Your Digital Marketing Starter Guide for Real Estate Agents

Your Digital Marketing Starter Guide for Real Estate Agents
Table Of Contents

Nowadays, traditional marketing has been surpassed by the power of internet marketing. It has become a game-changer for the real estate industry.

The stats speak for themselves: According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), 76% of homebuyers search for properties online, and 75% are likely to answer the phone after clicking on an ad. This shows that your target audience is already immersed in the digital world, and eager to connect and engage.

But how can you harness the power of digital marketing for your real estate business? 

In this guide for realtors, we’ll show you how to leverage digital marketing to boost your visibility engage potential clients, turn that interest into real, measurable results and close more deals.

Having helped thousands of real estate businesses across the US achieve tangible results, we’ll share the top strategies and tools to ensure your success too. Let’s dive in! 

Understanding the basics: What is digital marketing for real estate?

Marketing is the process of communication strategies to connect your “target audience” most likely to purchase your product or service.

Adding “digital” to the phrase refers to connecting with your target audience while utilizing their digital devices, desktops, tablets, mobile devices, tv, and much more nowadays (especially with Apple’s new glasses!).

The goal at the end of the day is to connect with strangers on the internet who are most likely to become actual transactions. So… 

How does this apply to the online real estate market?

The goal of real estate online marketing for real estate agents (single or teams), brokers (small & large), or even real estate developers; is to find potential buyers or sellers currently in the market to either purchase with them or purchase a product (home/condo/etc) they are promoting. 

Since properties are not able to be purchased directly online (you can’t simply add a credit card and buy a house online, not yet at least), we will need to “generate leads” of buyers/sellers currently in the market. What we have to understand is a few things:

  • Buyers/Sellers are at all different stages of their “journey”
  • Online vs Offline – Generating the lead is one thing, closing the deal is another. Important to work together with your data.
  • Tons of transactions are being done from people searching online, will you be the one to benefit from it?

What are the benefits of digital marketing in real estate?

Digital marketing for real estate agents is essential because it places listings right in front of people actively searching in your local area. 

It ensures your listings get noticed, helps you target the right audience, and makes it easier to build trust and close deals while giving you control over your budget and communication… and also:

  • More leads (potential clients)

Digital marketing expands your business’s reach beyond local boundaries, but its benefits extend even further. Since it allows you to target your audience, it shows your business precisely to the people who are currently looking to buy and sell properties. 

As a result, your business gains more visibility among potential clients, increasing your chances of closing deals. 

  • Nurtures long-lasting relationships: 

Digital marketing nurtures long-lasting relationships through consistent, personalized communication via email, social media, and website content. Targeting your message based on personalized audiences ensures sustained client satisfaction and loyalty.

Also, you stay connected with users beyond transactions, which not only keeps them coming back but also encourages them to recommend you to others.

  • Cost-Effectiveness

Traditional marketing channels like cold calling, TV commercials, or print ads can be expensive investments with uncertain returns. 

Instead, digital marketing offers a range of cost-effective alternatives, such as content creation, often at minimal or no expense. 

  • Boosts your ROI (Return on Investment)

Also, your results can be measured with free tools such as Google Analytics, providing insights that can lead to higher Returns on Investment (ROI).

This ensures that your time and money are wisely invested in effective campaigns.

  • Measures results for improvement: 

Unlike traditional marketing methods, it allows you to measure the results of your campaign in real-time. Utilizing digital marketing tools for realtors can help monitor nearly every touchpoint in the funnel users have with your business. 

This is one of the most important benefits since this data will give you insights to improve your performance and make any changes if necessary. 

  • Provides flexibility to refine your campaign:

After analyzing the outcomes, it gives you the flexibility to refine your campaign for optimal performance and results.

As you gain insights into your audience and discover what resonates with your business, this process empowers you to refine and adapt your strategy effectively.

Moreover, based on your current goals, budget, and feedback, it allows you to customize your tactics, while also facilitating adjustments to embrace emerging trends and platforms.

Now that you understand some of the most important benefits of Internet marketing for real estate. It’s time to get into the “technical” terms of digital marketing, and how they will apply to real estate. Let’s jump right in.

Organic Traffic vs. Paid Advertising

search engine optimization for real estate

What is Organic Traffic?

