If you have a commercial real estate website but struggling to put eyes on the damned thing, here are 12 ways you can increase traffic to your website.
#1 Local Searches. Have you noticed that when you search for a business, Google will show the 3–5 businesses closest to you? They pull this information from Google My Business. Sign up for this so you don’t miss out on search traffic happening near your location. While you’re at it, put your business on Yelp and Bing Places.
#2 E-Newsletters. I believe e-newsletters are the number 1 way to stay-in-touch with potential clients and drive traffic to your website. Relevant articles with compelling headlines will keep your readers clicking on links and discourage them from unsubscribing.
#3 Email marketing. If you’re not quite at the level to create your own newsletter (no email list) fear not – you have another option. There are providers of email blasts that allow you to “rent” their subscribers like BigBoysBlast.com. For less than $100 you can potentially reach over 100 thousand subscribers in one shot. Note, these are used mostly to advertise your properties, so consider creating a landing page for the property you want to advertise on your website to increase your traffic.
#4 Social media. Creating and maintaining a social media presence is truly how things are progressing. It’s not going away. Create your accounts for free, link them up to a social media calendar service, and post them to all platforms at once. Use a social calendar like Later.com to schedule postings ahead of time so you’re not messing with it all day.
#5 LinkedIn. If “getting social” isn’t your thing, at least get on LinkedIn. For commercial real estate, this is THE social platform we are all using. Whether it’s sharing articles, your own blogs, or interesting information, LinkedIn is a great way to connect with other commercial real estate leaders.
#6 Content creation. The number 1 way to increase your search engine optimization (SEO) is to create new, relevant content. You don’t have to stick with just blogs. Consider a video, podcasts, or data-driven piece (like a market report) that will call back to your website. These are great ways to prove credibility and increase traffic.
#7 Offer freebies. You can drive traffic to your website by creating freebie landing pages. These work 2-fold – they bring traffic to your website and increase your lead generation.
#8 Webinar hosting. Webinars do a lot of things at once – they bring in new, qualified leads, drive traffic to your website, scale your sales pitch, and convert leads to sales easily. Webinars convert at 15% which is way higher than most forms of marketing, so definitely give them a chance.
#9 Paid ads. This is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of study and testing to become good at utilizing paid advertising properly. If you feel like this is your path, consider hiring a local company that has a proven track record. Note that paid ads work best if you have a website with funnel that works.
I.E. Freebie -> Lead Gives Email to Download it -> Newsletter Follow up -> Sale. When you have a tested and working funnel, paid ads are a great way to increase your leads and bring in more sales.
#10 Press releases. Use both local and national media channels to blast out articles you’ve written or news about your company and receive traffic from news sites. You can search your local news outlets and gather emails of the people that accept press releases. Once you have this list, send them an article once a month or bi-weekly and see what they pick up.
#11 Online communities. You can join an online community, answering questions and occasionally posting articles. Or you can create your own community to increase your reach.
#12 Local communities and charitable events. Joining local communities like your local CCIM chapter, Better Business Bureau and joining some communities your target market will frequent, is a great way to be seen. If you sponsor an event with one of these communities or a charity, they will likely offer advertising that points to your website.
If you need a website that works like a funnel, bringing leads to you, consider Calico Marketing for your website design. We build websites that are focused on one thing – bringing you leads and making you more money.
Showing you how to get your website in front of more people is another way I’m taking the “broke” out of commercial real estate brokerage.
~ Brandy
