Real estate websites have become one of the mainstays of a Realtor’s marketing plan. And one of the first things one needs when starting a new real estate website is a great domain name. A common thing that I notice is that many agents decide to choose their own name as their domain name. But what I don’t think many agents realize, is that choosing their own name as a domain, is a big mistake. Picking your own name as a domain is easy, but is it right? From one of my favorite real estate marketing books, Real Estate Rainmaker Guide to Online Marketing, author Dan Gooder Richard mentions as one of the "New Rules" – Your brand should never be your name. Let’s think about the big picture here. When building an internet presence or an overall marketing presence, you are building a brand.  Building your brand can take a significant amount of time an money to promote and make successful. Well after a time running a successful real estate business, someday you may wish to retire. Can you see where I am going here yet? Essentially you want a brand that is attractive and "saleable" to potential buyers that may want to take on your business once you decide to retire. And if your brand is something that can be easily transferred to a new buyer, that obviously makes it worth a lot more money. Well if you are using your name as your brand, or as your domain name, how easily transferable or attractive would it be should you decide to sell the business you worked so hard on? I don’t believe many agents haven’t give this much thought when developing thier websites. How attractive would a brand that was by some other person’s name be to you? So how should you go about choosing a great domain name for your site? Take the ego out of it. Your real estate site is not about all about you but about the consumer. Think about the areas you serve and the consumers you want to reach and what they may be interested in. Think of a geographical area or specific property type that you specialize in. Have you already chosen your own name as your domain name? Don’t fret! Landing pages can be your answer! Without having to completely change to a new site or completely change the domain over to something new, you can still use great targeted domain names while still keeping the main website. You can buy several domains like (and these are just for the sake of example) YourTownHomeBuying.com, YourTownCodos.com to target certain property types or market segments, and take them to landing pages that correspond to that item. Same with domains that target certain geographical areas and landing pages in your site to go with. Good luck and happy naming!

Megan Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions, LLC,  and runs blogs, The BVAS Connection and The Virtual Perception. Megan has been in a Virtual Assistant for 4+ years and has spent 10+ years doing the “behind-the-scenes” work in the real estate industry assisting agents with their real estate marketing and transaction needs.

The temptation is there. All these slick internet lead companies are hounding you weekly, telling you that they can promise 100 ”scrubbed” leads per month that are ready to buy and sell RIGHT NOW. And for a significant chunk of money, all those “great” leads could be yours. Sure, why not pay that exhorbitant amount for those leads to automatically come to you? Let’s just pull all the newspaper advertising, direct mail marketing and traditional farming and funnel all our marketing dollars into this internet lead company since all these leads will most likely lead to successful transactions. With the promise of all these hot leads, who needs any other advertising? 

The above scenario is a huge myth and a big mistake in my opinion. Believe it or not, there are agents and whole real estate companies out there that are abandoning their newspaper advertising, direct mail advertising, and farming to sink all of their marketing dollars into the internet and internet leads. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent on fancy websites, lead capture software, search engine optimization, pay-per-click ads, and lead generation companies. Real Estate agents and brokers are looking for the next big technology tool that will bring in a boatload of internet leads without them having to do much work to get them.  The problem is that internet leads are likely to cost more time and money in incubating these as leads and abandoning a well rounded marketing plan to solely depend on these internet leads can end up hurting more than helping.

Internet consumers searching for real estate are not necessarily ready RIGHT NOW to buy a home or sell real a home.  For many, the internet is where they go upon first searching homes and feeling out the marketplace. The internet gives them the opportunity to scan ads and do a “drive-by” of available listings without having to leave home. They want to remain anonymous for as long as possible until they are really ready to take the plunge. And even when they do fill out a web form for property information, statistics show that those leads can still take 6-12 months or more before they become active real estate buyers or sellers. I do not believe that the return on investment that many of these internet lead generation companies will convince you of, is as good as they promise.

According to NAR’s 2006 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 80% of buyers used the internet for their home searches. But in stark contrast, only 7% of buyers found the agent they used on an internet site.  40% of buyers used agents that were referred to them by friends, relatives or neighbors and another 13% used an agent they have worked with in the past.

Those statistics affirms my belief that you cannot dismiss the idea of having a well rounded marketing plan that involves not only the internet, but also the traditional farming and marketing methods to your friends, family, past clients and your neighborhoods you serve.  People are more likely to use someone they trust or is trusted by a close friend or relative, not some stranger on the internet that sent them an auto-email. When you continuously market to your past/present clients, friends, family, and neighborhoods through newspaper, direct mail marketing , even email if you can, you will stick out in their minds as the one they trust and the neighborhood expert.

Technology in real estate is ever growing and ever changing and there will always be something “bigger an better” that promises to generate tons of leads without lifting a finger, but they never quite live up to the hype. Don’t fall into that trap. When revisiting your marketing plan think about going back to the basics. Never underestimate the power of basic farming and advertising in your community and service area and watch the leads and referrals roll in.