Talk the Talk in 2018 – Part 1

By now you should know the benefits of marketing your real estate business online. The reach, focus and success tracking of internet marketing efforts are well documented and can be achieved at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing.

Having said that, do you ever find yourself lost when suppliers start describing services or products? Digital marketing has literally developed a language of its own, and it is beneficial to become as fluent as possible, if you intend on creating a healthy online presence for your brand.

Familiarise yourself with some of the most significant terms used in the industry to gain a better understanding and employ your new found knowledge in your everyday marketing interactions. 

• Algorithm: In terms of internet marketing, an algorithm generally refers to a “search algorithm”, which is a sequence of automated calculations that determine which pages are seen in the search engine’s search results pages.

• Bot: Usually refers to a “search bot” and is another term for a “search spider” or “crawler”. This software crawls through the internet, moving from website to website cataloging information to help them rank webpages in their search results more accurately.

• Bounce Rate: A quantitative measure that refers to the amount of users that visit your real estate website and then leave without viewing a second page on that visit.

• Branded Keywords: Keywords are words or phrases that a user types into a search engine to easily and accurately find what they’re looking for online. Branded keywords, on the other hand, are search terms that include a brand’s name or variations of it and are used by searchers, who by means of your effective marketing, have already heard about your brand and are looking for more information about you. Also known as a vanity search.

• Content Management System (CMS): A web content management system is an online application that supports the creation and modification of digital content without the user having an in-depth knowledge of code. It allows for efficient and simpler drafting, editing, indexing, sharing and publishing of content on your real estate website in real time.

• Demographics: Statistical data, that relates to the population and particular groups within it. It is a general science used in marketing to target a very particular type of customer by taking a broad target audience and segmenting it in order to effectively reach a more specific market.

• Duplicate Content: This is content that is found on multiple web addresses. Duplicate content makes it difficult for search engines to rank the most relevant pages accurately, therefore affecting the user’s search results and your website’s position online. This is why it is important to upload fresh, relevant and original content to your real estate website.

• Fresh Content: Fresh content is content that you add to your website on a regular basis. This type of content can help you attain better search exposure because the more frequently you update your website with articles, downloadable content and new web pages, the more frequently a search engine will stop by to visit your website. Fresh content makes your real estate website a living, breathing entity – whereas search engines may consider a stagnant website to be a dead entity.

• Geo-Targeting: Geo-targeting is a filtering method that delivers different content or adverts to a web-user based on their geographical location. For example if you search for an estate agency and you are located in Johannesburg, the search results will not show you an agency in Cape Town but try to match agencies near you.

• Inbound Link: Refers to when another website links to your website. It is advantageous to have related websites link back to your website.  This relationship will fortify your content suggesting that you are an authority on that subject. This is especially important if the referring websites have a significant online presence or generate large amounts of traffic.

• Inbound Marketing: This is a technique used to attract customers to products and services via means of content marketing, social media marketing, and search optimisation. It delivers an improved customer experience and builds trust by providing potential customers with valuable information such as newsletters and social media updates.

• Landing Page: Also known as lead capture pages, a landing page is any webpage you would arrive on that provides additional information after following links or clicking on embedded adverts from any online platform. These pages traditionally bring a visitor to the website with a single goal in mind.

• Marketing Automation: A technique of creating software, designed to effectively market on multiple channels and automate repetitive tasks. Utilising marketing automation makes time consuming processes that may have been carried out manually much more efficient. An auto responder or automated email newsletter are a good examples of marketing automation.

• Meta Description: A brief extract that summarises the webpage’s content. Search engines may display the Meta description under the page title in their search results pages.

• Organic Search Results: Also known as natural search results, these are listings that a search engine displays matching web pages to the relevant search.

• Outbound Marketing: Any method of marketing where your brand would start a conversation and send your message out to your audience. These are usually traditional methods of advertising such as; television commercials, radio and newspaper adverts etc.

• Search Engine: A software system designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and rank them using bots or crawlers. Google, Bing and Yahoo! are currently the three most popular search engines.

• Spam: Refers to unnecessary, repetitive and often times annoying online communication that bombards a user and clutters whatever platform they may be utilising.

• Traffic: Traffic is the sum of all users that visit your real estate website. There are many sources of traffic such as organic traffic, direct traffic, paid traffic, email marketing traffic, social media traffic and referral traffic. It’s important to attract the right kind of traffic as some visitors are of better quality than others.

• User Experience (UX): Refers to the process of improving customer satisfaction and loyalty by enhancing your website’s usability, ease of use and overall satisfaction delivered in the interaction and engagement between the user and the brand’s online platform.

• Vertical Search Engine: Also referred to as specialty/topical search engines, these are search engines that focus on a precise segment of online content. Unlike web search engines that use web crawlers in attempt to index excessive portions of the World Wide Web, a vertical search engine usually utilises a focused crawler which attempts to only index webpages dedicated to a single industry.

Hopefully this has helped you gain a better understanding of frequently used internet marketing terms; however, if you’re overwhelmed and are still finding it difficult to wrap your head around these, we are happy to help you grow your online marketing knowledge and your real estate brand’s online presence. Get in touch with us today if you would like any further information.