Protect Your Real Estate Brand By Googling Your Name

Do you ever Google your own name? What do you find? Many people think that it is “vain” to Google your own name, but I can tell you that when you are a real estate agent or mortgage lender it is a MUST! You work hard to promote and sell your “Brand,” but you also need to protect your real estate brand by knowing what is being said about you online, who is saying it, and why. In this day and age virtually anyone can say whatever they want on social media channels, videos, or even websites like this one. Many people have blogs and YouTube channels set up and when they have a positive or negative experience with you they have no issue telling the world about it. There are several other reasons to protect your real estate brand by Googling your name, let talk about them.

Monitor Your Online Content

I talk to agents about setting up a good real estate website, creating effective content with blogs and videos, but you need to monitor that content and feedback to make sure people aren’t stealing your great information and posting it other places without giving you credit. Yes…this happens. Many times people see a video or blog and they like the information, so instead of Re-Purposing the content they simply “copy and paste” it onto their website. One of the best things you can do is to set up “Google Alerts” for certain keywords or phrases. For instance you can set up Google Alerts for your name, your brand, your website URL, farming subdivision, and other keywords that are relevant to you and your business. Google Alerts are free to set up and can be found on Google.

Sometimes when you Google your name you find things like this picture below. I work for Stewart Title and I also write content for Inman.com as a contributing writer. This Title Company took the blogs that I wrote for Inman and put them on their website. Had I not Googled my name I would have never known this happened to my content.

Other Reasons to Google Your Name

Bad Review-That one buyer didn’t have the best real estate experience EVER so he/she decided to online and mess up that 5 star Zillow rating. What did they say that was so bad?
Past Issues-There are many other reasons why you should protect your real estate brand by Googling your name. One reason is if you had a dumb incident happen in your past (possibly college) and for some reason that incident shows up when you go online and search your name…there it is!
Mentioned Online and didn’t know it-You came across a blog or video and you/your brand was mentioned. Either positive or negative you should want to know when this happens. Thank the person for the positive mention and address the negative mention.
Stolen Online Content-As I stated above…this is HUGE. If a person, or company steals your online content, photos, listing pictures, videos, and uses them as their own, that needs to be addressed right away.

Watch the Video!

Takeaway

Regardless of how vain it might sound to Google your own name, it is very important in the real estate business. You have to do all that you can to protect your real estate brand and reputation. Your brand and reputation is worth a lot to you, and not knowing what is being said or done with your name or brand online is fast way to lose clients and money.

Setting up Google Alerts is a great way to monitor any mentions of you and your brand. It is piece of mind that if something is said, either positive or negative you are notified. I would set up reminder to Google your own name every quarter to see if there is anything else out there you didn’t know existed.

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DCTitleWade1

Senior Vice President of Business Development at Pruitt Title

I'm the Senior Vice President of Business Development for Pruitt Title in the Washington DC/Northern Virginia area. I help my Realtor and Lender partners grow their businesses with offline and online marketing solutions. More eyes to them mean more business. I create the win/win!