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Targeting a Niche Market
Advantages of Carefully Targeting your Website
Having a well-defined niche market enables you to deliver more compelling sales messages. Most homebuyers begin their search in a large metropolitan area with broad criteria in mind. As their research continues, they begin to get an idea of where they'd like to live, what properties they can afford, and what brokers they can go to for assistance. The key is for you to stand out from the other agents in the area, and be the one the homebuyer contacts.
For someone who is looking to purchase a home in the Berkeley Hills area of CA, a real estate agent who is the "Berkeley Hills Expert" will be a much better choice than one who is "Serving the San Francisco Bay Area". You should always try to establish yourself as the expert in whatever market you are targeting.
Focus your site's content on your target market and provide as much information as possible. Include links to the schools, restaurants, transportation, and shopping centers. Your web site should demonstrate your knowledge of the area and convince the homebuyer to choose you over other Realtors serving the same area.
Another advantage of focusing on a niche market is that your site will perform much better in search engines. While there may be 400,000 sites that deal with San Francisco real estate, there may only be a handful dealing with the Berkeley Hills. Because your site will be focused on a specific area, you'll come up ahead of all the other Realtors who serve a dozen different cities and give them equal weight on their sites. Please refer to our articles on Search Engine Optimization for more information.
Finding a Good Niche Market
While location is the most obvious divider for real estate, perhaps your niche involves other factors. You can target specific property types, such as income properties, condos, waterfront homes, luxury homes, or new developments. Perhaps you specialize in different demographics such as Spanish speaking, senior citizens, or first time buyers.
A well-defined niche should consist of people with the same specialized needs that you offer. You should be able to provide a compelling reason for individuals in this group to do business with you instead of your competition. Also make sure that the target group is large enough to sustain the volume of business needed to meet your goals.
Using Multiple Websites For Better Targeting
One option that is often overlooked is to have more than one domain name and web site. If you would like to target a large market or area, it may be a good idea to create multiple sites each targeted to a more specific market. This way you can use each web site to establish yourself as the expert in each of the smaller communities without sacrificing the larger area.
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