Denver ISS Digital Marketing Presentation

Your business needs MORE:DIGITAL MARKETING

Mary P. Merritt, Digital Marketing & Experience Design Professional

www.NerdyMind.com

Experience

• Over 10 years of experience in digital marketing

• SEO, PPC, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing, Web Design,

Web Development, User Experience Design, Writing and MORE

• Web Designer for Sierra Trading Post

• Website Business Development Manager for OtterBox

• I live and breathe the web because I am a NERD!

• Focusing on ways you can put some sweat equity and

elbow grease into your business! Dime-priced!

What we will cover today:

• What a good content strategy can do for you

• Different ways you can syndicate your new content

• Blogging, social, your website, article websites

(hubpages.com, squidoo.com, stumbleupon.com, etc.)

• Search Engine Optimization

• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing

• Free tools you can use for your business

Yes, you need a website.

• This is your “home” on the web.

• A great place to stage all of your content (you can attach

your blog to your website, or if you build your website in

Wordpress it comes with a ready-to-use blogging function).

• This is where you build your brand.

• A poorly-designed website can really turn someone off (first

impressions do matter on the web).

Your website should…

• Drive the user to a desired behavior (filling out a form,

calling your phone number, sign up for your newsletter, read a

blog, etc.)

• Make these behaviors seem natural…keep it simple

• Be beautiful

• Be consistent with your other collateral like business cards,

letterheads, vehicle wraps, etc.

• Be extremely optimized to the best of your ability

• Have GOOGLE ANALYTICS TRACKING

You should…

• NOT think that if you build it, they will come

• Understand that you have a lot of work to do after your

website is up

• Add content regularly

• Make sure you are running tests regularly to make sure

that your conversion objectives are being met, and those

experiences are always being improved.

Content Strategy:

• What do you have to say? Why should people listen?

• Your content should be compelling and useful.

• Brevity is important, just look at these slides.

• Websites that never get updated won’t win.

• Your people are looking to sell their house and/or RENT

one of your rental properties. What do they need to

know? What should they expect? What is helpful to

them? These questions can help you build your content

strategy.

Example of professional content strategy:

Go blog about it.

• Blogging creates great content for your website and other

web properties like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin and

more.

• This plays into SEO, and we’ll get to that.

• You establish yourself as an expert when you speak

intelligibly about relevant topics.

• Link bait: When your content is so good, that everyone

starts linking to it because it is awesome.

Example of solid blogging strategy:

What tools are out there for blogging?

• WordPress.com

• Posterous.com (recently purchased by Twitter)

• Blogger.com

• Tumblr.com

• TypePad.com

• Blogymate.com

The Power of Recommendations

• Do you have satisfied customers?

• It never hurts to ask for a recommendation. Ask your

customers to give you a recommendation on Linkedin, YELP,

Facebook and more.

• This business is big on referrals.

• If someone who has high social clout posts positively about

your services, you immediately get a positive presence in

their entire network of listeners. This is where

‘amplification’ can occur.

Awesome Real Estate Websites

• Zillow.com

• HotPads.com

• Trulia.com

• BiggerPockets.com

• LoopNet.com (Commercial)

• Hubzu.com

• You can also post your properties in a variety of places like

these to get great exposure…but make sure they only find

really smart, awesome things about you once they start

looking into you more.

Search Engine Optimization

• You always have to start with keyword research!

• This helps you understand what words and phrases are

being searched, and what kind of volume is behind those

terms.

• Google has a ‘free keyword tool’ that is easy to use,

intuitive, and the information is from the largest search engine

in the world.

• There are other paid tools out there, but start with the Google

keyword tool and see how you do.

Search Engine Optimization & Content

• What should you do with your newly-found keywords?

• ‘Pepper’ your content with the keywords

• These keywords should drive some of your content

strategy…

• Is “commercial real estate investment best practices” a

commonly-searched term?

• If so, write an article about real estate best practices

that is helpful, useful and well-researched. More

importantly: ORIGINAL.

• If you copy and paste content from someone else’s

website, Google skips RIGHT over it…leave YOUR digital

footprint

Search Engine Optimization & Social

• Your social posts CAN and WILL get indexed in search

engines.

• Use your keywords in your social posts on Twitter,

Facebook, etc.

• Link to your website as much as possible (naked links).

• When your helpful, resourceful posts get amplified,

more people get exposure to that link. More people click in,

and Google starts liking you more and more.

• Optimize all social profile information.

Search Engine Optimization& Your Website

• Make sure your META information reflects your keyword

research.

• META information is basically hidden content- the user has

minimal exposure to it. Search engines use this

information to understand what your webpage is

about.

