So you have a website for your real estate appraisal business. That’s great. But what do you do now? How do you get people to actually visit your website?
You either spent a lot of time making your website on your own, or you spent money for someone to build your website. Regardless, you made an important investment of your time or money by having a website. You need to get a return on that investment.
Unfortunately, a real estate appraiser’s website is not the Field of Dreams. “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t work here. You have to do work to get them to come. But you don’t want just anyone to come, you want the right people to find your website.
There are two ways to attract visitors to your real estate appraisal website: directly and organically.
Direct traffic is when people visit your website because they know your website address. They type in your domain name directly because you or someone gave the address to them.
Organic traffic is when people visit your website from a search engine, like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. When people use a search engine to find a real estate appraiser in your area, you want to appear high on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) so they click on the link to your website.
Now let’s get some more detail about you actually get direct and organic traffic.
Direct Traffic for your Real Estate Appraisal Website
In order to get direct traffic, people need to know you have a website. Here are four ideas for direct traffic to your website.
1. Business Cards
Put your website on your business cards. Just make sure you spell it correctly. You have all of your other contact information on your business cards, and after your name, your website is arguably the most important piece of information.
2. Email
You likely have list of current and past clients. Hopefully, you have everyone’s email address. Send everyone an email with a link to your website. If your website is new, this email is a great way to reconnect so that your business is top of mind when they need an appraiser. Also, put a link to your website in the signature line of every email you send out.
3. Real Estate Appraiser Directories
Is your business in any real estate appraiser directories? Appraiser USA, and The Appraisal Institute come to mind. If so, then you need to make sure that your website address is in your profile. Those directories allow visitors to search for the type of real estate appraiser they need in the state the property is located. When they find your name, there is a good chance they click on the link to your website to learn more about you and your business.
4. Everywhere Else You Communicate with People
Put your website on everything, like your social media accounts, fliers,Thumbtack, or anything you can think of.
Organic Traffic for your Real Estate Appraisal Website
Now that you have let people directly know you have a website, you have to let the search engines know as well. That might sound a bit complicated, but there are a few ways for your website to have good SEO (search engine optimization), so it can eventually rank high on the SERP. We listed three great ways that an appraiser of almost any technical level can do.
5. SEO
You need to make sure your website’s SEO good. Really good. Your website developer can set you up with the SEO on the backend. Just be aware that a website developer promising great SEO only has so much control and is promising more than they can deliver. Great SEO is up to you by providing valuable content. The appraiser websites that show up at the top of the SERP will be ones that have pages with great information and regularly updated blogs.
6. Webmasters of Search Engines
You need to submit your website to Google through their Google Webmasters website, and Bing and Yahoo through their Bing Webmasters website. These are the major search engines. The search engines will then scan and index your website, basically adding your website to their complex website directory right away. Ok, so these search engines would eventually scan and index your website without you submitting it, but that takes the search engines considerably longer to do on their own. Therefor, it is good practice to submit your website yourself, so that they have the sitemap and index it immediately.
7. Google My Business
Google My Business is a free service from Google. It allows you to creates a business listing for your company in Google. You also get to tell Google the areas that you serve, so your website appear when people in those areas search for a real estate appraiser. Plus, if you live in say Massachusetts, you don’t need people from California visiting your website, and vice versa. In addition, there is a good chance that Google likes it when you use Google services, and it doesn’t hurt to please Google.
Final Thoughts on Traffic for Real Estate Appraiser Websites
For every real estate appraisal business, a website is a necessity. Once you have a website, you need to make sure people know about it, so they go to it directly, and can find it when searching the internet, so they get to it organically.
A website is a modern day business card. One major difference is that your website provides a lot more information than a 3.5″ x 2″ business card can. Your website also allows people who have never met you to learn about you on their own time.
Getting people to visit your website isn’t a secret known only to highly technical website developers. Following the simple roadmap in this article is achievable by people of any technical level.