Our responsibilities as a team of Real Estate Virtual Assistants include helping our real estate agent client’s re-vamp their websites and perfect their marketing strategies. We understand that these can be very daunting tasks to take on as a real estate agent. Many of our new clients come to us without a strategic marketing plan. When we ask what their specialty is, the answer is often “sellers “or “buyers.”

Giving us this information to start with is good, however, it makes our job of effectively marketing YOU a lot more difficult.  How can we possibly improve your SEO (search engine optimization) with a target market as broad as “buyers” or “sellers?” The best way to establish your presence on the internet is by “owning” your own keywords.

Every real estate agent “specializes” in buying and/or selling. This is not a specific niche. You need to find something that you are known for, that people come to you for and that you excel at. Otherwise, what is going to make you stand out from the hordes of other agents out there? What is going to want to make the customer stop at your website?

We understand that you don’t want to pigeon hole your business. Your biggest fear is missing a potential client who came to your website looking for an agent, but realized you only did business with “first time home buyers” so they moved on.

What you don’t realize, however, is that you may be doing just as much damage, if not more, by making your market too broad. When it comes to marketing, it is always easier to work with a niche.

Let’s take a look at a few of our client’s who have honed their niche market:

Oak Shores Realty: The vacation home specialists in the Lake Nacimiento area in California.

Many of the agents in this brokerage are local homeowners who possess an intimate knowledge of the area. Oak Shores is known for their weekly email blasts with the newest Lake Homes on the market, their informative blog (which we write!), their monthly newsletter with all the latest happenings in the Lake Nacimiento area, and live webcam of the Lake Nacimiento dock on their website.

StartingPoint Realty: Chicago’s first time home buyer agency.

These agents focus on making home buying as simple as possible for the first time home buyer. To appeal to the younger homebuyer, they have built their marketing plan up to include weekly first time home buying seminars, various YouTube videos featured on their website, a strong Facebook presence, and a monthly newsletter with awesome information about home buying and more.


Helena Talbot: The empty nest homeowner’s agent.

Taking advantage of her Northern Virginia setting with its strong focus on golfing, horseback riding and historic towns, Helena positioned herself as the expert to the recently independent-of-child homebuyer.

Joy Rice: Joy Rice shows us that your focus does not have to be on the home itself, but can be as simple as a shared interest with your clients.

As a big dog lover, Joy was well aware that her area of Flower Mound Texas is full of people just like her who consider their dogs as part of the family. Her brand came together nicely when she was able to feature her dogs as a reoccurring mascot throughout her website, a YouTube news report with advice for dog-home owners, and a custom written drip email campaign with little tidbits about dogs on each email.

Good Option For All:
At this point, I am guessing there are still a lot of you who are skeptical about getting that specific with your target market. We understand your concerns and always suggest a second option for our clients that is hard to turn down. If you can’t see yourself focusing on one target market, then you can always market yourself as the expert for your area.

It seems like an obvious choice, but you would not believe how many clients we come across who fail to mention their community, their city, even their state, on the home page of their website. If you can position yourself as the expert to your community, then you present a compelling argument to any prospective client to use you as their agent.

Steps You Can Take:
1.) Talk with your real estate virtual assistant and have them start blogging (consistently) for you. Whether you already have one or you haven’t even considered one because writing is not your strong suit, it’s time to jump on the blogging bandwagon. It is one of the easiest and cost effective ways to organically improve your SEO and communicate with the public. It’s also the perfect place to serve as an expert in your market. If you chose to be an expert in your community, your VA can write about the events, the organizations, and the fun things to do in your area.

2.) Next, you need to talk to your VA about your website. An experienced virtual assistant should be able to perform a website analysis. After their analysis, they should present you with a strategic plan for a content and design makeover. Their recommendations may include writing custom content, designing custom elements, (banner, footer, buttons, etc.) incorporating irresistible offers and more. Make sure they’re writing your content with a focus on your new niche market. Aim to have at least one page (or more!) that can only be found on your website because only you are an expert on that topic and you’ve made the smart decision to invest in custom written content.

If you chose community, your VA can write several community pages for your site. If you chose First Time Home Buyers, then feature a step by step page of what to expect from the home buying process. If you are environmentally friendly, feature a page on the best Green Resources on the web. The list (and our ideas) go on.

3.) Lastly, try to find a few irresistible offers that you can boast about.  Mr. Internet wrote a great article with examples of irresistible offers. Remember: make your irresistible offers specific to YOUR niche/community!

It’s so important that you do something to stand out amongst the crowd. In this internet-crazed world, it is easy to get lost at the bottom of the search engine barrel. The chances of you coming out on top are a lot higher if you can appeal to a smaller group of people that are searching for “Empty Nest Homeowner in Loudoun County Virgina,” than compete against all of the other “John Doe: Home Buying Experts.”

Have a great weekend!

Carrie Gable and the team at RealSupport, Inc. are our “VA Quick Tip” columnists offering expertise in real estate marketing, technology and more. RealSupport’s office and team of 9 full-time staff members is located near Chicago, IL. Their successful team works virtually for many top real estate agents and brokers nationwide. Pioneers in the Real Estate Virtual Assistant industry, RealSupport offers marketing, branding, website and logo design, listing marketing, lead generation, technical support, transaction management, social networking, blogging and much more… Just ask!