Once upon a time, long before the advent of the Internet, a person just like you had a great idea for a service to sell. It didn’t matter that others had the same idea and had already begun to capitalize on it. This person just knew that he could do a much better job at it and success was in the bag.

The fledgling entrepreneur spent the requisite time to learn about the real estate industry and get the required licenses to begin.

A location for an office was chosen, a lease was signed and a shingle proclaiming the business for the world to see was proudly hung outside the office. All that was needed now was an advertising campaign designed to lure in prospective clients.

The entrepreneur drew on his savings and invested a lot of money in fancy brochures and mailing lists, to say nothing of the stationery imprinted with the company name.

Stamps were purchased, envelopes were stuffed, sealed and taken to the post office. Unfortunately, many of the addresses were wrong or the recipients pegged them as junk mail and didn’t bother to open them. This meant that the return was minimal.

The entrepreneur also tried cold calling, playing the odds that at least a small percentage of those that were phoned could be converted to clients. This brought some rewards, but was hard work and rejection was the usual result. Eventually, with perseverance and a lot of investment in time and money, the gamble paid off and finally success was achieved.

Today’s entrepreneur’s have it much easier than those of the pre-Internet generation. The Internet puts literally millions of prospective clients at your feet and all you really need to know is how to work the system.

In the olden days when a person was looking for a product or service, they turned to the yellow pages. Now, most go online where they can easily search and compare prospective companies.

When you initiate a search on the Internet, typically multiple pages will turn up, listing millions of web sites designed around your particular keywords. The majority of those searching will rarely go past the first page of results.

This is why it’s important to make sure that your website is on that first page and hopefully at the top of the list so that you can gain their attention and secure their business. That’s where search engine optimization comes in.

By utilizing Search Engine Optimization, you will be able garner clients from those Internet users that are searching for the service that you are offering, in this case real estate. With so many people using the Internet to find what they need, this could equate to big profits for both you and your company.

A review will be given at the end of each chapter to go over what was learned. This will give you the opportunity to recognize if there is something that you need to go over again. If so, then you should read that section again before moving on to the next chapter.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is exactly what the term sounds like. It’s a series of techniques designed to help move your web site off the 50th search result page to the top of the first page where it belongs. You’ve heard the term, “first come, first served”.

If your web site is at the top of the search result page, you can change that to, “first result, first opportunity to gain a new client”.

The way SEO achieves this is by increasing the flow of traffic to your web site. Just about every business has a web site these days. The reason that they developed them was not only with the hopes of getting more business, but because it was felt that in today’s high tech society, you simply had to have one.

While it’s true that you have to keep up with modern trends, many felt that as long as their web site was in place, then certainly they would be listed in the search engines and people would be able to easily access it. Alas, this is not the case at all.

If your site was posted on the web without the proper coding and content, then the search engines may not even know that it exists. Even if your web site might be listed in the search engines, it probably does not come up on the first result page of a search, which is essential to the site’s success.

It’s not enough to have a website; it has to be a searchable one. This is because unless your web site was designed in such a way that the search engines give it a high ranking, it’s likely that it does not come to the attention of those who are searching for just what you are offering.

This is particularly true for real estate professionals. Much of real estate is based on referrals, but technology has introduced even more ways to get new clients, not just locally but on a national level as well.

People in other states who are planning to relocate to yours will need a qualified real estate agent to help them find a new place to live. These people go on the Internet to look at properties and query the real estate professionals in the area that they are interested in. When they begin their search for real estate in your area, if your web site comes up on the first page, you have an excellent chance of converting them into clients.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that competition in the real estate industry is fierce and while the Internet enables a real estate agent to get more business, it has also caused the competition to multiply.

This is why utilizing Search Engine Optimization is imperative to getting a substantial amount of business from the Internet.

It might seem virtually impossible to achieve this, since there is so much competition out there, but by employing techniques used for SEO, you will find yourself at the top much sooner than you think.

I don’t mean to make it sound as if this will be an easy task. Your success depends on how much effort you put into this.

The good news is that unlike previous generations who rolled the dice with mailing lists and cold calling, your odds for gaining new clients this way will be much greater.

