, you know yourself and your business pretty well. But have you ever sat down and wrote out lists of words and phrases that other people might use to describe you? Probably not - but now is the time to do it.

Even if you're using a third-party provider, you need to know who your potential customers are to a T. What are they looking for and why would they want to use you to help them buy or sell their home?

All aspects of real estate search engine marketing - sponsored listings, lead tracking, and email marketing - rely on keywords in one way or another to work.


Keywords are key to SEM

What are keywords, and where should they go in your site? Keywords are simply, well, key words that determine which category your site will be listed under in search engines and directories. In terms of sponsored listings, the keywords you choose to bid on will determine where your ads show up.

You have to figure out what words and phrases home buyers and sellers are potentially going to use to find you, determine which are the most important to your business, then use them accordingly.

Your website will attract more hits if you spend some time doing this seemingly mundane, but extremely important, job. There are just a few simple guidelines for an effective keyword plan, but they do take some time to do well.


Brainstorming your Keywords

Take an hour or so to sit down and write every single imaginable word that someone might use to find your real estate service. For example, if you specialize in high-end new constructions in the Los Angeles area, you may come up with the following:

• Luxury Brentwood homes


• Upscale Los Angeles real estate


• Best neighborhoods Los Angeles

However, not everyone who is looking for "upscale Los Angeles real estate" will come up with that phrase. So you need to think about every conceivable term that they might use to describe the same thing. Such as:

• West Side Homes


• Luxury condos


• Southern California real estate


• Full service brokerage


• Mansions Beverly Hills


• Best schools Los Angeles


• And on and on...

The important thing to remember in brainstorming is that you should try to think of what you would look for, and branch out from there. The more specific your keywords are - the better. It's best to come up with 40-50 keywords and phrases, and then narrow them down to the top 20 absolute most effective. The more specific you are, the better your chances are of having words that differ from your competition. Remember, in Pay-per-click, the more popular a keyword is, the more expensive it is.

If you really are at a loss for relevant keywords, try using Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com/) - a site that suggests and evaluates the keywords most relevant to your business.

Once you have a solid list of keywords and keyword phrases, you can use that information to build other aspects of your SEM campaign, including lead tracking.


Beyond keywords - creating a better business focus

Aside from drawing traffic to your sponsored listings and real estate lead tracking efforts, brainstorming keywords has an added benefit - giving you more focus in your real estate business.

Times are changing in the real estate business. Models that worked for you in 2003 may not work in 2006. The more you can specialize your services and differentiate yourself from the herd, the better. Creating keyword lists can lead to all kinds of unexpected new ideas for selling your services. You might come up with a new idea for an email marketing campaign, or a better way of attracting hard-to-reach leads and thus bring more real estate traffic to your real estate website.

For example, say you come up with the keyword phrase "retirement homes." You then do a little research and discover that many baby boomers are looking for homes that are smaller, but still have luxurious details. You could then use that information to write an email about how smaller homes are fast becoming the size of choice for many retirees. You never know what keywords will spark a new idea, so be open-minded!

This article is originally published here: Real Estate Website Traffic - SEM.

Homeseekers is one of the largest variety of homes for sale

Search Engine Marketing: Options for Real Estate Agents

Using search engines has become one of the most popular activities on the Internet, second only to email. But with millions of websites and billions of web pages, potential homebuyers need a tool that can sift through this clutter to find the realtor websites relevant to their search.

Thanks mostly to the techniques pioneered by Google, search engines have become remarkably effective at providing results that are highly relevant to the term or phrase the user searches on like Homes for Sale. But to be relevant, you have to be found, and this is where search engine marketing comes in.

You may have great inventory, a fantastic local clientele, and a high-end new website, but if that website doesn't show up on the first two pages of Google (or Yahoo, MSN, or Ask Jeeves), you're not getting the exposure you need to remain competitive.

Why aren't you showing up? You may have overlooked search engine marketing. Effective search engine marketing is about more than just optimizing your website or submitting it to the search engines for indexing. When hundreds or thousands of your competitors are competing with you on your service and keywords, just one Internet marketing technique won't give you high rankings.

