Real Estate Website Blunder #10: Unique content that ISN'T
Is what you offer unique in your marketplace?
Are you the ONLY one that offers what your clients receive when they work with you?
Is your real estate business unique?
Being unique takes a bit of work. It is a whole lot easier to be just like every other real estate professional out there. And that’s why most real estate professionals aren’t raking in the dough.
In fact, according to Salary.com, the median expected income for a real estate agent in the U.S. for 2006 is $32,996. That’s it.
When it comes to websites, being unique is absolutely critical to your success. Without something special to offer the marketplace, the chances of that median income becoming your future quickly begin to rise.
So imagine my complete surprise the other day when I started to notice the exact same real estate articles on one real estate website after another. The names and places aren’t important and will be kept confidential to protect the guilty.
At first I thought it was just a weird coincidence.
But then I did a search in Google for a specific phrase I found in one of the articles… Lo’ and behold, a total of 607 other websites came up with the exact same article – word for word…
What do you think happens to your positioning in the mind of your prospect when they encounter something like that?
It’s one thing if you were distributing this information in a hard copy format. In that case, it wouldn’t be on display for all of the world to see at the click of a mouse.
What is another word for a product that is offered in many places with little differentiation?
A COMMODITY.
How many things are wrong with this marketing “strategy”? Why should you steer clear of filling your website with generic real estate info – the exact info that is available a ton of other places?
1. It lacks any valuable information specific to your market. In other words, it’s generic. Are generic things usually perceived as higher value items or lower value items?
2. Search Engine Stupidity – with hundreds of the exact same article floating around the internet, what productive search engine results will this produce? Absolutely none. The only content that should be on your site is that which is valuable (unique) to both your visitors AND the search engines. Anything else is just a waste of space.
3. Drives Commission Down – WalMart is in the cheap business. It is not a smart business strategy for real estate professionals.
4. Absent of Your Personality – which is the very thing you need to include everywhere in order to drive your commissions upward.
You might think the chances are low that anyone would connect the dots and find the exact same thing I did while searching through Google.
Here’s how it could go down:
John and Sue are busy searching the internet for their next home. Sue is racking her brain trying to remember exactly what site she saw the other day that had such a helpful article about real estate tips for first time buyers.
Being a savvy internet user, she goes to Google and searches for one specific phrase she remembers reading, hoping it will bring up the article. She uses quotation marks to surround her phrase so Google will only return those search results that have that exact phrase – the same words in the same order.
Imagine her surprise when she finds the 600 websites that use the exact same article?
So my point?
Write your own stuff.
Your real estate business is special and unique. Your service is worth a lot of money for very specific reasons. If you don’t think so, there is absolutely no reason why you should expect your clients to think it.
But by making those reasons known (your unique selling proposition) and an integral part of your marketing, you will help to maximize your income. You will breeze by the $32,996 marker in 30 days. No sweat!
Write your own stuff. It’s will put money in your pocket.
