Don’t Miss out on Opportunities for Better Website Traffic

YouTube is the 2nd most used search engine after Google

  • Google owns YouTube, and the meta data (descriptions, links etc.) are taken into consideration.

  • A link back to your URL from a YouTube video description is taken into consideration as a backlink, selectively.

  • Embedding a relevant YouTube video to your webpage increase the value of your page.

  • Showing all previous home tour videos on one channel serves as a sold-gallery as well to show your tenure & expertise – the sooner you start building, the better.

  • When sharing listings on Facebook, you can share it two ways – if you share the Video link, the video can be played WITHIN the Facebook feed, which is convenient for users. However this doesn’t drive traffic back to your website. Make sure to include a URL to the listing detail page directly within the description so people can click to see more. If people click on the YouTube video to open in a new browser tab, they can still access the listing detail page via the link in the description.

More Website Traffic by YouTube Channels & Video Descriptions

With minimal effort, many real estate agents can benefit from a tool they already use on a day-to-day basis – YouTube. YouTube is a great home tour, or neighbourhood guide video platform but it can be used for search engine optimization to drive more relevant traffic to your website, and serve as a gallery to showcase your tenure & expertise.

A dedicated YouTube channel can also serve as an impressive gallery of your real estate tour videos!

3 Mistakes Realtors Often Make With YouTube Videos

Many real estate professionals fail to get the most out of their YouTube home tour videos however, and with very little time & effort these can be remedied.

#1 Mistake – Not having your own YouTube channel!

Many video tour companies will offer to upload the video on YouTube, and provide you with the link. Sounds great, right? Wrong. The home tour videos are only attributing to the content on their channels, not yours. Every Realtor® should create their own YouTube channel where they start uploading their videos (see Sidra Subzawari’s impressive YouTube channel full of luxury listing videos in and around White Rock).

  • Serves as an impressive gallery of previous home tour videos to showcase experience.

  • Especially beneficial for higher-end real estate agents to show off great home tour videos!

  • Gives you full control of the video meta description (covered in the next section)

#2 Mistake – Not providing a link back to the listing detail page on your website

Did you know you can put a link in your YouTube video descriptions? Putting a link back to the listing detail page on your website is critical for any home tour video. If the video is a general neighbourhood guide or market update, simply link it back to your website only. One way or another, you want to provide a backlink to your website.

This video by Nest Presales contains a link back to their listings page from their East Vancouver condo listing tour video (since the listing is sold, they linked it to show other active listings) – this is a great example of a backlink.

#3 Mistake – Not using YouTube!!!

YouTube is owned by Google, and is the second most popular search platform in the world after Google. Please upload your videos on YouTube, not Vimeo.

Best Practices When Sharing Listing Tour Videos on Facebook

When real estate agents share listings on Facebook, often we see the YouTube video being shared directly, instead of the listing detail page on the website (which already has the video embedded from YouTube). The advantage of this method is it allows video playback within the Facebook feed itself. However, it’s important to take steps to ensure visitors have a way to see the listing detail page. This not only drives more traffic to your website to encourage more people to be exposed to your branding for a longer period of time, but it also creates more backlinks from social media platforms.

  • After you attach the YouTube video, make sure to copy-paste the listing detail page URL from your own website. This gives the viewers an option to click for more information.

  • If you fixed mistake #2 from above, then even those who click on the video link to open it up on a new browser window/tab can still link back to your website from the video description.

  • This rule applies also to Instagram videos being auto-shared to your Facebook Timeline – you should edit the description Facebook afterward to include a link to the listing detail page on your website. (notice how Nest Presales links their listing detail page from their Facebook post here)

The ultimate goal is to drive traffic to your website, and generate more backlinks to your domain!

Don’t have time for your own SEO? Do you want to delegate this?