You may be thinking to yourself that SEO is going to take a lot of effort to be effective and you are absolutely right. So, why should you even bother? After all, your sales are pretty good and your referrals are more than enough to keep your profits up so why fix what isn’t broken?
Think about it this way; as a real estate professional it’s important for you to keep up with the trends in your field.
This includes real estate laws, housing values, property taxes, popular neighborhoods and knowing the best school districts. All of this information is subject to change at any given time so it’s important for you to remain current. The same way that important factors change in the real estate industry, they are also changing in how society goes about seeking the services that they need.
Before, they may have pulled out the yellow pages but now they sit down at their PCs to search for what they want. Even if you don’t see the need to make sure that your web site is highly visible in search results, you can bet your competition does.
It’s great to have referrals that help you to gain new clients, but those clients still need to be converted. Prior to the internet when a client referred a friend to you, they may have asked for your phone number.
Now they want to know if you have a website and what the address is. We are now living in a tech society and today’s technology negates the need for clients to come and sit in your office for a face to face to discuss their real estate needs.
At some point they may have to but initially, they try to find out what they can on the Internet. They’re busy and want to be able to shop around from the comfort of their own homes. They are also savvier and will use the Internet to compare what you are offering to what your competitors are offering.
If they pull a search and your competitor’s site comes up and yours doesn’t, this gives the appearance that your agency is not technologically up to date.
This may make them wonder how up to date you are in your knowledge of current trends in real estate and lead them to use your competitor instead of you.
Remember what you had to do to get your license? The classes required to learn all there was to know on an intellectual level and then the training that followed to teach you proper sales techniques. Real estate is an ever changing industry.
Between whether it’s a buyer’s market or a sellers market, changes in laws and taxes, you have to keep up with the trends. This is why many states require you to take continuing education classes, so that you will be well informed.
Consider learning about SEO as another needed form of education that will enhance all of your knowledge and help you to become even more of a success.