One of the most common questions or concerns I receive from realtors is how can they get more leads.

And then I ask them about what system they have and what they have been doing to generate leads so far.

Usually, they would say that they have their brokerages provide leads and that they door knock, mail out postcards and flyers, referrals, network, and give back to charity, plus a little bit of social media.

When I ask them, do you have a website?

The usual answer would be, do I really need one?

Follow up question would be, how’s your social media? And their answer would be in the lines of not taking it too seriously.

I would also ask them about their branding but that’s for another blog.

Today, I’m going to talk about how you can start generating leads online.

It is common knowledge that people go to the internet first when looking for real estate listings and agents.

So, if you’re going to have any amount of success in attracting these home buyers or home sellers who are mostly looking online, you have got to start having your online real estate.

Although the results are not instant as we have to play with the algorithms and build up that mass presence.

But if you stay with it the results will pay off beautifully to a snowball effect.

Here are 5 ways you can start generating leads online.

Having a website should be top of your list and the focal point of everything you do online.

Your social channels, online and print materials are just the advertising which should lead people to your website or perhaps to your physical office.

There, you can engage your people to see more local listings and provide high value real estate information and service that will help them in their buying or selling journey.

You can also use this platform to highlight the power of your brand and brokerage to deliver the results that they are looking for.

Having a high-quality modern website helps build trust and credibility that you are the best agent of choice.

It will also greatly help with your search engine rankings.

Technically, the qualities of a good website that are favored by search engines are:

1. Fast loading.
2. Mobile device friendly.
3. Google or search engine friendly.
4. Updated regularly with fresh content.

Likewise, make sure that your website is designed well with good user experience and interphase, and being visually impressive.

These are critical so that when your visitors land on your website, they will be delighted to stay and follow the buyer journey and path you laid out for them.

You want to minimize the bounce out from your website.

Since we usually “google” something to research and gather more information about real estate, blogging can help you get in the search results.

By writing about high value real estate information and related topics, you can establish your relevance both to the people you are trying to reach and to the search engine algorithms.

When you blog and publish rich content and on a regular basis, Google will perceive you as a relevant and high-quality source of content for their users.

It will then put your content in a good position in local search results depending on the user’s unique browsing history and location.

Just make sure that your blogs are properly tailored for SEO (search engine optimization) before it’s sent out.

We are talking about keywords, sentence structures, length, and links among numerous factors to make your blog attractive for the algorithm criteria to find and catch you.

Thus, blogging when done right, can provide more visibility for your brand and click throughs to your website.

As mentioned above, our go-to resource when looking for real estate information or agents are online search engines and the king of them all – Google.

That’s why the usual phrase “google it.”

With this, take advantage of Google’s free online business listing platform, Google MyBusiness, to generate more online leads.

When your GMB is done right, you can appear in these searches and expect click-throughs to your website or landing page (whichever you set up).

This has been very effective for local searches like “real estate agents near me” or “top real estate agents in Richmond Hill.”

You can even receive phone calls directly from your GMB listing, too.

You can also leverage on Google Ads whereby you will appear at the top panel of the search pages regardless if your website is weaker than the competition who doesn’t do Google Ads.

Plus, when you keep your GMB listing fresh, it can help with your search ranking.

Here’s how:

1. Regularly post short blogs there.
2. Regularly add photos.
3. Update your business hours when necessary. Pro tip: Even if you’re an agent, put long hours on your GMB as it helps with the relevance on “store open” during the user’s search.
4. Complete your business profile info.

Social media has been one of the mainstream advertising platforms for real estate.

Aside from promoting your listings, you can communicate your personal brand and high value content in those platforms in the most meaningful and interesting ways.

It’s delightful when someone sees your post on “Top 10 Tips to Sell Your House Without a Single Price Drop” then tag their friends or share it to their page.

It will help you to stay top-of-mind and will definitely give you the opportunity to earn more referrals, as well as, reach and exposure for your business.

You can also use these platforms or channels to engage and talk to people and be known as a relatable human being and not an uptight no-personality professional, thus, establish rapport and trust.

You see it all day everyday on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, internet browsers – sponsored ads and banner ads that pop up on every corner of your screen.

These social platforms have been prioritizing paid advertising over organic reach for quite awhile now.

So, with the pay-to-play scenario, paid advertising has to be in your marketing and leads generation playbook.

There is also the saying that you have to spend money to make more money.

Anyhow, aside from brand awareness, paid or sponsored ads can be highly effective for leads generation.

Here’s how to make a successful social media or Google ad that can provide opportunities for generating leads:

1. Create a scroll stopping cover image, video, or banner + copywriting.
2. Provide a high-value and relevant content that can be downloaded or emailed to them for free.
3. Have a landing page with a fill-out form on it requiring their name, email address, and phone number. In some cases, the landing page would be a quick showcase of the property with a registration form.
4. Customize these ads to target specific location and demographics.
5. Set your desired ad budget and duration.

These customization options are easy. But sometimes you would need an expert to navigate the back-end administration for it.

Then, you will also realize that setting the budget and the duration of the ad can be quite critical depending on your desired outcome vs the investment.

Likewise, it can be a big budget game depending on your ad goals.

But with the right strategy and execution, you can very well reap huge benefits from it.

Online leads generation doesn’t have to be complicated.

Although it requires commitment and diligence to set up initially, the benefits and growth opportunities weigh out the effort and investment.

Use the 5 strategies above to generate real estate leads and start growing your business now.