Internet Solutions 2003

Today, real estate agents and brokers can benefit from networking opportunities that simply were not available before the Internet. Networking is such a hot and profitable approach that the old adage, If you cannot beat them, join them has changed. Now, the experts say, Join them and You cannot be beat. Is this true and how can a real estate agent network with others?

There are many services that are focused on the real estate transaction. There are home inspectors, escrow offices, lenders, attorneys and home repair services to mention a few. It is possible for any of these service businesses to network among themselves with a Website that is set up to facilitate networking. PLEASE NOTE: Networking with others does not necessarily mean that you must limit yourself to one service provider. For example, let us suppose that you work with several lenders. Give them all a link from your Website and request that they give you a link from their Web.

There are a couple of ways in which you can include networking technology on your Website. One, check out the Web Wizard at http://www.revalues.com. You can put this Website to work for you by joining the Real Estate Marketing Library. As a Library member you get a completely interactive Website that includes networking capabilities, search engine submission and Email marketing.

Another way to include networking technology is to elect to have a Custom Website. With a custom Web you can even have it set up so that prospective networkers can enter their own information on your Website. Visit http://www.revalues.com
/customwebplan.asp if you would like a Free Custom Web plan.

Lots of economic benefits! For one, people who network tend to refer to one another as each has a stake in making the network work. Then if all or most of the businesses in your network promote their Websites locally, your chances increase substantially that a prospective buyer or seller will find you from a network site. These first two benefits cost you nothing and can produce excellent results. Finally, the benefits of having links to your site from other sites cannot be overstated when it comes to search engines.

Several major search engines prefer to obtain their search results by following links. So, if the lender you network with promotes his or her Website with the search engines, your chances are good that the search engine will give you a ranking. How good the ranking will be will depend on how good your Website is.

When it comes time for you to promote your Website to the major search engines, good links pointing to your site are part of many engine’s consideration. Google, for instance, weighs incoming links when considering what kind of a ranking to give a particular Website.

 WARNING: All the gurus say that the link sharing opportunities will not do the trick. The search engines know when you have simply bought into a link sharing deal and they do not count that in your favor. What search engines want to see is good, related links. A related link has something to do with your business. For example, a lender is a related link for a real estate Website while an automotive link is not related.  

Well managed alliances allow companies or agents to obtain a greater sales impact at less cost but you need to be flexible and have the control to grow and prune your network as needed. You also need to have the flexibility to set up your network so that it continues to benefit you and all the members of the network.

What if you want to network with businesses and services that do not maintain a Website? What if there is uneven or unequal promotion of the Website? These realities must be dealt with. For example, let us suppose that you want to link to a lender who advertises heavily both online and offline and you are not such a heavy hitter. You may need to negotiate a relationship with the lender that makes giving you a link make sense. The opposite is true if you are the heavy hitter in marketing and advertising and a service with less of a presence wants you to link to them.

Finally, links that are broken not only do not help you, a broken link may hurt. Prospects who visit your Website and click on links that do not work may develop a negative attitude about you. Don’t you find it annoying when you click on a link that goes nowhere? Find several of those on a Website and you start to think the Web owner does not take good care of the Web. Then, search engines do not link broken links either. Broken links on your site may cause your site to be lowered in ranking. YIKES!