Organic traffic refers to free visibility when users discover your content naturally. This can happen through search engines, social media engagement, or recommendations. You don’t pay for impressions, clicks, or leads from organic traffic.

What is Paid Advertising?

Paid advertising involves directly paying for your content to be shown to targeted users. You invest in visibility to generate impressions, clicks, or leads. Some examples from different traffic sources: Google Search

  • Paid: Targeted ads for “homes for sale near me” or “real estate agent in [location].”
  • Organic: Blogs optimized for terms like “home buying tips” or “real estate market trends.”

YouTube

  • Paid: In-stream ads showcasing properties or client testimonials.
  • Organic: DIY staging videos or market walkthroughs ranked in search results.

Facebook

  • Paid: Lead generation campaigns with customized targeting options.
  • Organic: Sharing customer reviews, success stories, or upcoming open house events.

Instagram

  • Paid: Promoting high-quality images or videos as ads.
  • Organic: Posting curated photos with trending real estate hashtags like #DreamHome.

To take your organic or paid traffic “buyer/seller” down the rabbit hole (customer journey) we need to understand how a real estate digital marketing funnel works.

The “Buyer Journey” – take them down the rabbit hole

The hardest thing we have to understand is we are asking to:

  1. Find a “random” person on the internet, 
  2. with the intention of buying/selling in our target farming areas, 
  3. with the ability to afford what we are selling, 
  4. with the intention of buying/selling sooner rather than later (less than 6 months) 
  5. AND they are NOT working with a realtor! 

This is quite a list to fill! But don’t worry we’ve already done it many, many, many times. Before we can get into the “how to make money from this” lets get into how it all works.

  • Impressions (views): This is how you get others to see you. Your current potential customers are currently using 3rd party websites like:
    • Google 
    • YouTube
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Linkedin
    • Many, many more.
  • Traffic (clicks): You need to drive traffic to your website. The reason you want to send EVERYONE to YOUR website is because you want to own the “data”.
  • Conversions (name/email/phone number): You need to “capture” your traffic’s information on your website and pass that information into your database (or CRM).
  • Transactions (closed deals or $ in the bank): You need to turn “random names/email/phone” into actual transactions. Turning “leads” into transactions you need to take them down the “offline” path.
    • Leads engaged with your brand
    • Leads you are speaking to “discovery call”
    • Leads you are showing property to in person
    • Leads Under Contract
    • Closed Deals

Visual of the funnel “flow” below: taking traffic down the rabbit whole for your the real estate market audience

Building your digital marketing foundation 

1. Identify and understand your target audience

Here you’ll define your target to make your marketing more focused and effective.  Think about your ideal client. Identify the area they’re interested in, what type of properties they’re looking for, or where they are in the buying process. 

For example, you could target first-time homebuyers in “Brickell Miami” looking to buy a condo.

Perhaps your niche market is about investing properties, or luxury home buyers, each independent market has its unique needs and preferences in the market. Follow this process to learn how to market luxury real estate.

Create an “avatar” for your buyer persona that involves developing a detailed profile of your ideal customer. Consider their demographics, interests, values, challenges, and purchasing behavior.
 
Dive into specifics like age, occupation, lifestyle, and what motivates them. By humanizing your audience, you can craft marketing strategies and messages that resonate deeply, ensuring your brand connects with the right people meaningfully.

2. Identify the best traffic sources of your target audience

To attract more home buyers and sellers, leveraging the right traffic sources is essential. This guide outlines the most effective platforms to help you grow your real estate business, whether through organic traffic or paid advertising.
 
Here are the top platforms that drive traffic and generate leads for real estate:

Google Search

  • Paid Traffic: Ads displayed at the top of search results based on keywords relevant to real estate.
  • Organic Traffic: Free visibility is achieved by optimizing your website and blog posts for real estate keywords.

Google Display Network

  • Banners: Paid visual ads targeted to users browsing relevant websites.
  • Responsive Ads: Dynamic ads automatically adjusted to fit various placements.

YouTube

  • Paid Traffic: Targeted video ads to reach buyers and sellers.
  • Organic Traffic: Videos ranking in YouTube’s search results for terms like “homes for sale” or “real estate tips.”

