Real estate is huge on the Internet. For the majority of clients, their real estate search begins on the Internet, whether they are buying or selling.

With millions of Web sites competing for viewers, how do you get the results you’re looking for? When asked if they are marketing on the Internet, many real estate professionals say, “Yes, we have a Web site.” However, having a Web site and marketing on the Internet are two very different things. Yes, usually you need a Web site to market on the Internet. However, a Web site is simply a collection of documents, images, and other electronic files that are publicly accessible across the Internet. Your site needs to be designed to meet your online objectives and should be developed with your target market in mind. Internet marketing encompasses all the steps you take to reach your target market online, attract visitors to your Web site, encourage them to work with you or your company and look at properties, and make them want to come back for more.

Having a Web site is great, but it is meaningless if nobody knows about it. Just as having your real estate brochure of brilliant waterfront properties does you little good if it sits in your desk drawer, a Web site does you little good if your target market isn’t visiting it. It is the goal of this book to help you take your Web site out of the desk drawer, into the spotlight, and into the hands of your target market. You will learn how to formulate an Internet marketing strategy in keeping with your objectives, your real estate listings products or services, and your target market. This chapter provides you with an overview of this book and introduces the importance of:

-Defining your online objectives

-Defining your target markets and developing your Web site and online marketing strategy with them in mind

-Developing the Internet marketing strategy that is appropriate for your real estate organization or your listings.

The Fundamentals—Objectives, Target Markets, and Products and Services

Things have changed dramatically over the past several years in terms of Web site design and development methodology. Back in the olden days—a couple of years ago in Internet years—it was quite acceptable, and the norm, for a real estate company to pack up all of its brochures, ads, direct-mail pieces, news releases, and other marketing materials in a box, drop it off at the Web developer’s office, and after a short conversation ask when they might expect the Web site to be “done.” The Web developer would then take the marketing materials and digitize some, scan some, and do some HTML programming to develop the site. By going through this process, organizations ended up with a Web site that looked just like their brochure, hence the term “brochureware.” Brochureware is no longer acceptable on the Web if you want to be successful.

The newest generation of real estate professionals is using Web site templates. That is, they are using Web sites that already have the shell developed—all one needs to do is insert text. Many of these template Web sites are quite nice. However, if you choose to go this route, you want to be careful that you do not look like another cookie-cutter site. You also want to be sure that, if you use a template site, you choose the most appropriate one that will meet the needs and objectives of your target market. You do not want to choose a template site based solely on the fact that it is cheap and easy.

Sites that are successful today are ones that are designed around