More than 80% of homebuyers use the Internet to discover and eliminate new home opportunities. In most cases, buyers use general terms such as “New Homes” to locate housing opportunities, but after they discover a home builder or community that they like, they’ll often use more specific terms such as “XYZ Homes” to look for consumer reviews.
If your company has been building homes for several years, or has delivered thousands of homes, the chances of a few homebuyers being unsatisfied are high. One unfair negative review could destroy your reputation with a potential homebuyer and eliminate your homes as a possibility for them.
Did you know that by creating free web pages highlighting your company’s strengths is a powerful way to “push” negative reviews out of a homebuyer’s reach? Below are free and simple ways for you or your team to enhance your online image through the creation of web pages?
1. Social Networking – Social websites like MySpace and Facebook are incredibly easy to set up. They allow you to create a web page with information about your company, your homes and your communities. In minutes, you can have a web page, controlled by you, competing with a negative review.
2. Professional Social Networking with LinkedIn.com – LinkedIn.com is a powerful professional networking site that has over 36 million users. This is actually one of the best and easiest ways to create a company profile; the strength of LinkedIn.com Profiles makes it easy to “push” any negative reviews out of a home buyer’s reach.
3. Wikipedia – If your company is established and well known in your area, you might be lucky enough to get your Wikipedia page included in the Wikipedia Index. A Wikipedia page detailing everything about your company is a great way to build trust by using the trust that Wikipedia already owns. Wikipedia pages are deemed reliable and they are a great resource for any buyer looking to find out everything about your company. Wikipedia pages are usually top 5 results for specific searches – assuming you get a your webpage in.
4. AboutUS.org – AboutUs.org is very similar to Wikipedia, except that the website allows all businesses to publish information about their company. Unlike Wikipedia, your company does not have to be well known or established; any company can create and publish a profile in minutes.
5. Squidoo.com – Squiddo.com is a website that is basically a large collection of user-generated web pages. The website allows you to create and publish web pages about anything. You can use Squidoo.com to create web pages about your company, a community or even a particular listing. All of these pages will become competition for negative reviews.
6. Synthasite.com – Synthasite.com is a website similar to Squiddoo.com, but instead of creating just one page, you can create an entire mini website that is controlled by you; these new pages will give you more ammunition when trying to “push” negative reviews out of a home buyer’s reach.
7. Using Bloggers to Publish Information about Your Company – Blogs are quickly becoming trusted resources for information. Some blogs have incredible authority and publishing power; if you get a blog like ours, NewHomesSection.com/blog, to publish an informative article about one of your communities, your homes or even your entire company, you will create a powerful webpage that negative reviews have to compete with to get a buyer’s attention.
Creating profile pages, web pages and publishing content is literally the only easy way to make it difficult for home buyers to find negative reviews about your company. All of the suggestions above are free, quick and simple ways to protect your online reputation.
Use the tips above to push negative reviews out of a potential homebuyers reach and you will essentially make the market of your potential homebuyers larger. Even if you have no negative online reviews, building a strong network of positive pages about your company makes it more difficult for an angry buyer to destroy your reputation. In addition, being everywhere online increases your company’s credibility. Would you trust a company more if they could be found everywhere and were involved in everything?
Learn how to manage your online reputation
At New Homes Section we work hard to give home builders the tools and information they need to succeed online, we’re here to help. NewHomesSection.com is a great way to reach thousands of homebuyers; our New Homes Section team can be a great resource for all of your online marketing needs, if you want to reach more buyers or have a quick question, do not hesitate to give us a call 480-988-9572 – or shoot us an email info@newhomessection.com
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I am relatively new to the ABC’s of INTERNET marketing and want to thank you for an excellent article. I have a couple of builders in my area that will benefit from your knowledge. Anyone who has ever had a home built knows how difficult it is from the owners stand point with the decisions to change this or that at the last moment. Can you imagine having to deal with it from the builders stand point. As with all professions there is the good the bad and the ugly.
I thought buying of house is usually through newspaper or only by seeing what do they have to offer. Now they also need reviews and social networking to gain more clients.This is getting interesting.
Of course, what a great site and informative posts, I will add backlink – bookmark this site? Regards, Reader.