• Only optimize for ONE primary keyword and maybe one

secondary keyword PER PAGE (over-optimizing is under-

optimizing).

Search Engine Optimization& Your Website Cont’d

• Most (good) content management systems allow you to

add and edit your own META tags for your website, but

you might need to hire someone to help you.

• Wordpress has a lot of SEO plugins, but we like SEO by

YOAST.

• Blog titles should be optimized, and you should set up

Wordpress so it builds your URLS and META information off the

title of your post using their ‘permalinks’ function.


• Your navigation links should be optimized if possible.

• Your URLs should be optimized if possible. A good

example is: www.propertyinvestments.com/real-estate-

investment-best-practices/

• Optimize it all: Search Everything Optimization (the new

SEO).

• Images (alt tags and even image naming and directory

naming)

• Text (page headers are always a best practice)

• Blogs, page content, titles, descriptions, anchor text,

EVERYTHING.


• Feel free to create SEO landing pages that are specifically

written for the purpose of ranking well for a high-volume term.

• Always write for PEOPLE, not search engines. Just saying

‘Real Estate Investment’ a million times on your website won’t

work.

• When users come to your site and then stay to read, it builds

your credibility with the search engines (and people too)!

Search Engine Optimization& Your Local Business Listings

• Set up some local business listings in a few directories.

• Google, Bing!, Yahoo and YELP are the ‘big four.’

• Claim and optimize them.

• Sometimes it is just an email confirmation, sometimes

they send you a postcard, sometimes they call you…

but claim your listings.

• Optimize your listing profile with your keywords.

• When someone searches for your services with geo-

targeted keywords, your listing will show up as a result.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

• It can be complicated to understand, but this can be a very

powerful marketing tool for people in real estate

investment.

• We always suggest that people hire a consultant to

educate you, or you hire someone else to set-up and

manage your account.

• Spends can get out of control fast if you aren’t careful.

• One of the most laser-targeted tactics for creating qualified

traffic for your website’s conversion objective.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing Cont’d

• Make sure you understand your objectives VERY clearly.

• Are you trying to generate good leads on properties?

• Are you trying to find a tenant for one of your rental

properties?

• Make sure you have your GOALS set up in Google

Analytics.

• Optimize the ad’s landing page for conversion – no road

blocks. Simple forms that don’t ask for your entire life story,

your contact information very prominent on the page, and lots

of other components that lead to goal conversion.


• Try to keep your account very organized.

• Try to keep the keywords in each ad group down to 15

and under.

• Use those keywords in your ad copy.

• Always. Be. Testing.

• Test your landing pages against one another.

• Test your ad copy at all times (run two ads at the same

time for 2-week intervals, see which one has a better CTR—

keep the ad with the better CTR and make a new ad to run

against the ‘winner’).


• Geo-target your paid search ads with ease.

• Use your keyword research to find out what terms have

good volume behind them with little competition.

• Do some of the keywords and phrases have locations in

them?

• You can also play with your demographics (male/female,

age, etc).

Analyzing Your Efforts

• None of this stuff matters if you don’t measure your

successes and track your failures.

• What works? What doesn’t? How do you know what to do

next?

• GOOGLE ANALYTICS tracking code must be installed on your

site.

• Set up and track your GOALS regularly. You can set up

any action on your website to be tracked by Google.

• This is a free tool, and your most valuable tool with

regard to digital marketing (being able to report and

understand your digital presence).

Analyzing Your Efforts, Cont’d

• You can set up automated reports that are emailed to you

monthly.

• Take the time to find out how people behave on your

website.

• Make goals for yourself! Ten new leads per month? 5 rental

properties leased per month?

• Make sure that you are careful about how you spend

your money. Being analytical about your digital presence can

really pay off (you can find out where you should spend the

most of your time.

Who is doing it right?

• SignatureHouston.com/Investing

• They made a “microsite” that is all about Real Estate

Investment

• Their website is easy to navigate, easy on the eyes, and it

makes it easy for me to get in touch with them.

• They are blogging maniacs! It makes them look very

credible.

• Their website is highly optimized for local search

(Houston).

• They are running solid PPC campaigns in Google and Bing!

Who is doing it right?

• RanchAcreage.com

• They have a beautiful website

• Good positioning, many microsites for different types of

properties in different areas (ThorntonHomes.com and more)

• You know exactly what to do when you get there!

• Their META information is optimized for search

Your business needs MORE:DIGITAL MARKETING

Thank you for your time!

Mary P. Merritt, Digital Marketing & Experience Design Professional

www.NerdyMind.com

[email protected]

970-449-6868

Denver ISS Digital Marketing Presentation

Real Estate

Transcript of Denver ISS Digital Marketing Presentation