Whether you are looking for a top Realtor in Maryland, an experienced Baltimore County Realtor or the best Realtor in Harford County, other than knowledge and the ability to represent your best interest, there is one very important skill that your home listing agent must have to sell your home fast, for the most money and with the least amount of headaches.
That skill is to be an expert marketer and to be more specific an expert at marketing your home on the internet. More than 85% of home buyers search for their home on the internet (according to the National Association of REALTORS). So if the real estate agent representing you does not know how to put your home where home buyers are looking, chances are they are not going to find it.
Value of anything is determined by supply and demand. As a home selling realtor our job is to create the demand by marketing your home to as many potential home buyers as possible. If almost 9 of 10 are searching on the internet, how do we locate the ones that are motivated and qualified to buy your home.
Needless to say it is not enough to stick a sign in the yard, post an ad and put your home in the multiple list. It is also not enough to just place your home on the internet. Most mls systems automatically upload home listings to popular sites like realtor.com, zillow.com and others that are very popular and effective, but is it really enough and the best we can do?
There are a ton of great looking websites that get little or no visits. It is all about traffic, getting people to actually see your home information, pics and virtual tour. Look at it this way, if you only had enough money to put up one billboard to advertise your home, would you want it on a road that ten vehicles pass per day or a major highway with a consistent flow of vehicles 24/7.
How do we find the right location? For a billboard we would do a traffic analysis. On the internet it is a little easier to find a high traffic website. We visit alexa.com which ranks websites by the amount of visitors. Here are the top four:
Top Sites
The sites in the top sites lists are ordered by their 1 month alexa traffic rank. The 1 month rank is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews over the past month. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1.
1. Google
google.com
Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company’s focus is developing search technology.
2. Facebook
facebook.com
A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.
3. YouTube – Broadcast yourself
youtube.com
YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide!
4. Yahoo!
yahoo.com
Personalized content and search options. Chatrooms, free e-mail, clubs, and pager.
Now we know where the traffic is, but where there is more traffic, there is more competition. Therefore it takes special skills to get your message seen. If you or your agent can accomplish this, you are on your way to accomplishing your home selling goals.
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