Answers to Your Questions About PPC Advertising for Real Estate

Leveraging pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, like Google AdWords, is one way real estate agents can drive targeted leads to their website. We've previously talked about how agents can hone in on leads that are most likely to convert by using highly specific key phrases. Today, we're going to dive deeper into how to PPC advertising works by answering a few key questions.

1. My website has good SEO. Is PPC advertising still worth it?

If your website already appears at the top of search engine results, you may think that you don't need to use PPC advertising. After all, it's not like your site is languishing in the back pages of Google's search results, so why bother paying to place your site's ad at the top of search results pages?

One reason is gaining consumer trust. Even if a consumer sees your site at the top of organic search results, when they also see your paid ad above it, they are more likely to feel that you're more established or professional. There's a subtle trust indicator there that says, "Okay, this person is legitimate."

Another reason is brand reinforcement. If your website has good SEO, chances are that your brand has a strong presence in your marketplace. PPC is one way you can add a bit more brand presence.

What's more is that PPC gives you more control over the consumer search experience. When you run an ad, you control its links and where they go. With organic search, you might a great page one ranking, but you're not in control of what page the search engine is choosing to display in those results. With paid advertising, control is in your hands. You can control the call to action (e.g., "Search for homes!" or "Find out what your home is worth!") and where those calls-to-action are linked.