How to Build Your Online Presence for Your Real Estate Business
For real estate agents, making and maintaining a network is one of the most important predictors of career success. And in the digital age, digital connections are just important as industry contacts and in-person relationships.
Today’s agents must have a belt full of digital tools and an online presence to support their businesses. But how do you start building a real estate online presence?
This guide is a crash course for agents seeking a stronger online presence in their local markets. We’ll explore developing a digital identity by breaking the journey into five straightforward steps.
Step 1: Establish Your Domain Name
Your first task when creating a new online real estate business presence is to create a unique, eye-catching domain name. A domain name is a URL that consumers type into their web browser when they want to find your website—it’s the backbone of your site.
Your domain name will also be an essential asset for marketing. You’ll likely post your domain name on:
- Your social media profiles
- Print ads like billboards or yard signs
- Your business card
- Your parent company’s website
Creating a domain name is critical to your real estate business online presence, and there are two essential aspects to consider when choosing it:
- Your naming approach – Generally speaking, you can create either a descriptive or brandable domain name. We’ll explore each of these in the next section.
- Your domain extension – Your domain extension is the series of letters that follows the dot in your URL. Although the “.com” domain has historically been the most commonly used, there are hundreds of alternative TLD options.
Descriptive vs. brandable domains
Businesses generally take one of two approaches to choosing a domain name, opting for either:
- A brandable domain – A brandable domain emphasizes your brand—the name or images that consumers associate with you and your business. Take Amazon’s domain name: amazon.com is immediately recognizable.
- A descriptive domain – By contrast, a descriptive domain seeks to depict precisely what your business does rather than embody your brand. Suppose Amazon had a descriptive domain instead of a branded one. In that case, it might be something like shopforanything.fastshipping.
Domain extensions
Just as crucial as your domain name is your domain extension: everything that follows the dot in your URL. While you can always opt for a fan favorite like .com or .net, you could leverage a unique extension to describe your services precisely or make your domain easier to remember.
For realtors, you can consider an extension like:
Not sure which extension is right for your domain? Consider working with a domain expert to fine-tune your URL as you build your online presence.
Step 2: Start building your website
Once you choose a domain name, it’s time to start building your website. Tackle key tasks to build a fully-fledged, informative site for current and prospective clients.
Hosting
Choosing a website host is a critical part of the building process. Without a host, your website simply can’t exist on the web. Hosting is a service website owners use—essentially, you rent space for your website on a host’s server. The host stores all the digital assets that make up your website (images, HTML files, documents, and more).
In some cases, your site-building platform can double as your host. But, if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution for hosting, building, email, and more, ask any potential website partners about their services before you start building.
Building
Once you’ve chosen a host, it’s time to start building. Most people without site-building experience typically use a user-friendly platform like Wix. Wix even offers real estate website templates that are easily customizable. Wix sites usually contain multiple pages, like:
- A home page to showcase your business bio, listings, and customer testimonials
- Pillar pages for services, contact information, and gallery
- Easy-to-update photo galleries for your properties
- Social Media Integration to allow your listings to be shared
- A blog, news, or press page (used to post content regularly)
- A contact page for prospects to easily get in touch with you
However, if you’re looking to keep it simple (or invest more time into building your social media presence for the time being), you could also build a one-page website. One-page websites are exactly what they sound like: simple landing pages that can serve as a launching pad for visitors, offering links to your social media pages and contact info.
Once you have a domain name and a website, you can set up an email address using your domain name. Using your personalized domain for email communications will lend additional credibility to your real estate business. You can use various providers to create an email address with your domain name, but some of the most popular are:
- Google Workspace – If you’re already familiar with GSuite, you could use your domain name to create an email account on Google’s platform.
- Titan email – Titan offers simple, powerful, and professional business email—and calendar, storage, and security functions, too.
- Hosted email – Your website host might offer email services linked to your domain name, but this isn’t true for all providers.
Step 3: Build a Social Media Presence
Once your website is up and running, it’s time to turn to another critical arm of your online identity: your social media profiles. While you should maintain these accounts individually, you can also link them on your website (and vice versa) to build a stronger online network.
Let’s explore some of the most popular platforms for today’s agents.
Meta
Meta (previously Facebook) remains the world’s most popular social media platform, and real estate agents can leverage this large audience for advertising and networking. There are a few ways you could use Meta to extend your online presence:
- Create a professional profile – Making a profile will allow you to make individual connections via friend requests and post content to your profile (photos, text, video, and links).
- Create a page – A page is like a profile with slightly higher visibility. Individual users can like and follow your page and receive an update whenever you post.
- Create a group – Similar to a page, a group is a mini-network of users who receive updates when anyone posts something in the group. Groups can provide users with a more intimate, community-based feeling for users—depending on your permissions, they could even post their content in the group.
Instagram is another top-rated platform for real estate agents: more than 50% of agents in the US use the platform for professional endeavors.
Instagram boasts numerous powerful features agents can leverage to attract clients:
- Post photos and videos of new listings to their profiles.
- Posting stories from open houses to showcase hot properties in real-time.
