Google is the most popular search engine on the Web by a landslide. You know this because over 70 percent of you begin your searches on Google, which means that over 70 percent of your potential clients also begin their searches on Google. Real estate portals like Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com® know this too, and many billions of dollars of market value are based on the many billions of page views these portals get from Google each year.
As a REALTOR®, it’s virtually impossible to compete with portals as they have seemingly infinite SEO and marketing resources. Search for your listing by address and you’re likely to be buried under many—if not dozens—of sites advertising your listing with another agent’s contact information.
The prominence of portals has caused most of the industry to shift their advertising dollars to the portals, as the assumption was that’s where the consumer begins their search. But that’s simply not true; the overwhelming majority of consumers start their searches with Google and then funnel into one of the portals. To that end, in 2014, 41.9 percent of Zillow’s traffic originated from Google.
What if your property advertisement came up before Zillow’s in that consumer’s search results? Had it, it’s quite possible that click would have landed the consumer on your website, likely resulting in your phone ringing or a new email in your inbox from a potential buyer.
Despite the massive resources both the market and all of you have provided the portals by spending your hard-earned advertising budgets with them, there’s now an alternative. Welcome to part one of a four-part series we’ll be bringing you through the end of the year that details how you can take your listings back by using the Intelligent Advertising Platform released by Life in Mobile on Sept. 1, 2015.
The Intelligent Advertising Platform (IAP) allows you to automatically advertise all of your listings within a few clicks. You simply sign up, set a budget per property (e.g., $30 per month per listing), select your IDX feed and enter credentials, and the platform takes it from there. Ad units of all sizes are automatically created and populated with property information, landing pages are automatically created, and your ads begin running within a few hours. More curious users can edit the ad copy and websites to which ad clicks resolve. When your funds are low, the platform automatically bills you (with a courtesy reminder the day before). You literally set it and forget it; you go about your business and the platform ensures that you have maximum visibility for a highly optimized spend.
Now, you may ask how this will help you beat the portals. The answer lies in the back-end technology within the IAP. It was designed, tested and then optimized to practically ensure your advertisement is at the top of Google, in the prominent and revered “Above the Map” position over 90 percent of the time. Owning this spot puts you at the very top of the search results page, pushing your competitors and portals down the page.
Interested in learning more? Visit http://linkto.us/IAP for a video demo, or sign up for one of our weekly webinars.
Next month, we’ll talk about further customizing your advertisements with taxonomy and extended keywords to increase your exposure “Around the Map” and on the right-side advertising panel on Google.
John Lim is CEO of Life in Mobile.
For more information, visit www.lifeinmobile.com.