SEO works by driving targeted traffic to your business website. If you are an independent broker and are the company’s only employee, then you are mainly just competing with other companies in your area, which is a difficult task in itself.

If you are an agent working for a large firm, you are not just dealing with competition from other brokerages in your area. You are also competing with the other real estate agents at your company.

It’s more than likely that your particular firm already has a comprehensive web page that allows users to search for listings and look for a real estate agent.

You have to find a way to stand out in the crowd so that people will specifically seek you out for assistance rather than you having to rely on the luck of the draw.

One such way for you to do that is to have your own web page that is linked to your firm’s site but also is searchable in the search engines.

This means that when people are researching real estate in your area, your personal web page will come up and you get the opportunity to convert them to clients.

You might work for a large firm that is so well known that you get what you feel is more than enough leads. The company’s web site might even have allotted a page for you, so you feel this is enough.

After all, why should you go through the time and expense for something that you already have and is working for you in a satisfactory manner? While this all may be true, consider this; what if you decide to go to another firm or open your own brokerage?

Don’t assume that your clients will remember your phone number or email address. Even if you send out an announcement, people may have moved or changed their email address.

Although you may have done a memorable job for them, if they call the real estate office that you formerly worked for and you are no longer there, they will be redirected to another real estate agent at that firm.

If they remember your name and try to search for you on the Internet and can’t locate you, then they will have no choice but to use another real estate agent.

Having your own searchable web site will enable those clients that you have lost contact with to find you easily. Even if you already have a web site and you carefully included your name in your URL, just because someone types your name into a search engine doesn’t mean your page will come up.

This is especially true if you have a common name such as John Smith. Many clients aren’t big on patience and will not be willing to sift through multiple sites just to find you. It’s up to you to make sure that you are easily accessible if you want to keep your client base in tact.

Utilizing Search Engine Optimization will ensure that your old clients can find you and new clients will be able to view your site and ask for your help.

This makes it worth the effort to take the time to create and optimize your web site so that you will be accessible to those who wish to do business with you.

One of the first steps in SEO is to design your website to target a particular audience, in this case those who are interested in buying or selling real estate in your region.

Search Engine Optimization employs three basic concepts, those being text, links and increasing the popularity of your web site, all of which will be discussed in much further detail in later chapters.

• Web Content and SEO
• Web Site Links
• Web Site Popularity

You may be thinking to yourself that SEO is going to take a lot of effort to be effective and you are absolutely right. So, why should you even bother?

After all, your sales are pretty good and your referrals are more than enough to keep your profits up so why fix what isn’t broken?

Think about it this way; as a real estate professional it’s important for you to keep up with the trends in your field.

This includes real estate laws, housing values, property taxes, popular neighborhoods and knowing the best school districts. All of this information is subject to change at any given time so it’s important for you to remain current.

The same way that important factors change in the real estate industry, they are also changing in how society goes about seeking the services that they need.

Before, they may have pulled out the yellow pages but now they sit down at their PCs to search for what they want. Even if you don’t see the need to make sure that your web site is highly visible in search results, you can bet your competition does.

It’s great to have referrals that help you to gain new clients, but those clients still need to be converted. Prior to the internet when a client referred a friend to you, they may have asked for your phone number.

Now they want to know if you have a website and what the address is. We are now living in a tech society and today’s technology negates the need for clients to come and sit in your office for a face to face to discuss their real estate needs.

At some point they may have to but initially, they try to find out what they can on the Internet. They’re busy and want to be able to shop around from the comfort of their own homes. They are also savvier and will use the Internet to compare what you are offering to what your competitors are offering.

If they pull a search and your competitor’s site comes up and yours doesn’t, this gives the appearance that your agency is not technologically up to date.

This may make them wonder how up to date you are in your knowledge of current trends in real estate and lead them to use your competitor instead of you.

Remember what you had to do to get your license? The classes required to learn all there was to know on an intellectual level and then the training that followed to teach you proper sales techniques. Real estate is an ever changing industry.

Between whether it’s a buyer’s market or a sellers market, changes in laws and taxes, you have to keep up with the trends. This is why many states or provinces require you to take continuing education classes, so that you will be well informed.

Consider learning about SEO as another needed form of education that will enhance all of your knowledge and help you to become even more of a success.