One of the key ingredients of successful Referral & Repeat Marketing is making sure you are easy to find. You want to make sure that when a client or referral source recommends you to a real estate lead… they’ll have no trouble contacting you.
Increasingly, the way potential clients are finding Agents is through the internet. They expect that your web site will contain all the information they will need to learn about your services, and to contact you via phone and e-mail.
Quick Tip: Be sure your real estate contact management software has an automated website lead capture capability so leads can contact you via your website and be automatically flowed into your database (IXACT Contact has this feature)!
So having a domain name that is easy to remember, and easy to spell, is critical.
The last thing you want is to have a real estate lelad get frustrated while trying to find you on the Web — and then giving up!
Most real estate agents use their personal name as a domain name. That can be very effective. After all, you want to build your reputation — your brand — among past clients and referral sources, so having a “MyName.com” makes sense.
But what if your personal name is difficult to spell?
Let’s say a past client recommends you to one of his friends at a party. Will that friend be able to remember and spell your name correctly the next day as he is trying to find you on the web?
If you’re not sure he will, you should have a second domain name that “points” to your website.
For example, if your main domain is IanBinkellmire.com, you should have other domain names that, when typed into a web browser, will take visitors to that site. Those names could be IanIsMyAgent.com, GeorgetownAgent.com or SellYourHomeWithIan.com.
Most web hosting companies offer “domain forwarding” services for just a few dollars per month (sometimes it’s free). So there’s nothing stopping you from having two or three domain names for your web site.
Takeaway point. Having an easy to remember and spell domain name makes it easier for past clients to refer you.