Online promotion is no longer just for “dot coms” and online stores. Read on to find out why.

Internet marketing is the activity of promoting a business on the Internet, and it is fast becoming an essential part of business life. And the reason is simple: People are increasingly turning to the Internet for research, shopping and entertainment at the expense of traditional media.

Print newspaper readership is in decline in favor of news websites and blogs.

Traditional radio listening is diminishing due to portable MP3 player technologies, commercial free satellite radio, and Internet radio.

And the Yellow Pages are also seeing a sharp decline in usage of the print directory (8% down in 2008 from 2007).

What’s most fascinating is that the Internet has become such an integral part of our lives that in fact nearly all consumers, 97% of them, are also using the Internet to research products and services they intend to purchase locally and not online.

People view the Internet as the natural starting point to seek out a new apartment, a home, or a real estate agent through which to sell a property.

This means that Internet promotion is no longer just for online business, but an essential part of business in general, and must be an important part of yours.

People looking to do real estate transactions are now searching on the Internet for agents and properties in specific geographic areas. They do so by typing phrases such as “washington heights apartments” or “east village apartment rentals”, etc. into search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and expect to find what they’re looking for in their chosen area.

Can your potential clients find you when they search online?

Does your website target for high search engine rankings the exact phrases your clients search on?

Does your website do all that it can do to help you seal the deal with first time visitors?

If not, you can start implementing a strong online strategy right now and be way ahead of your competition because few of them do the same.

Let’s look at an example of how online marketing, specifically search engine optimization, can help you grow your real estate business. Suppose you do business in Washington Heights, the north Manhattan neighborhood where I spend much of my time.

Using the Google Keyword Tool we can see that there are about 1000 exact searches and 5400 broad searches for the phrase “washington heights apartments” in the Google search engine per month.

A broad search count includes searches that have all the words in the phrase in any order and may include other searches as well. So for example, if someone searches for “apartments in washington heights,” it counts as a broad search for “washington heights apartments.” An exact search count only includes searches for the exact phrase in question, i.e. in the same order with no extra words.

You can perform SEO and target exact searches as well as broad searches by creating and promoting a page on your website that’s optimized for “washington heights apartments” and also includes a lot of text that relates to the topic. You can include information such as a description of the neighborhood, the types of apar.tments available there, and current apartment listings. This will cast a wide net to capture many of the broad searches.

Now suppose that due to your SEO efforts, 10% of people that search on terms related to “washington heights apartments” visit your site (experience shows that this is a realistic figure), and then %1 of those close their transaction with you. Consequently, 540 people looking for a Washington heights apartment would be visiting your website every month, and then five (rounded) would complete their transaction through you. So that’s five commissions month after month just for targeting one search phrase.

And depending on the scope of your business, you could be targeting 10, 20, or more such search phrases. Now you should be asking yourself how much is that type of action worth to your business?

A good website can be one of your most valuable “salespeople,” tirelessly working 24/7 to attract leads from across the Internet and convert them into paying customers. It should therefore present a positive image of your business and give customers all the information they need in order to feel they know you better and want to do business with you.

The next step is to promote your website everywhere you can. Begin by putting its address on all your marketing literature, print ads, store front, company vehicles, etc. This is the most straightforward action you can take to promote your site. Obviously, it’s not online marketing in its purest form since the website is being promoted in the physical world, but it does serve an important function:

Physical means of promotion are limited in either space or time. The message they can transmit to potential customers is limited. In comparison, a website has virtually no bounds on the amount of information it can hold, and it is easily available at all the time. It’s therefore an automatic extension of any piece of information about your business you put out into the world. It’s a place where clients can go learn more about what you can do for them.

