Becoming a modern realtor is as simple as embracing the latest online real estate tools, many of which are completely free. It’s never been easier to reach more people with less effort
Technology is moving fast and that’s a good thing. Tools to help us become more efficient at our job are getting better and easier to use every day.
Here are some of the tools that we use to expand our client list, to bolster our listings, and to increase the efficacy of our marketing budgets. We think you’ll love them, too. If all this looks intimidating, remember that A) you don’t have to use every single one of these real estate tools and B) there are easy “how-to” videos on YouTube that can guide the most tech-averse novice through any of these programs and websites.
Personal and Social Real Estate Tools
These real estate tools can help you expand your personal and social presence on the internet. These can help your real estate marketing by tracking mentions of you or important keywords, automating your social media feeds, and helping you get your realtor questions answered by fellow experts.
Google Alerts – Track important terms that are newly mentioned about your topic. For example, you can get an email every time someone posts something about Orange County real estate, or luxury real estate, or beachfront property, or just your name or the name of your realty company. You can customize these keywords to whatever is most relevant to you.
Tweet Deck – Monitor all your social accounts from one place. Including lists and hashtags. Valuable when you’re monitoring #OrangeCounty (or whatever city you’re in) on multiple social networks to make sure you stay involved.
Circular – Similar to Buffer but, free. Use it to schedule tweets.
Quora – This is where really smart people hang out and ask/answer questions. Chances are it’s pretty popular in your city and there aren’t any other Realtors hanging out there.
HootSuite — HootSuite helps you automate and schedule all of your social media accounts from one dashboard. You can connect your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other accounts all to HootSuite and schedule what posts, images, and videos get published and when. This allows you to carve out a little bit of time one day a week and still look like you’re posting to social media every day of the week.
Website and Blog Real Estate Tools
These real estate tools guide realtors and agents through the process of creating and managing their home page or blog. You almost certainly have a website, but if you haven’t taken the plunge into a business blog you should consider the potential benefits and get started as soon as possible.
SumoMe – Has a suite of free tools all which are absolutely amazing! Definitely worth checking out, works for WordPress and non WordPress sites.
Yoast Plugin for WordPress – Helps you make sure your on page SEO is done correctly so Google will pick you up and rank you well.
Buzz Sumo – Easily find the best content on the web that has performed really well to give yourself ideas on what to write about for your next article.
W3 Total Cache – Google loves a fast website. Use this plugin for WordPress to make sure your blog is performing as fast as it’s capable of. This is an easy way to help contribute to your rankings.
Google Analytics – The best free analytics platform you’re probably already using.
Portent’s Content Idea Generator – The best content idea generator on the web. If you need help coming up with new article ideas use this. No other tool compares.
Moz Bar – Get the data that matters about your competitors. Easily learn what is making them rank well so you can rank better.
Link Explorer – Identify the backlinks that are helping your competitor rank. Can also be used for other SEO activities such as to monitor your own internal linking strategy.
Email and Newsletter Real Estate Tools
The following tools will aid you in setting up your newsletters, mailing lists, and client communication. Some of them will also give you insights on how well your emails are performing so you can adjust your strategy and make more effective newsletters.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator – Gives you some insight on who you’re emailing by giving you their full social profile with just a click.
FollowUp – Organizes your emails and allows you add reminders, action items, notes, and tags to all of your email correspondence.
Mail Chimp – One of the best free email marketing tools available. Use this to create really easy to use automated email marketing campaigns.
We hope you enjoyed this post and found some useful tools to transform your marketing, listing, and outreach efforts. If you have a chance go check out FlyerCo.com we help you create real estate flyers online easily.
Have any tools we missed?
Leave a comment below!
Great leads
I think the above list does a fantastic job of focusing on tools to help with the “web” side of Realtor marketing. Then there’s the “social” side of a Realtor’s marketing plan that can’t be ignored. I would definitely like to see Canva on this list. Marketing your personal brand as well as your listings requires making quite a few graphics for use on social media. I’ve found that the quickest way to create these graphics is with Canva either by using some of their pre-built templates or by purchasing a template pack from a professional designer. Once you’ve chosen a template to start with, customizing the post graphic to your brand takes seconds once you get the hang of it.