Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Many tech-savvy real estate agents know there are advantages to search engine optimization. Whether they’ve only heard of the term “SEO” or actually taken the time to read a little bit about how search engine optimization works, there’s little argument about how putting effort into web marketing will benefit your real estate business long-term.
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A simple Google search will provide agents with hundreds, maybe thousands, of articles and blog posts detailing how search engine optimization is beneficial, what methods to use during the optimization process, and why it’s important to focus on in today’s real estate world.
But as with nearly anything, some might also say there are disadvantages to search engine optimization and attempt to make several arguments against SEO. So, what are those disadvantages? Well, in my opinion there’s a rebuttal for each potential argument against SEO, but to play along, I’ll list some of top disputes against search engine optimization:
SEO CALLS FOR CONSTANT, LONG-TERM UPKEEP
Yes, this is absolutely true; but in order to have success in anything we do, we must work hard to not only achieve that success, but to sustain it-SEO is no different.
SEO TAKES LOTS OF TIME
Also true; but if you invest in SEO and web marketing, all that time and effort will pay off, as you’ll eventually start to see increased traffic and more sales leads.
SEARCH ALGORITHMS CHANGE AND WE CAN’T CONTROL IT
Sure, Google and other major search engine change the way they rank websites and we often don’t know how or when it happens. But if you don’t embrace change and work your way through it, you won’t last long in any business, let alone real estate.
SEO IS UNMEASURABLE
To some degree this is true. Of course it’s impossible to say that appropriate keyword usage or correct Meta tags are getting your website a specific number of visitors (i.e. correct keyword usage on your homepage is driving 100 visitors per day). However, Google Analytics is extremely sophisticated and if you continue to SEO your real estate website the right way and begin to see significant increases in traffic, you will be able to quantify SEO’s value in terms of traffic statistics and data available within your analytics.
THE COST OF SEO IS TOO HIGH
Many agents don’t have the time or technical ability to SEO their own website. That’s where professionals like me come into play. Is there a cost to outside web marketing? Sure. But the whole point of search engine marketing is to generate more traffic, more exposure, and produce more sales leads for your business. As the old saying goes, “sometimes you gotta spend money to make money.”
Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working in the market research sector and authoring published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and co-owns Real Estate Web Creation with his partner, Ted Guarnero, a 25+ year real estate veteran.
