One of the easiest and most cost effective methods to get clients for your real estate appraisal business can be through your business’ website. In order to do this, you simply need a quality website that has good SEO. Let’s see how this is done.
First, your website needs to be professional and look modern without frivolous functionality that distracts your potential client. Most real estate appraisers’ websites fail. You need to give your potential client a reason to contact you. Remember, your website offers “curb appeal” to your business, so be honest with yourself – does your website appropriately represent your business by the way it looks and with the content that it contains?
Next, people need to be able to find your quality website on search engines, like Google. The goal is to have your website appear higher in searches than your competition. That means your website needs to have good SEO (“SEO” stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, basically meaning that it shows up at the top of Google when someone searches for appraisers in your area). We’re primarily focusing on Google, because that is where the vast majority of searches are done, rather than any other search engine, such as Yahoo, Bing, and the rest.
It can be hard to know how to get good SEO for your website. An internet search for SEO will provide such an overwhelming amount of information that could cause you to give up before you even start. And I’m sure you even get emails that promise you the top ranking in Google, but they sound too good to be true (spoiler alert: these offers are too good to be true).
The good news is that there are very few appraisers who have quality websites with good SEO. That means the bar for good SEO is very low in your industry. Consider yourself lucky.
The bad news is that your website is likely one of the many that doesn’t have good SEO. Fortunately, it is easy and cost effective to fix that.
The best news is that we build high quality websites with great SEO for real estate appraisal businesses! We’ll get to that later.
What is a quality website with good SEO?
As a real estate appraiser, you can have a quality website with good SEO if you follow these two simple steps:
1. Quality website.
A quality website means that your website needs to (1) have good technical structure, (2) be mobile responsive, (3) include the necessary information about your business, and (4) have an SSL certificate (https not http). A website built on WordPress, and built right, is ideal. Writing a blog will certainly help, but it’s not critical for real estate appraisers unless you are in a very competitive market.
You website does not need to have a lot of unnecessary pages, or have content that changes frequently by a ghost writer. Some of those features can actually harm your SEO.
Does your website meet the minimum criteria to be considered a quality website?
2. Good SEO.
Good SEO for real estate appraisal websites is achieved in two simple steps. The first step is to have a quality website (see above), because Google ranks quality websites higher than, well, your current website. The second step is to create a “Google My Business” profile for your appraisal business.
Google My Business is a service that allows you to create a business listing directly on Google. If you have a physical office, Google My Business will also show your office location on Google Maps.
But the real power with Google My Business is that your website will rank higher in Google searches, and will also be displayed at the very top of the search page separate from the search results. Yes, your business can, and likely will, show up twice on the first page of Google! This is not a joke.
There are ways to get great SEO. But great SEO takes a lot of work and/or money. As a real estate appraiser, good SEO is usually good enough to outrank your competition. The two steps we just outlined for good SEO are easy, inexpensive, and will provide the best ROI.
How do you get a quality website with good SEO?
We recommend that you hire a professional to build your quality website on WordPress, so you can focus on appraising. Ideally, that professional has knowledge of the real estate appraising industry to ensure you get a website that is suited for your business.
Google My Business is a service offered by Google that you can complete on your own. Creating your listing just takes your time, and ensuring that it is done well.
Appraiser Sidekick (that’s us!) can help you with all of this. We can build a cost effective website for you, and then create your Google My Business listing. Do you currently have a website that you’re not completely satisfied with? We can build your new website and use your existing website address, so you can cancel your existing service.
Click the button below to learn about the Website and SEO services we offer, and how cost effective it will be for your business.