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How agents can tap Realtor.com’s lead-generating potential in 2023

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This story was first published on Sept. 29, 2020. It was last updated on Jan. 6, 2023.

As the platform of choice for many real estate agents, Realtor.com offers a powerful online setting for sharing listings and professional information with homebuyers and sellers.

Originally developed by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and currently operated by Move Inc., Realtor.com’s agent profile, when properly optimized, allows agents a high-SEO-value place to show off their branding, accomplishments and satisfied client reviews.

To take advantage of the platform’s lead-generating potential, it’s important to claim and develop your profile and your individual listings for maximum visibility.

Table of contents

Developing your Realtor.com profile

Realtor.com provides a variety of resources for beginning and optimizing your agent profile. Profiles are available free of charge and are searchable using the “Find a Realtor” search on the site.

Stephanie Singer | LinkedIn

According to Stephanie Singer, senior director for industry marketing and communications at Realtor.com, the platform has experienced record traffic growth over the past couple of years, so its “free agent profiles really help agents build their online brand and help agents rank higher in search results.”

Getting started

If you are an MLS member, you have a default profile at Realtor.com searchable through Google. If you are a member of the NAR, you have a default profile that is searchable through Realtor.com’s “Find a Realtor” search. These profiles are auto-populated and waiting for you to claim and optimize.

To claim your profile, go to dashboard.realtor.com, and select “Don’t have an account? Sign up.” At this point, you will be asked for the following information:

Then click on “Verify MLS Information” if everything is correct, at which point you will be redirected to a “Welcome” page. Here, you’ll click “Sign into the dashboard.” This allows you to begin to optimize your profile. You can also create a profile for your team as a whole.

Additional resources: 

Optimizing your profile

You can provide a great deal of information to optimize your profile on Realtor.com. Among the categories you can optimize are:

According to Singer, it’s important to include a photo and, if possible, consider adding a personal video to your profile. “Profiles with a photo receive five times the inquiries compared to profiles without a photo,” Singer said. According to Realtor.com, recommended size for an agent photo is 500 px x 500 px.

Stacey Soleil

“The biggest mistake I see time and time again is that Realtors forget to optimize their Realtor.com account by forgetting to upload their most recent headshot, (I see so many with no photos at all), current brokerage, and equally as important, making sure their About Me section is robust,” Stacey Soleil, marketing technology director with WEST, a Williston Financial Group Company, said on Facebook.

Former Inman contributor Jay Thompson concurred with this view back in 2020, telling Inman that instead of making the “About Me” section about the agent, it should instead focus on “About You. You, the person reading the profile and looking for an agent.”

Jay Thompson

In addition, you have the opportunity to include sold data to further differentiate your services. Singer suggests that agents consult their local MLS to ensure that this data is being sent to the platform to be integrated into their profile.

Listing activity is divided into on-market and off-market segments. “The on-market area shows the for sale and for rent properties and the off-market section shows the agent’s sold properties,” Singer said.

SEO for your profile

Tyler Forte

According to Tyler Forte, CEO of Nashville’s Felix Homes, optimizing your profile goes beyond your personal information. It’s also about the types of words and phrases you use.

“For example,” he said, “if you’re an agent who serves the Nashville market, use phrases in your description, such as ‘Nashville real estate agent who can help you buy or sell your home.’ ”

In addition, Forte recommends reviewing your profile on a regular basis to ensure that contact information is updated and transaction history details and reviews are accurate and up to date. “At the end of the day, potential customers want to see social proof and what better way [to do that] than by displaying positive reviews from past clients.”

Additional resources:

Gathering reviews

Within the Realtor.com dashboard, you can request reviews from your clients for recent transactions. You will provide information about the recent transaction, and the client will receive a fillable form to submit their review.

To ensure that your clients are ready and willing to provide reviews for your Realtor.com profile, consider the following strategies:

Managing negative reviews

Once your client has submitted a review, it’s evaluated and posted to your profile on Realtor.com. After this happens, the review cannot be deleted. In the event of a negative review, you’re able to post a public reply

In addition to the written review, your client will be asked to provide a summarized star rating. You can choose whether or not to display these summary ratings in your profile in the preferences section of your dashboard.

Stay calm in the face of a negative review using the following techniques to craft a suitable response:

Additional resources: 

Differentiating your service through the quality of your marketing

One of the ways that people evaluate you on the Realtor.com platform, according to Singer, is through the quality of your listings. Professional photos, video tours, virtual open houses and other professional marketing help to show both the listing and the agent in the best light. 

What follows are some best practices for optimizing the look of your listings on Realtor.com’s platform.

Professional photography

Whether you are partial to A to Z professional photography services or editing and optimization services such as BoxBrownie, beautiful photographs tell a story to potential buyers and offer a powerful selling point in listing presentations.

Consider the following ways of ensuring that your photos are standing out for all the right reasons:

If the home is a bit outdated or if its design is out of keeping with comparable listings in your area, you may want to enlist staging services before the photo shoot. This can make your marketing efforts more effective than pictures of unattractive interiors or vacant spaces.

Video tours and virtual open houses

Although video tours have been around for many years, their adoption has increased due to the market changes brought about by COVID-19. Whether you’re hiring a videographer or looking for a do-it-yourself solution, video and virtual tours help you offer a more meaningful idea of the home’s layout and features to potential buyers.

Make sure to add videos to all of the platforms where you’re promoting your listing, share on social media and on your website and otherwise distribute it widely. Email the video to real estate agents in your area, especially those who might have buyers in the pipeline. Video is a powerful tool but only if it is shared and seen.

Property descriptions

Although some listing agents forego well-crafted property descriptions in favor of “just the facts” lists of features, it’s worth the time it takes to properly craft your listing description. Not sure what to include? Here are some ideas.

Additional resources: 

Offering the opportunity to raise your online profile and optimize the look of your listings, Realtor.com is a powerful way to increase your visibility in your local market. By taking advantage of the platform’s potential for optimization, you can reach buyers with your latest listing and display your marketing expertise to potential sellers.

Christy Murdock is a Realtor, freelance writer, coach and consultant and the owner of Writing Real Estate. She is also the creator of the online course Crafting the Property Description: The Step-by-Step Formula for Reluctant Real Estate Writers. Follow Writing Real Estate on TwitterInstagram and YouTube.