SEO or search engine optimization is basically the strategy of increasing your findability on the internet. Meaning, when a potential buyer or seller goes to one of the big search engines like google, yahoo, etc., and types in “what is my home worth?”, or another real estate related phrase, do you even show up in the results. Much less show up in the first few pages. If you’re not on at least page three you can most likely forget about drawing any traffic. And page three isn’t really all that great either. The ultimate goal of course is page one at the top.
Top billing on the search engines is not an easy goal to achieve because of the competition, but you can get very close. There’s a number of ways to increase your SEO and I’ll discuss those further in the following postings. This is merely an introduction to it.
Before I conclude this intro to SEO, I want to touch on quickly why it’s so important to you and your real estate business. The answer is obvious to the majority of Realtors. The NAR statistics show that somewhere in the range of 86% of home buyers begin their search on the internet. Put that together with the fact that most sellers start out as buyers and it becomes clear that it’s not sufficient to merely have a website any more. You need to also optimize your site to create greater exposure. If you’re not, you’re missing the boat. The good news is that it can all be accomplished for free with just a little focused effort on your part.