Facebook

  • Paid Ads: Customized ad campaigns to target specific demographics.
  • Organic Traffic: Posts shared on your business page or within local community groups.

Instagram

  • Paid Traffic: Sponsored posts and Story ads targeting users by interests, location, or behavior.
  • Organic Traffic: Regularly sharing visually appealing photos and videos of listings and engaging stories.

Other Platforms

  • LinkedIn: Ideal for targeting professional networks and high-value buyers or sellers.
  • X (formerly Twitter): Great for promoting blogs, market updates, and quick real estate tips.
  • TikTok: Leveraging short, creative videos to highlight properties and lifestyle features.
  • Bing/Yahoo: Additional search engines that can supplement Google ads.

3. Create a professional real estate website tailored to your target audience

user interacting with a real estate brand by utilizing online real estate platforms Now that you know exactly who you want to find your business, you need a website to showcase properties and your services. 

These websites let real estate agents, brokers, and even property owners list properties for sale or rent.

Buyers or renters can then easily browse through the listings, filtering by location, price, size, amenities, and more.

You don’t need to be a coding expert or master complicated technologies to build one.  There are a few options on the market to build a professional real estate website by yourself in just minutes.

These platforms offer an easy-to-use interface plus they are mobile-friendly and designed for fast loading, ensuring an excellent user experience that keeps potential clients engaged.

Website Builder

Standout feature

Plans

Wix

Easy-to-use platform

Paid plans start at $17 per month but it costs more for IDX Integration.

The AI website builder helps you create a site in minutes with basic preferences.

IDX Boost

An all-around solution. Best for marketing landing pages.

$79 per month integrated with IDX, CRM and unlimited landing and content pages.
For new Agents starting their journey, seeking a real estate platform that is easy to use and impactful. Beautiful real estate templates integrated with IDX to create unlimited content and landing pages, come with a free CRM.

Placester

An all-around solution

$79 per month

 
Real estate website themes that come with useful features straight out of the box.

These platforms come equipped with essential features:

  • IDX integration to display MLS listings directly on your website.
  • Property listings with search filters to help visitors find their dream home.
  • Contact Forms to make it easy for leads to reach out.
  • User-friendly design to make simple navigation and ensures fast loading times.
  • Responsive Design that optimizes for mobile and tablet users.

All you need is your brand identity, including your preferred colors, logo, content, and the videos or pictures you want on your site.

For some inspiration check out this list of the best real estate websites for realtors so you can choose what designs you like your website to look like.

If you’re looking for a partner to work with you every step of the way when building, designing, and launching your website integrated with IDX, our real estate website design team is here to help.

4. Optimize your real estate website for your target audience

Optimizing your site helps search engines recognize its relevance, ranking it higher than other real estate websites.  Most home buyers and sellers begin searching online, so it’s crucial to be exactly where they are searching for services like yours.

The stats are clear. According to Firstpagesage pages Position 1 on search results gets 39.6% of the clicks, Position 2 gets 18.4%, and Position 3 gets 10.2%.   Plus, a higher ranking not only boosts your visibility but also increases your chances of closing a deal. Leads from SEO (organic traffic) have a closing rate of 14.6%.

The real estate industry is competitive, so you want to appear first in the search results, increasing the chances your audience will choose you over the competition.

Use Search Engine Optimization to boost your website’s visibility on search engines like Google, and Bing. Don’t forget to optimize your social media platforms for users that search for content, and information based on specific keywords, hashtags, or queries. 

Unlike traditional search engines that index the web, social media platforms specialize in user-generated content, a unique form of searchable data.

Starting with SEO in real estate is easier than you think. Begin by understanding the keywords your audience is searching for on search engines.

4.1. Find the right keywords

pay per click marketing for real estate Identify keywords relevant to your business and focus on a mix of short-tail keywords (e.g., “real estate”) and long-tail keywords (e.g., “affordable homes in Miami”).

You can use free or paid tools to find niche keywords like ( “homes in [location]”, “condos in [location]”, “Luxury homes for sale in [location]” or “Property management services” ) and add them to your website’s page titles, headings, and descriptions. The more specific you are with your keywords the better.

Remember SEO keywords are different from SEM (search engine marketing) or paid keywords which lies in their usage and purpose:

  • SEO focuses on gaining organic traffic using keywords naturally within content.
  • SEM involves investing in keywords for paid search visibility.

