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Innovative SEO Strategy Drives Record Real Estate Buyer Traffic

Lifestyle Real Estate Website Breaks Web Traffic Records
UFARM Real EstateSeptember 2014 – (KANSAS CITY, Mo.) – More than 90 percent of real estate buyers start their search for property online1. In July, millions of these consumers searched the Internet looking for lifestyle real estate, which includes second and vacation homes, retirement communities, ranches, farms, horse, mountain, waterfront and other properties outside of urban cities. According to United Country Real Estate, the nation’s largest seller of lifestyle real estate, visitor traffic at the firm’s national website increased to record levels. Consumers are finding the United Country national and local websites due to some innovative search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.

“We have been consistently breaking web traffic records at www.UnitedCountry.com and our other national lifestyle property websites each month for well over two years now,” said David Dickey, chief technology officer for United Country Real Estate. “We’ve surpassed 1.5 million visitors in July to just one of our numerous owned lifestyle and rural property websites, more than 760,000 of which were unique visitors with 51,794 user sessions. These numbers are larger than any month our team has seen since www.UnitedCountry.com launched nearly 20 years ago.”

These numbers reflect the investment the company has made toward its in-house SEO team, which is continually looking for new ways to bring lifestyle and rural properties to the attention of the internet-savvy buyer of today’s world.

“Number of visits to a website and the number of unique visitors to a website are the numbers where you see the real action,” Dickey said. “Each month we are seeing approximately 3 million visitors to our entire network of lifestyle websites.”

United Country continues to innovate with new web technology and SEO techniques to help buyers easily find the company’s more than 3,500 lifestyle property websites and sort through over 65,000 properties with ease. Some of these technologies and techniques will serve single listings up to property searchers or office sites in a specific market, and uniquely also layer on national, regional and state property type websites. In most cases, United Country will deliver more than one search result on page one results for thousands of buyer searches. This powerful SEO effort has resulted in the record web traffic the company has been experiencing for more than seven years and achieving a new monthly record in July.

“The ability for a small city or town real estate professional to ensure their websites and listings are found by buyers searching internationally or regionally for lifestyle property types is oftentimes unachievable or an investment they can’t afford to make without the power of a national network,” said Mike Duffy, president of United Country Real Estate. “This is why we’ve made the strategic decision to make a major investment in United Country websites and buyer search strategies and drive optimal buyer search performance. We have made a commitment to our affiliates that we will continue to innovate real estate marketing to expose their local listings more broadly as United Country has done since 1925.”

For more information about United Country Real Estate, call 800-999-1020 or visit their main website at www.UnitedCountry.com.

1 NAR 2014 Consumer Online Search Study

About United Country Real Estate

United Country Real Estate – a division of the United Real Estate Group – is the leading, fully integrated network of conventional and auction real estate professionals. The company has been an innovator in lifestyle and country real estate marketing since 1925. United Country is the only franchise company to specialize in small city, town, second home, vacation, retirement, coastal, mountain, recreational, waterfront, ranches, farms, timberland, land, equine, livestock, investment and other lifestyle properties outside of metropolitan markets. United Country supports nearly 600 offices and 5,000 real estate professionals across the US, Costa Rica, Panama and Honduras with a unique, comprehensive marketing program that includes the highest ranked and largest portfolios of specialty property marketing websites, the largest real estate marketing services company, an extensive buyer database of more than 500,000 opt-in buyers and exclusive global advertising of properties.
NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
2820 NW Barry Road, Kansas City, MO 64154
816-420-6200 www.unitedcountry.com

 

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Demand for Quality Farmland Remains Strong in 2014

Real Estate Auction Sign-croppedDespite a downturn in grain prices and lower net farm income expectations among farmers and investors across the Midwest, demand for high quality farmland remains strong. A limited supply of such quality ground is contributing to a healthy demand for premium farm acres, even though prices for farmland in general seem to be moderating following the five year boom in land values.

While the primary competitors for such ground are farmers themselves, local investors seeking to expand their portfolios continue to show great interest in obtaining these valuable parcels of ground. When such land become available, both parties show healthy interest and appear willing to pay top dollar for it.

Even with this stable demand, landowners and farmers themselves remain cautious when it comes to investing in more ground. While many are better positioned now, with less debt, than during the 80’s land bust, they are seeking to invest smartly. For many, this means putting more effort into finding only the best quality farmland.

Mike Walsten, editor at Landowner, projects that farmland values in general will fall about 10% this year, based on current expectations. He says that demand for quality farmland will remain fairly stable, while demand for less quality farmland will continue to weaken, especially should profit margins further weaken at the same time.

In the longer term, Walsten is confident that farmers and landowners will weather these market corrections if they show restraint in adding more debt. He cautions that adding more debt to maintain spending will create problems—something that many producers learned the hard way during the 80s land boom and bust. Another factor that could greatly influence landowner decisions are rising interest rates, especially in the latter half of 2015. Higher interest rates would further dampen land values.

Still, investing in farmland remains one of the best and safest long term investments—something that landowners and especially outside investors recognize. One of the main drivers of recent interest in investing in farmland is based on the burgeoning world population, which is expected to peak at 9 billion by 2050, up from 7 billion today. Growth, especially in developing nations, will substantially drive up demand for food. In addition, the quest for biofuels remains a contributing factor to the high demand for quality farmland. In the US, for example, corn grown to produce ethanol accounts for 23 percent of total corn use.

It’s no secret that owners of quality farmland are poised to benefit from such trends, and while land values are currently softening, many experts remain bullish on land values going forward, especially for high quality farmland.

Are you seeking to make the most of your farmland, or are you looking to expand your portfolio and think that land ownership would be a good fit for you? Let the experienced professionals at United Farm and Ranch Management help you determine the best plan of action to benefit your unique situation.

Sources:

Birt, Nate. “Farmland Prices: Demand Ticks Up for Good-Quality Ground.” Agweb.com. Farm Journal. 07 Apr. 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.

Murphy, Richard McGill. “The Best Long-Term Real Estate Investment: Farmland.” CNBC.com. CNBC. 24 Mar. 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.

 

More Options for Sellers and Buyers

United Country Real EstateUFARM joins United Country Real Estate Network

 

UFARM recently announced their affiliation with United Country Real Estate. United Country Real Estate has the largest network of conventional and auction real estate professionals in the U.S., Mexico and Latin America.  They have been an innovator in real estate marketing since 1925 and support 550 offices. United Country marketing websites involve more than 3,500 separate sites and traffic of approximately 3 million visitors per month.

UFARM’s goal is to enhance real estate services by providing additional options for selling and buying a farm, ranch or a variety of property types.  UFARM now has access to exclusive national real estate catalogs, national advertising of local properties in hundreds of newspapers and magazines, and a private database of more than 400,000 buyers.