Developing and Working a Niche Online

The most competition-intensive thing you can do with your website is to develop all of your content around keywords and phrases that are generic real estate, as “YourTown real estate.” Virtually 95+% of your competition is doing the very same thing. Far from a negative, this opens up a great opportunity for you.

Wait, you say! I work residential real estate, so I really don’t have a niche. Actually, you have several.

• Single family homes
• Townhomes
• Condominiums
• Foreclosures
• Investors
• First time buyers
• Neighborhoods, subdivisions or areas
• Relocations

You may not do all of these, but would you if you had the clients? And, each of these is a niche that can provide opportunities to create very focused content, with key phrases your competition isn’t targeting.

If you look at the traffic statistics for a real estate site with high traffic, you’ll be surprised at the search phrases that bring many of the visitors. It’s called the “long tail” of search. Much more than “yourtown real estate,” they’re coming in on phrases like (assume “yourtown” in front or in back of most of these):

• New homes for sale
• Foreclosure homes
• Condominium projects
• Condominiums in town
• Downtown condominiums
• Building codes and restrictions
• Subdivision locations
• Land use restrictions
• Homes for sale in
• Land for sale in
• Townhomes in downtown
• Single family homes in
• Home styles in
• Downtown condo covenants

There are a great many more, and you can even combine some of those into others. The point is that you can spend your time and effort in creating content that’s focused on these niche words and phrases. There will be far less competition, and you’ll do much better in the search engines. You don’t need a novel on these topics. Here are some example titles for SEO and short 300 or so word pages:

• Denver Downtown Condominium Projects
• Typical Denver Condominium Covenants
• Denver Condo Covenants to Beware Of
• Denver Condominium Sold Statistics
• Price Trends for Denver Condos
• Denver Downtown Condominiums Map
• Negotiating for Your New Denver Condo

There’s more, but you’re getting the idea. By developing short content pages with these titles and the key phrases in the page, you’ll be developing that niche with SEO, and your competition will be left behind in the long term.

We’ve only touched on the tip of the opportunity iceberg. Do the same for commercial, investors, foreclosures, short sales, and other specialty property types or types of transactions. Your site can develop several niches, each as a major page with sub-pages for each title and phrase. Why compete for the major words when you’re able to get first page search positions for the lesser-used key phrases?

Let’s talk about neighborhoods and subdivisions as a niche. Think of them as your farms, as this is a familiar concept in real estate marketing. Instead of post card farming a large subdivision, think of it as a sub-site on your website. It becomes a major page, with sub-pages for (again, subdivision name before or after phrases):

• Covenants and Restrictions
• Homes for Sale
• Condominiums for Sale
• Area Maps
• Business and Shopping
• Area Schools
• Area Churches
• Sold Property Statistics
• History and Development

Again, you get the idea. While hundreds of your fellow Realtors are fighting for major competitive key phrases, you can “work the fringes” for neighborhoods and subdivisions. You will get very targeted traffic, as there are searchers wanting information specific to these neighborhoods.

If you want your website to actually bring you business, working the niche property and transaction types can be your best tool. Just getting away from the normal real estate site plan will help. You know, the site with about a dozen pages, with these buttons on the home page:

• Search Listings
• About Me
• Buyer Information
• Seller Information
• My Listings

Take that site and compare it to one with some of these choices:

• The Denver Condo Scene
• Downtown Denver Living
• XYZ – A Subdivision in Demand
• Investing in Denver Area Real Estate
• The Denver Foreclosure Market

These pages can take you to sub-pages with very specific focus on things we’ve talked about in this article. Trying to put too much information into one page is poor SEO strategy. Besides, if a site visitor arrives at your site on a search for “downtown Denver condo covenants,” they’ll be thrilled to come to a page that has that as the only topic. That’s why Google and the other engines will give that page a good position as well.