Working as a real estate agent in the current economic environment can be seen as challenging at best. And with the overwhelming trend towards Internet searches, the old-fashioned days of farming or prospecting for clients may soon see retirement. Today’s successful agent understand the importance of web visibility to gain new clients. Even with this knowledge, many people in the business still have not clued into the fact that people are searching for homes, not people who sell homes.

So we know that the best way to generate more business is to be seen on the web, but we also know that potential clients don’t want to be harangued to death before they’re ready to buy. What’s the solution? How do we make contact with clients that are searching on our website without the outdated “sign-in page?” The answer: Wait for them to contact us. You may question this method, but buyers that are more serious about buying a home, or are farther along in the search, are searching on terms that are highly specific, such as “Gilbert 4 bedroom homes for sale” or “Solana Beach gated luxury condo for sale.”

Perhaps you think that homebuyers do not use terms like the ones mentioned, but this is simply not true. Think about your own Internet searches for instance. If I have a specific question, I type that question in the Google bar and see what kind of results I get. If that query doesn’t return the results I’m looking for, I refine the search, again and again if necessary to find the answer I’m looking for. That’s the same for your clients searching for homes on the Internet. While “San Diego homes for sale” returns thousands of results, a “4 bedroom home with pool for sale in San Diego” returns results that are more aligned to what the customer is actually looking for.

Next, you may wonder how an individual agent could ever program or pay for that kind of search engine optimization. Most Realtors cannot have their sites optimized for niche-specific search terms because it is simply too cost-prohibitive. But there is a solution, imagine a website that has the potential to optimize for hundreds or thousands of keywords, and it’s all done automatically. Did you know that an address is considered a keyword, and so is an MLS number, along with many of the listing agent’s specifications on the property? Whether it is the number of bedrooms, features like a pool or spa, or even the type of neighborhood such as golf or active-adult, the “features” of the home can be, and are keywords.

Imagine making all of the MLS listings in your area of service visible and searchable on the web. You may think that you already have the MLS listings visible on the web, “I can see it, so why can’t the search engines see it?” The unfortunate answer is that the search engines cannot see these listings on your site because they are not really on your site. They are simply cosmetically displayed with a link back to the server that the MLS is actually listed on.

I know of a real estate Internet solution that actually integrates MLS listings into the pages of your website and thus, produces thousands of niche-specific search terms and optimizes for all of them. This technology turns a website into a giant net that captures a huge amount of traffic and best of all, the people searching on your site don’t have to sign in simply to view the information. They only contact you when they are truly ready to view a property or find out more. Now doesn’t that sound nice? You only have to talk to people that are really interested in hearing from you, and, they already have a distinct idea of what kind of real estate there interested in. The Internet is amazing and new technology only enhances the possibility for success on the information super highway.