Now that you have a website that conveys a coherent, positive, benefit driven, message about your business, it’s time to start promoting it online via Internet marketing techniques. Here’s an overview of some of the major Internet marketing methods:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – SEO is the art and science of making a website appear in the natural (non-paid) search result listings of Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. when people type in a search phrase. An SEO campaign can be directed at location qualified search phrases, such as “brooklyn real estate agent” or “manhattan luxury condos” to catch people looking for exactly what you have to offer. SEO consists of two components. The first involves structuring the pages of your site to “convince” the search engines they’re about your targeted search phrases. This is known as on-page optimization. The second involves placing links on other websites that point to pages on your site. This “convinces” the search engines your pages are of good quality and also confirms they are relevant to the targeted search phrases. The second component is known as off-page optimization.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising – PPC advertising is the placement of paid ads on a search engine or other websites, where the advertiser pays only if someone clicks on the ad. PPC are traditionally connected to search engines that serve ads related to a search phrase entered. So if someone types in “new york apartments”, then ideally ads related to apartments in new york would be shown. The great thing about PPC advertising is that ads can be geographically targeted even without the the name of a city or region in the search phrase. The PPC systems can determine a searcher’s geographic location by using his/her computer’s Internet Protocol address. Google, Yahoo, and Bing (Microsoft) are the best known and most widely used PPC systems, but there are many others.
• Email Marketing - This has nothing to do with spam, although spammers do give it a bad rap. Email marketing simply involves collecting the email addresses of customers and prospects (on your website and in person), and periodically emailing them some useful information such as updates about the real estate industry, what’s new in your business, specific listings you may have, etc. This way, you’ll form a relationship with those on your list over time, and when they decide they have a need you can fulfill, you’ll be fresh on their minds and they’ll turn to you.
• Social Media Marketing (SMM) - The practice of social media marketing involves getting the word out about your business on social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter. SMM lets you keep in touch with your customers and in that respect serves a similar purpose to email marketing. In addition, SMM gives your business more exposure to new potential customers.

• Search engines crave properly optimized sites because they want to be able to easily understand what the websites are about and serve relevant results.
• People who search online for real estate (most people do) want to find relevant results.
• Many local search phrases, (those that include a city or a region, such as “riverdale apartments” are relatively uncompetitive and easier to be found for.

The following is a list of the major mistakes businesses make on their websites that result in lower search engine rankings and necessarily fewer buying customers:

1. Partial On-Page Optimization – There are many elements on a web page that contribute to its overall rank in the search engines. This mistake involves optimizing some elements of a page but not others. For example, if a page’s title is set to include a certain search phrase, but the body is not, then this would be an SEO mistake. Another common example of a mistake of this sort involves not setting a page’s title with the proper HTML H tag. With an H tag (e.g. <H1>) present a search engine can understand where the page’s title is. Otherwise, the search engine “machine” has a very difficult time discerning it visually, if it even bothers to do that at all.
2. Optimizing for Phrases That Nobody Is Searching On - You may have “manhattan’s best italian restaurant” but if you think your business is going to be found based on a search for that therm, think again because no one is searching for it.
3. Providing Little Text Content - Search engines primarily feed on text. Despite advances in technology, it’s still very difficult for search engines to understand what a website is about unless it includes text. A page with nothing but pictures of a pizzas, for example, is not likely to show up for a pizza related search, unless the text “pizza” appears somewhere on the page or in Web links that point to that page. Something I consider the mortal sin of SEO is having a splash page with no or little text on. A splash page is an introductory graphic animation on the front page. As far as SEO is concerned, the splash page is a complete waste of the most powerful page on a site, the front page.
4. Using Title Tags That Don’t Appeal to Humans - <title>This is an example of a title tag</title> It’s placed in the HTML header and its text appears on the top bar of a Web browser’s window. The title tag is also read by the search engines and displayed in the links of the search results. Because it appears on the search results page, it’s important for the title tag to have text that entices a click. This aspect of the title tag is often ignored.

   For example, as an apartment seeker, which title would you find more enticing:

   a) “manhattan apartments new york city real estate brokers nyc residential property sales rentals listings coops condos lofts”
   or
   b) “We’ll Find the Perfect New York Apartment for You”

My bet is on (b). (a) is a title taken from an actual real estate broker’s site and its an obvious attempt to optimize the title tag for a whole bunch of keywords, but that is also a mistake all it’s own, as you’ll learn next.

5. Targeting too Many Search Phrases on a Single Page - Search engines work by attempting to understand a page’s theme or topic. Writing a page that targets searches for “manhattan apartments” and “new york city real estate brokers” and “nyc residential property sales”, etc. will make the search engines think that the page is not so much about any one phrase, even though they are related. On the other hand, writing a page that concentrates on each phrase separately presents a tight focus pages that search engines love and reward.
6. Targeting too Few Phrases on a Website – Many businesses target just one or a handful of phrases they think their customers might be searching for. Since search engines are to a large extent unpredictable, targeting only a few phrases may lead to poor results. A more effective approach is to cast a wide net by targeting a large variety of phrases, including both competitive phrases with lots of searches and also less competitive ones with few searches. The first step of a good SEO strategy is to brainstorm and research a list of targeted search phrases. A very effective tool designed to help you do just that is the free Google Keyword Tool.