SOCIAL MEDIA
Driving the traffic
Does your site get a good flow of traffic? If not, could social media oil the wheels? Sheila Manchester asked the experts.
Chris Haines, Evolvin
Mike Day, Integra
Elliot Rowland Webdadi
Q: I am an estate agent who has had a website for five years. It gets very little traffic, why?
Chris Haines, Evolvin
Websites don’t generate traffic on their own – you need to drive traffic to them – regularly. This may be via direct marketing, email signature links and so on, or from search engine optimisation (SEO) and online marketing. Search engine ranking is highly complex,
(and secretive), but your site will perform less well if your content is not optimised for your targeted keywords, your load time is slow, the level of deemed interest is low, or you have a low number of links from other well placed sites. Maybe you have a low social presence, ie you are not embracing all of the social networks, and people are not liking, following or talking about you. Mike Day, Integra
Website traffic generation is largely driven by other online and offline promotion, links to the website from other sites, the ‘freshness’ of content and the quality, in terms of matching likely search terms used by potentials customers and clients. If a website is attracting low volumes of traffic it is likely to be deficient in some or all of these factors. Elliot Rowland Webdadi
The number one way people will find your site is through Google. If your site has poor SEO, it will not rank highly for various searches associated with your business.
30 FEBRUARY 2012 PROPERTYdrum
Ian Laverty, Intelligent Mobile
You have to assess what you are doing
to ensure that people visit your website. If you’re not doing much, it will be very hard for you to generate a large amount of traffic. Your website should appear on all communication; emails, window cards or brochures. It is a facility where people can find out more about your business. All agency websites provide property
information so it’s important to ensure that your site is accurate, useful and accessible to search engines and potential customers. However, it has to offer more than that to give visitors a reason to choose your site. It should also be frequently updated. Ian Laverty, Intelligent Mobile
There could be a number of reasons. The number of properties you list, the structure of the website, your geographical area, the number of external websites that link to your site, or it may be that your site could do with a little SEO work.
Q: I need to raise my profile, be up there in the Google rankings, be the top name in my area, but how?
Chris Haines, Evolvin
The most important thing is to develop an online marketing strategy which should highlight your geography, market type, competition, and your typical clients; the marketing for an executive lettings agent in London will be very different to a residential sales agent in a seaside town. Introduce a schedule of regular content
generated and distributed by your key staff. This content should be optimised for your identified keywords and audience, and then published to your website, blog, social media sites, trade sites (such as
www.propertydrum.com and
www.the-negotiator.co.uk) and local forums (local press, Gumtree etc). If you are looking for landlords or
investors then LinkedIn is useful, start with a professionally written LinkedIn profile for all key staff, targeted to your business and sector. You must also make sure your website is
optimised so it loads quickly, doesn’t use old technology like Iframes for your property results, has well written copy, page titles, meta-tags, internal links and well formatted HTML. Mike Day, Integra
Make sure people know that your website exists. Use and promote the URL extensively. Many agents have a Rightmove sticker on their window yet no reference to their own website! Ensure the content on the site is regularly
updated, fresh and interesting. News articles are great but not if the last piece posted talks about the relief of Mafeking! Take an holistic approach to marketing
including social media and e-marketing whereby these media link back to your website to drive traffic. Consider pay per click promotion
targeted at your required demographic This could be on Google or Facebook.
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