Hi, Ho kids! Hope all is well in AR Land!
Hey - got a question for you (or, "y'all," as my Southern Brethren might say).
As far as increasing the visibility, the stickiness, the lead generation capability of your website - which do you use, and in what proportion?
Those on our Team know enough about the power of blogging and use of key words to be a little dangerous, and, finally, after 18 months of a complete website re-design through Build Real Estate Results and Kathleen Allardyce, the hiring of Compass Internet Systems and Mike Parker for SEO, and screwing around with Google Keyword Pay Per Click on a limited budget, I am finally generating some serious leads from my web presence.
Dean's Team Chicago averages about two leads per day (of average or better quality, through my Team Web Center - Dean-Team.com). My Team Blog Center - BlogChicagoHomes.com - averages about 15 clicks per day for new articles posted. Each AR post generates about 50 click throughs within the first 5 days, and I post every day. Conversion is improving - I can honestly say our Team picks up at least two new clients each month due to our web presence, with a slight trend to buyers over sellers.
Over the past four months or so, we have changed the graphic look of our sites to allow for easier and more intuitive click through, and have chosen keywords according to my SEO companies suggestions for maximum penetration (he used another term, but can't remember what that is right now).
Most of my clicks come from Google Search Engine Keywords relating to Chicago homes and condos. A few, but significant amount, come from Pay Per Click to similar keywords. And, I get more than my share through Active Rain Referrals, including roughly six referrals over the last few months.
Am I on the right track, folks, or way off base? Any suggestions, or things you have found to help you maximize your self and your Team on the Web?
And, I know - your suggestions are subject to radical change on a day-by-day basis as web technologies continue to evolve.
Here's the challenge, folks - any improvements you suggest would have to be cost effective! (Tough one, ehh?)
It's easy to spend a bunch of dough adding enhancements to a website. The difficult thing - spending that money WISELY! Do you agree?
Looking forward to reading your wonderful comments!
DEAN & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO
I continue to post on AR and update my website constantly.....its time consuming but free
Wow 6 active rain referrals in 6 months, I wish!
I have been blogging now for a few months, and so far, no leads or phone calls. I am trying not to get discouraged as I hear of others sucsess.
I used to pay for "Buyerlink" on my web site, and in 05 and 06 it did me pretty well. Then in 07, nothing much. Thats when I was told folks are looking for useful information even before looking at homes. I heard about blogging, cancelled my 250,00 per month buyerlink, and I am hoping for the best. I have not paid for SEO but some of my friends who do say its pretty slim pickings these days.
Best Wishes
BethAnn in Spokane, Wa.
I am not sure about SEO yet..I know it works, but what has been your experience and results from what you ahve paid out for SEO? I tried to use pay per click but am challenged by it a I have not been able to reach a live person at Google AdWrods or pay per click. do you have a live contact there? In other words, a phone number that actually works?
Dean, What do you say to a NYer living in Florida...Hi y'all guys?
Anyway, I would say being the untechno that I am, link your website to AR and blog on topics of interest. That is the best way I know of.
If I had enough time in the day I could get my website bringing in leads where I'd liked it. Then again I guess I need to actually work with the ones I get so I don't have that much time.
Sounds like your one the right track- blog, have your website visible everywhere, get backlinks, and refine your sites content, and get visitors interested so they contact you are some of the more important things you should do
I am so new at all of this internet presence stuff and I was wondering if it is better to blog or better to spend some money on PayPerClick to drive traffic to our site
Hey, everyone -
I use Google Adwords, budget less than $200/month, which isn't much in a city the size of Chicago to compete with the deep pocket larger companies, but does give me about a fair number of click throughs each month. I, too, Michael, haven't been able to reach a live human at Google, but I'm not in it big-time.
SEO seems to be working, but I'm really not sure exactly what they are doing - but my number of daily visits and unique visitors have more-than-doubled since I started last summer. Of course, I would like more - but, again, at what cost?
Blogging works well for me - I enjoy writing and sharing, and learning from others in the community. But comments are slanted to other Real Estate Practitioners and my Core Advocate Clients, rather than new haven't-met leads (maybe that's a good thing - yes?)
I do attempt to include keywords that are relevant to my business and market area, and to link back to our Team Web Center and Blog Center.
Just looking for new additional ideas, without breaking the bank (the bank seems pretty skinny these days, anyway!)
Again, thanks very much, you folks, for all your valued input!
DEAN & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO
Dean - It's all about a good mix of Internet Marketing. However, with that said, I'm a huge fan of pay per click and currently spend almost my entire marketing budget using Homegains BuyerLink program. Basically I get a higher conversion rate at about 50% of the cost of doing Google or Yahoo myself....and I'm pretty good at keyword marketing.
The best part of PPC is the ability to predict your business. Last year I was able to predict our office sales within 7 sales. We had 193 sales from the Internet using PPC and I predicted 200. Ok, so you can have a great marketing plan online, if you don't have a great capture plan you could be wasting your money. I have seen most Realtors using BuyerLink, Google, Yahoo and more who don't understand lead capture. They simply have people land on their home pages and make the visitor find out where to go from there. Your landing page should be your listings search page as well as your capture page. You should always have people register before searching your site. Your goal should be a 15% capture rate or more.
If you would like, I do give free website evaluations. Go to http://ehomesrealty.com/index.cfm/Free_Website_Evaluation if you would like me to take a look.
As far as SEO, it is great if you can get ranked in the top 3 or so on the first page. We are currently working on our SEO for http://www.melbournehomesearch.com/index.cfm/Melbourne_FL_Real_Estate which is one of my landing pages. Ultimately I would like to cut down my PPC budget and go organic but I would probably just hire more Agents to deal with the leads.
In the end, if you don't have a good system for lead conversion, all of this can be a waste of time and money. Since there wasn't any programs out there to buy, I built my own which I will be launching to Brokers and Teams in 30 days or so. You can check it out at www.100MPHMarketing.com . The site isn't finished but it will give you an idea of what we are doing with it.
Good luck with your quest to conquer the Internet. It's an awesome way to grow your business. In three years we have gone from 6 Agents to 25 Agents. Crazy! Who would have thought?
Dean - You're the competion here in town, but here's a tip anyway ;)
Check out my blog post on outsourcing and consider a backlinking project. It will improve your organic google placement.
I rely on google pay per click for a majority of my web leads. I'm really behind the eight ball on SEO but that's my next thing to tackle.