Studies have proven what most Internet users know already - people usually do not look past the first two pages of search results. And with over 71% of homebuyers initiating their home search on the Internet (according to the National Association of Realtors), you can't afford to miss out on all of those active buyers. And if your site isn't ranked high, it probably isn't pulling in leads either - leads that translate to more sales and more commissions.

Unlike organic search engine optimization, which you (or your webmasters) can do yourself, search engine marketing requires a little financial investment to generate results. It's pay to play, but the rewards are worth it.

Generally speaking, search engine marketing is the advertising that appears on top of or along side the "natural" or organic search results on search engine sites such as Google, MSN, Yahoo and many others, usually under the heading of "Sponsored Links" or "Sponsored Sites." These links can also show up on many consumer and industry-specific websites, depending on the keywords used like Fort Myers Beach Florida Real Estate.

The copy that you see in the advertisement is usually written by the site owner, who will also come up with the keywords and keyword phrases trigger the ad. The site owner also determines how much she is willing to pay for each click as well as daily maximum limit, giving total control of targeting and spending. Advertising charges are only incurred when a visitor clicks on the ad, not when the ad is shown.

Although sponsored listings are a popular way to conduct your search engine marketing, there are other ways to get great results. Many real estate agents are finding that having the time and expense of a good search engine marketing service done for them by a third-party is a great way to go.

Getting traffic to your real estate website

In addition to buying sponsored (paid) listings, lead tracking, and email marketing excellent strategies for drawing relevant real estate leads to your real estate website. All of these methods work quite well and give you a high return on investment, when done properly that is. If you do not have the time or energy to invest in creating your own real estate marketing campaign for search engines, you can always leave it to the experts to create a custom-designed solution for you.

But let's look at each of the above methods in more detail.

Sponsored (Paid) Listings

As mentioned above, sponsored, or paid listings are a great way to get fast visibility on the major search engines.

Google AdWords is by far the most popular sponsored listings program, mainly because the Google network is used by 80% of all Internet users. The AdWord program allows you to create your own ads based upon the keywords most relevant to your business. You can also choose to have Google write the ad for you for an extra fee.

Lead Tracking

Sponsored listings and SEO can help attract leads, but to truly get the most out of SEM, you will want to develop a lead tracking system to target the customers and prospects most likely to be interested in your services.

Lead tracking brings both short- and long-term benefits to your company - giving you instant access to information about each sales prospect while also helping to streamline and manage the sales process.

Lead tracking not only helps you attract more customers, it also tracks your return on investment, so you know exactly how much each lead is worth, how many leads convert into transactions, and your overall return on investment in your advertising dollars.

Email Marketing

So now you have high rankings on the search engines and lead tracking is bringing in numerous high-quality prospects. Now what? Email marketing is the icing on the SEM cake - it impresses your prospects by allowing you to send them valuable information on the market and it helps you to stay fresh in their minds.

Relevant Real Estate Website Traffic

At Fidelity Assets we have a better way. We charge you a flat fee every month for the number of visitors you want sent to your site from the search engines. That's it. Your costs are fixed, and your traffic and quality is guaranteed. You can start with as few as 30 visitors a month for a flat $59.95/month fee. You can buy more traffic as your business grows over time.

Fidelity Assets was created and is staffed by search engine marketing experts. Our company manages online advertising for real estate agents, and our employees are veterans of companies such as NBC Internet, Xoom.com, Infoseek, CNET and other pioneering advertising and e-commerce companies. We know the online ad space better than anyone.

Homeseekers is one of the largest variety of homes for sale for properties in the United States.

Andy Steuer is the Founder and CEO of Fidelity Assets, a real estate marketing company helping real estate agents and brokers generate real estate leads.

Fidelity Assets can set up an effective email marketing campaign that saves you time and increases leads. We can provide content for your emails and help you to expand your mailing list – automating a formerly laborious task that often fell by the wayside. We can even send out holiday and birthday greetings on your behalf. Learn more about our marketing service here.

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Homeseekers is one of the largest variety of homes for sale and up-to-date sources for properties in the United States.

About the author:

Andy Steuer is the Founder and CEO of Fidelity Assets, a real estate marketing company helping real estate agents and brokers generate real estate leads.

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Help-U-Sell Real Estate.

About the author:

Andy Steuer is the Founder and CEO of Fidelity Assets, a real estate marketing company helping real estate agents and brokers generate real estate leads.