Are your prospective homebuyers finding you on the Internet?

by Greg Katanick

(Editor’s Intro: Katanick’s firm offers MH retailers and MHC community operators an easy way to improve web based marketing. His insights in the world of MH online marketing in this article are practical and insightful!)

As I travel around the country educating organizations on how to fill their pipeline with prospective homebuyers and implementing a sound business process to make sure they take those prospective homebuyers through their home buying journey, it amazes me how many companies don’t have a comprehensive, targeted Internet marketing strategy to make sure their prospective homebuyers are finding them on the Internet.

The objective of any marketing campaign is to attract qualified potential buyers to your company. A key component of this is where the qualified potential buyer is looking. With 87% of home buyers using the Internet in their home buying process (National Association of Realtors’ 2008 “Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers”), it is imperative you have a comprehensive, targeted Internet marketing strategy to make sure you are where people are looking. While most of these organizations have websites, their websites are often lost in all the noise of the World Wide Web. I hear it all the time, “We have a website, we have the Internet covered”, and my very next question to them is, “where does your website come up on major search terms for our industry that will bring you prospective homebuyers in your market?” In most cases, the reality is they are not placed very high, prospective homebuyers are not finding them, and they are not reaching their entire market. In fact, they are losing sales to competitors who are and have a comprehensive, targeted Internet strategy.

This article will first discuss how prospective homebuyers find you on the Internet and then discuss what your best and most economical strategy is to make sure you are capturing as much of your home buying market as possible.

So how do people find you on the Internet?

Search engines, and there are many available for people to choose from. Google and Yahoo are the two biggest with Google comprising of 70% of the market and Yahoo 15%. Together they make up 85% of all searches done on the Internet. Once a prospective homebuyer enters a search engine such as Google, they are prompted to do a ‘keyword combination’ search for what they are looking for, for example “Manufactured Home Dealers”. When the search is entered, the search engines return any websites they identify as relevant for the keyword combination. Your goal is to come up as high on the search engine results as possible, ideally #1 and at the very least, front page exposure for any term that will attract a prospective homebuyer in your market.

While in theory this seems easy, it can get complicated when you are a manufactured home dealer in Hammond, LA and a keyword combination search such as “Manufactured Home Dealers” can capture the interest of the prospective homebuyer who is interested in purchasing a home in Monroe, MI just as easily as the prospective homebuyer who is interested in purchasing a home in Hammond, LA. On top of that, when the keyword combination search “Manufactured Home Dealers” is conducted on Google, Google identifies over 340 million websites relevant to that keyword combination. Having your organization stand out over the 340 million other websites can be daunting, expensive, difficult, and time-consuming. In addition, there are no guarantees you will see results with any of your efforts as there are 340 million other websites trying to accomplish the same thing you are. It simply doesn’t make sense to spend the time, money, and effort to get to the top of searches that encompass your prospective homebuyer market yet expand way beyond it.

What is your best strategy to make sure you are capturing as much of your home buying market as possible? The most economical and useful way to fully market your organization on the Internet is to have your own website cover specific terms to your home buying market such as “Manufactured Home Dealers in Hammond, LA” or “Oak Creek Homes in Hammond, LA” and use an Internet listing service like ManufacturedHomeSource.com that already has an established presence on all the major search engines for factory-built housing terms including many of the broader terms like “Manufactured Home Dealers” or “Manufactured Home Communities”. This two pronged approach really allows you to spread as wide of a marketing net as possible while making the most of your marketing dollars. This is especially true when your only cost to use an Internet listing service such as ManufacturedHomeSource.com is when a prospective homebuyer contacts you that is interested in your homes/community.

Having a website is great, but if you don’t have a comprehensive, targeted Internet marketing strategy to make sure your prospective homebuyers are finding you on the Internet you are losing out on sales. By strategically optimizing your website to improve the way a search engine ranks your website in specific searches such as “Manufactured Home Dealers in Hammond, LA” or “Oak Creek Homes in Hammond, LA” and by using an Internet listing service that already has an established presence on all the major search engines for factory-built housing terms for the terms that include but expand beyond your prospective home buying market, your organization can capture as much of your prospective home buying market as possible while significantly improving the quality and quantity of your Internet leads.##

Greg Katanick, CPA, is the chief operating officer for ManufacturedHomeSource.com, a directory of manufactured and modular home retailers and communities, which brings prospective homebuyers of factory-built homes in contact with retailers and communities in their area. Contact him at (352) 207-0094 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Comments, feedback or other observations can be shared in the comments area below.