SEO leading some agents to sales

BEYOND LAWN SIGNS: Real estate agents have turned to SEO techniques to boost their image online. Julie Boyle, pictured above, of Re/Max Central in Coventry uses a video blog to boost her online visibility. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO
BEYOND LAWN SIGNS: Real estate agents have turned to SEO techniques to boost their image online. Julie Boyle, pictured above, of Re/Max Central in Coventry uses a video blog to boost her online visibility. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

In today’s competitive online real estate market, Rhode Island agents and brokers say it’s a challenge to find buyers and sellers for their listings through their own websites.
The proliferation of major aggregator websites such as Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com has made direct contact through a real estate agent’s own website harder to initiate, they say.
But Julie Boyle is one local real estate agent who eschews buying leads from the dominant real estate websites and pursues the latest search engine optimization techniques, plus social media and blogging, with encouraging results.
The associate broker with Re/Max Central in Coventry is in the middle of a short sale with a Sterling, Conn., client, Michael Diskin. Her territory includes Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut.
Diskin said he used basic keywords like “Sterling” and “real estate” when searching for agents in his area and “her website came up.” Though the sale is not yet finalized, he is happy with how it’s going and said he plans to move to a rental in Florida once the sale is complete.
“She’s always kept me up to date and in the loop with emails and is very friendly and made this process very smooth,” Diskin said.
Boyle, a self-described “techie,” says Diskin found her website because she uses SEO consistently and strategically.
“My website was put in front of Mike because of multiple SEO factors,” she said. “Relevant content about local sales information, appropriately tagged imagery and infographics, and of course social reputation earned through likes and shares – this keeps you at the top [of search engine rankings].”
After six months of “vlogging,” Boyle has gotten listings – though no sales yet – because of the videos – and as such is building on her practice of paying attention to SEO and her blog to drive sales. That practice has contributed to her being named first by Re/Max New England for online lead generation in the region in 2013. Duane Boucher, who runs Boucher Real Estate in Woonsocket, agrees he could probably capitalize on SEO more than he has to date.
“We try to drive traffic to our website in a few ways, on a small scale,” he said. “The website is published on signage. We use it on stationery and business cards.”
While SEO training is not something he’s undertaken yet, he said, “It would be something for us to consider. It’s a good thing to do periodically, to refresh and update [the website].”
Boyle acknowledges that time management is an issue, but believes that her peers could boost their business by paying more attention to SEO and other tools like social media and blogging.
“If they just invested a little more time instead of flinging money at these sister sites, then we’d have a more robust marketing campaign in regard to our listings and it would be more community driven. And that’s what Gen Y is looking for, and they’re our big buyers. They want affirmation from their peers and testimonials. They’re expecting a crowd to join them in participation of the choices they make.”
Michael Letendre, the chief information officer for the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, says three to four independent agents come to his association each year for help building their websites. What they typically don’t understand, he says, is that it’s the content of a website that draws users in – images and keywords that distinguish between Cranston and the Edgewood section of Cranston, for example, or highlight specialties, like “distressed properties.” “Flashing images and pretty colors will mean nothing if the consumer can’t find the website [when performing an online search],” Letendre said.
“It all comes down to content, and that’s something we preach to those who come to us,” he continued. “Every website has an ‘About’ and ‘Contact’ page, but SEO is really what makes them stand out and you can’t get that from a yard sign or 4×4 print ad. If the content is produced properly, it will raise the SEO and market advantage they’re looking for.”
Chad Kritzas, a partner at Keller Williams Realty in Middletown and Bristol, is also chairman of the 500-member Newport County Board of Realtors. He says the board doesn’t mandate or track what individual Realtors do with their websites.
Kritzas’ strategy for his office website is to pay a Web designer every three years or so to redo his site to make it “findable.” The consultant generates keywords and codes the site in keeping with search engine algorithms, he said.
Like many of his peers, he is a member of Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com – so that when his listings come up there, he gets referrals.
“Leads in this business come from listings predominantly, so signs in the ground and Internet listings bring you the business,” he said.
To him and others, that means that a lot of connections are still made using the traditional tools of signage, contact information on business cards, and word-of-mouth referrals.
“I prefer the pounding-the-pavement methods rather than paying someone to generate a business for me,” Kritzas explained. “But they’re all tools [you need], so you just put as many tools together as you can to generate business.” •

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