Here is a quick overview of the best free keyword research tools you can use.

Best for

Standout feature

Free plan

Moz Keyword Explorer

An all-around solution

Keyword prioritization metrics

10 queries per tool per month, with 1,000 keyword suggestions and 10 SERP analyses per query

Google Keyword Planner

Researching paid keywords

Forecasting features and budget planning

Completely free (but you get more out of it if you use Google Ads)

Semrush

Advanced SEO professionals

Granular keyword data

10 Analytics reports per day, 10 tracked keywords

Free Keyword Research Tool

Basic, simple keyword research

Suggested content angles

Completely free

When potential buyers search for properties using those keywords, Google recognizes your content as relevant, helping your website rank higher in search results.

Nowadays is also important to find voice search keywords, which are terms or phrases people use when conducting voice searches through devices like smartphones, smart speakers, or virtual assistants.

Regularly create useful content such as blog posts based on local market trends and tips naturally incorporating keywords.

4.2. Optimize for conversions

A visitor to your website isn’t a client, yet. To convert them into paying customers, you need to guide them through a strategic process. Since properties can’t be purchased directly online, you can’t just advertise a property and expect someone to enter their credit card details immediately.

Their experience needs to be seamless. Well-designed landing pages play a huge role in converting traffic into leads. You can optimize your site by utilizing:

  • High-Quality Visuals: Use professional photos and videos of properties.
  • Search Filters: Allow users to easily refine results (price, location, amenities).
  • Client Testimonials: Display reviews or success stories for trust-building.
  • Lead Capture Forms: Use forms to collect user data with clear incentives (e.g., free market reports).

The goal is to get them to take action utilizing engaging CTA (call-to-action) and Hooks, such as a button, image, or video, in exchange for their contact information (name, last name, email and phone number). Some valuable offers ideas to include in your CTA are:

  • Information about your real estate services
  • Expert home-buying tips or seller’s guides
  • An exclusive discount 
  • Schedule a virtual tour or demo of a property
  • A free property consultation or home valuation

Each step is designed to spark their interest to move them closer to becoming a prospect.

Then you can follow up on them utilizing your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) which helps you keep track users activity throughout your website and understand what they are actively searching for. the process of turning traffic into real estate prospects with accurate data in your CRM

5. Transactions (Deals)

After you collect the contact information of your traffic called now “leads” (potential clients), the goal is to turn your leads into real transactions. To do this, you move leads through an offline process:

 5.1 Leads engaged with your brand: 

Once you have their data, you start nurturing the relationship to engage them with your brand. Here, your potential clients show interest in your business by interacting with your website, emails, or social media.

5.2 Leads you are speaking to: 

When a lead responds to your outreach, the goal is to schedule a call. This allows you to better understand their needs and explain how your services can provide the right solutions.

5.3 Leads You Are Showing Property to In Person: 

Following your call, the next step is to arrange in-person meetings to provide private tours of properties that align with their preferences. This personal interaction helps build trust and move them closer to making a decision.

5.4 Leads Under Contract: 

At this stage, the lead has committed to purchasing a property, and both parties have signed the agreement. The process is now progressing toward closing the deal.

5.5 Closed Deals: 

The transaction is complete, the sale is finalized, and the deal is officially closed, resulting in a successful outcome. the real estate process of utilizing a CRM to optimize online data into offline data

Conclusion

Digital marketing has revolutionized the real estate industry, shifting how realtors connect with potential buyers and sellers.

With the majority of homebuyers starting their journey online, a robust digital strategy is no longer optional—it’s essential. You can transform passive interest into actionable leads by understanding your target audience, utilizing the right platforms, and optimizing your website for conversions.

Embracing online real estate marketing tools empowers you to expand your reach, nurture client relationships, and achieve measurable results. Those who adapt will thrive in this competitive landscape as the market evolves. A well-rounded strategy that combines organic reach with paid advertising is the key to successful real estate marketing.

By focusing on high-performing platforms like Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, you can consistently connect with home buyers and sellers while building trust and authority in the industry.

We encourage real estate agents like you to start digital marketing today by optimizing your content, engaging on social media, and running targeted ad campaigns tailored to your audience!  

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