HomeQuest

Jeff on Monday, July 19, 2010

There’s been a lot of talk lately about using WordPress to create an online marketing hub.  It’s something we’ve been preaching to agents for a while now.  It’s one of those things that just makes sense the more you think about it.

WordPress makes it easy to create a website within minutes that you can call your “online hub”.  But is it really that easy?  Of course not…  If it was, every agent under the sun would be creating a WordPress site, dumping some content into it, and carrying the sacks of cash it generates straight to the bank. Well, that’s not how it works.  There’s some work involved. Some strategy behind the work. Some thought behind the strategy.  But, if you’re willing to put in the work, we can help with the rest.

So, lets take a look at some of the strategies, and the thought processes behind them, in creating an online hub for your Real Estate business:

Strategy 1 – Design – Probably one of the more important strategies in creating a “successful” online presence is incorporating custom design work into the mix.   The design of your website should reflect you as an individual, your strengths as a Real Estate professional, the communities you’re involved in and the activities you do on a daily basis, all wrapped into a website you’re actually proud of.  The design should closely mirror the content you create, and even carry over into your other marketing and branding activities. (See: What Makes this Custom WordPress Real Estate Site an Instant Classic?)

Strategy 2 – Capture – Another important strategy that you have to work into the overall design of your online hub is some sort of lead capture, like the HomeQuest WordPress IDX platform provides.  Now I know there’s been this uprising of thought over the last few years in the Real Estate blogging community that we should stop using words like “leads” and “capture” and “conversion”.  I’ve often wondered if those behind this way of thinking even had leads to convert in the first place.  Regardless, capturing and converting leads is how we in the online Real Estate space get clients.

Strategy 3 – Content - Possibly the most important strategy, and where the real work comes into play in the building of a successful online hub is the creation of good content.  Good content helps in two ways; first with keeping your readers engaged and secondly by providing something for the search engines to find you.  Content can be in the form of writing, video, pictures and any combination of the three.  Once you nail the design and capture elements, this should be your main focus.  Your content should also reflect you, your strengths, activities and communities you’re involved in. It should basically mirror your design in that if you’ve got a site that’s designed around “modern homes” you shouldn’t create (much) content around anything else.  Here’s an idea for creating good neighborhood level content.

Strategies 4 and 4.5 – Promotion - Promotion can actually fall into two categories, which is why this post is labeled 4.5 strategies…  Basically you have promotion of others, and self promotion of your own content.  Promotion of others is a great way to catch the attention of local residents, businesses, etc. and also a great way to generate relevant links back as people return the favor.  Self promotion is the “art” of showing others what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, possibly leveraging some of the social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter along the way.

Like I mentioned above, putting together a successful online hub requires a bit of work.  Most of the heavy lifting revolves around the creation of content and then promoting that content to your communities.

HomeQuest can help by designing you a WordPress website custom tailored to you and your business, along with providing the top of the line IDX/CRM platform needed to get your online hub working at its full potential.  Contact us today if you’d like more information on how we can help.