- Adding links to their profiles to their website, a single Hub for all their listings.
As an image- and video-based platform, Instagram is highly compatible with agents’ primary business focus: showcasing properties.
TikTok
TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms—nearly 38% of internet users in the US are active on TikTok at least once a month, and its user base is still growing.
TikTok is a video-centric platform, and, like Instagram, real estate agents can leverage it to grow their online presence and showcase properties. And, since most TikTok users are Gen Z, agents can use the platform to connect with the next generation of property owners.
The world’s foremost professional social media platform, LinkedIn offers agents valuable opportunities to expand their professional networks. Agents can also use LinkedIn’s other features to showcase their industry chops, foster new contacts, or join events.
LinkedIn is an excellent platform option if agents are looking for an outlet for long-form informational posts (how-to guides, market analyses, and similar content). While experts recommend cross-posting LinkedIn content to users’ websites or platforms where they have more control, LinkedIn articles can garner additional viewership and help agents expand their reach.
Step 4: Develop a Content Strategy
Digital branding is growing daily. To stand out, one must develop a strategy that enhances the visibility of their website and social media profiles.
Most users accomplish this by posting content: written articles, photos, videos, and more. Let’s explore a few types of content that real estate agents should consider as they build their online presence.
New listings
New listings are an excellent source for rotating content: as long as new properties keep hitting the market, you’ll always have something to post about.
Consider using new listings as a basis for:
- Blog posts
- Instagram photo slideshows
- TikTok video tours
- Property analyses for your website, Facebook, or LinkedIn
Whether you’re the listing agent or not, you can leverage new listings to generate content for your digital presence.
Recent sales
Like new listings, recent sales can also offer nearly-constant opportunities for content generation. Depending on your relationship to the sale, you might want to leverage recent sales to make content about:
- Your sales prowess – If you were the listing agent on a recently-sold property, you can use the sale to highlight your sales tactics and showcase your skills.
- Market trends – If you were the buyer’s agent or completely removed from the process on a recent sale, you could still use the transaction to highlight market trends, provide informational content to buyers, or analyze the sale to general market behavior.
Informational posts
As a real estate expert, you have a wealth of industry knowledge to offer to consumers (current, past, and prospective clients) and up-and-coming professionals in related industries (lenders, stagers, professional photographers, and contractors). Informational content plays well on various platforms besides your website: TikTok “explainer” videos are particularly popular among the platform’s user base.
Here are a few example topics that can help kickstart your informational content brainstorming process:
- How to sell a property
- How to buy a property
- Buying vs. renting
- How to make your property more appealing to buyers
- How to submit a compelling offer in a competitive market
Step 5: Conduct reviews
As you continue to build your real estate business online presence, remember to pause, assess your progress, and adjust your plan as needed. You might conduct these reviews more frequently at the beginning of your online journey as you figure out what works (and doesn’t) in your market. But reviews can become more infrequent once you reach your performance goals.
During reviews, assess and consider:
- How your digital assets are performing (site visitors, social media followers, and post interactions)
- Whether or not your digital assets are connecting you to more prospective clients (if not, you might need to adjust your strategy)
- How competing agents are leveraging digital tools to reach clients, achieve digital asset performance, or maintain market share
Marketing strategies are constantly evolving, and new tools emerge every day. Don’t be afraid to experiment, adjust your plan, and take unique approaches as you build your online presence.
Create a Domain Name for your Real Estate Business with Name.com
Building an online presence as a real estate agent can take time—but it’s a relatively straightforward process that can produce positive results for your professional network and your bottom line. Plus, Name.com is making creating a unique domain name easier than ever.
Whether you want to create the perfect descriptive domain name or choose an innovative domain extension, our experts can help you craft the perfect URL for your real estate website.
Explore our offers and start growing your presence online today.
Sources:
Real Estate Institute. The Benefits of Networking in Real Estate. https://www.instituteonline.com/blog?p=the-benefits-of-networking-in-real-estate
Technopedia. Domain Name. https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1327/domain-name
Wix. .org vs. .com vs. .net: What Do They Mean and Which is Better?. https://www.wix.com/blog/2020/06/org-vs-com-vs-net-domain-extensions/
LinkedIn. Brandable vs. Descriptive Domain Names, Which is Better for Your Business?. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brandable-vs-descriptive-domain-names-which-better-your-ed-keay-smith
Tech Radar. What Is Web Hosting and Why Do You Need It?. https://www.techradar.com/news/what-is-web-hosting-and-why-do-you-need-it
Statista. Global Social Networks Ranked by Number of Users 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
Coffee & Contracts. 5 Reasons Instagram Is an Effective Marketing Tool for Realtors. https://coffeecontracts.com/2022/10/31/5-reasons-instagram-is-an-effective-marketing-tool-for-realtors/
Backlink.io. TikTok User Statistics (2023). https://backlinko.com/tiktok-users
LinkedIn. LinkedIn Articles – Get Your Long-Form Content Right. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-articles-get-your-long-form-content-right-john-espirian
Social Global Grind. Explainer Videos on TikTok. https://www.socialglobalgrind.com/explainer-videos-on-tiktok
