In many markets across the country there are thousands of people searching for a home every month on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. So how can home builders convert more of these online shoppers to website visitors and leads?
The answer is a good online prospecting strategy. One of the best tools for online prospecting is SEO press releases. They are easy to do, free to submit, and as you’ll see below they offer a wide range of benefits for any new home marketing program.
How it works:
Online press releases vary from traditional press releases in that your story goes straight to home buyers who are searching online. Press releases are written based on high volume keywords and phrases that your potential home buyers are most like to type into a search engine (for example, “Portland lofts” or “Denver new homes”). Online news releases are then submitted to a variety of online press release submission sites and distributed across the web.
Sounds great, but what’s the connection between online press releases and increased website traffic and new leads?
Here’s 9 benefits that online news releases provide in bringing in new website traffic and leads from a targeted audience of prospective buyers:
Timeliness
An online press release gives home builders the ability to immediately reach a wider audience to announce a new promotion, respond to market trends, announce recent successes, and more. You can post these updates to your home builder website, home builder Facebook page, Twitter, and by email as a tool for nurturing your existing leads, but online press releases draw in new prospects from a wider audience of online home shoppers. Typically, home builders would need to advertise through an expensive pay per click program to reach this audience. Online press releases provide a low cost option and a longer format than paid search options.
Urgency
Even for the most SEO savvy home builders, being at the top of the search engine results page may not be enough to get potential buyers to click through to your website if there is no compelling “why” to inspire them. The page titles and meta descriptions that appear on a search engine results page are the start of your sales process. This space can be used to convey a powerful, compelling message that builds urgency. Home builder websites often don’t convey this because they are designed to serve the entire sales cycle of the new home community. Online news releases can convey a higher level of excitement and urgency, such as this example below:
Targeted Audience
A successful online news release is written for SEO. This means that the keywords that buyers are most likely to type into the search engines appear in the title, in the description, and in the body of the press release (sometimes as anchor text). Writing around this format increases a home builder’s visibility in the search engines for those terms. This means that buyers who are searching for exactly what you are selling (“Fresno new homes” or “downtown condo”) are more likely to see you and click through to your website.
Accelerated SEO
Executing and maintaining SEO strategy for your new home community or corporate website can take time – in some cases months. Online news releases often rank higher in search engines in less time. This is because the press releases are submitted through PR sites that have a high page rank which Google factors as part of their algorithm. If you are a home builder who is opening a new community or jump starting an existing community that has been underperforming, online news releases can be used instead of (or in addition to) a pay per click campaign to gain search engine exposure quickly.
Increase Website SEO
By submitting your online news releases to several online PR submission sites, you will generate multiple links back to your website. This increases the search engine ranking of your own website and increases your visibility to online home shoppers. A consistent press release strategy (weekly or bi-monthly) can significantly increase your website’s search ranking by creating multiple links to your site.
Create Visual Engagement
Gone are the days of the boring press release. Today’s online news release can include photos and even videos. With the accelerated SEO benefits of online press releases, this means that you can reach a wider audience in less time by promoting your new home community with a press release and video tour, buyer testimonial, or model photo. Combine a timely, urgency driven message with a compelling visual to drive more online shoppers to your website – and sales office.
Drive Higher Quality Traffic
We’ve run many PR campaigns that were layered with a variety of other tools including home builder social media, home builder videos, email marketing, PPC and more. We have seen consistently from our own campaigns that traffic generated from online news releases is higher quality than many other marketing sources based on time on site, more page views per visit, and a higher conversion rate from visitor to lead.
Extend Sales Message
Buyers need information when they search on the web for a new home. SEO press releases are typically 300-500 words, which gives home builders a longer format to reach online home shoppers than Facebook, Twitter, or other online tools. Press releases often include quotes and third party testimonials that create more credibility than other marketing formats.
Increase Twitter Visibility
Online news releases that are written for high volume keywords (“San Francisco Real Estate,” “Atlanta Housing Market”) are often picked up on the news feed of people on Twitter who are looking for fresh content to send to their network. We’ve seen our online news releases tweeted between 25 times and nearly 200 times per release, depending on the story and the keywords. This creates a prospecting opportunity because your new release reaches the audiences of everyone who feeds the story into the Twitter stream.
Online press releases provide a powerful prospecting opportunity for home builders to reach a targeted, untapped audience of online home shoppers. Compelling messages and visuals can increase website traffic and, when combined with an effective website conversion strategy, can deliver more high quality leads for your sales team.
