Real Estate SEO

Archive for the ‘Real Estate SEM’ Category

Hi all,

In case you forgot, I wanted to remind everyone that we’ll be holding our first Logic Classroom this coming monday night, November 9th. Everyone is welcome to attend by Webinar. If you are a local, you can come and join us in our office. If you are interested, please email Katrina at ksierant@bostonlogic.com.

What will we cover in this session?

We’re going to cover how leads are sourced, incubated, and converted into sales via the web. We’re going to touch on search engines, SEO, social media, blogging, and how your website should be the foundation of it all. We’ll also go into effective website design based on our experience in the market.

I hope you will join us!

I almost can’t believe that I wrote that headline?

Yesterday, I spoke with a guy who told me he wanted to run a direct mail campaign to drive traffic to his website and capture leads to “farm” (his word) into clients.

Now, first let me say that farming a cache of leads is a great strategy. You can source your leads lots of ways. We recommend a strong online marketing campaign including strong real etstate seo efforts, ppc, email marketing, and a highly accountable reporting system.

So, this guy isn’t completely off the mark. Yes, your database of leads and customers is gold. You need to nourish this list and grow it. The more qualified users you can drive to your site, the more leads you will generate. If your site is well built to convert real estate buyers, sellers, and renters into leads, then the more traffic you have the more leads you should have.

As we’ve mentioned many times on this blog, you need to consider the cost of each lead. What did you pay to acquire the lead? If you paid $4000 for 8000 clicks (that’s $0.50 per click or site visitor) on Google Adwords and that generated 400 leads, then you paid $10 per lead. Got it?

Well, let’s think about this direct mail campaign that the guy on the phone wanted to deploy. He’s going to spend money sending those mail pieces upfront. Let’s say he sends our 10,000 pieces at $0.40 each. That’s $4000.

Now, he told me that these mailings were going to direct the users to his website. So, how many of the recipients will actually go to a website on a postcard? Here’s where the plan falls off the tracks.

It’s not likely that many of the recipients will actually go to the website. I don’t know about you, but I toss those mailers in the trash. I pick up my mail on the way into my building and the next thing I do is filter out the junk mail straight into the garbage.

So, if our friendly realtor is lucky, he’ll get maybe 5 or 10% of the recipients visiting his site. If the site was fantastic and converted leads at 10% (which is pretty high) he’d have 10000 x 0.1 x 0.1 = 100 leads. That’s $40/lead. Honestly, the cost would likely be even higher.

Bottom line – For real estate marketing campaigns, SEM, SEO and PPC are far better investments than direct mail. And please don’t be fooled and think that you can generate web traffic efficiently using traditional marketing like direct mail.

Hopefully, we just saved you some time and money.

I’m on a number of email lists. I get lots of newsletters. And I’m a member of a number of Google and Yahoo groups. Most of the time, I just skim. Every once in  a while, there’s a question posted to which I have an answer.

Yesterday, someone posted the question, “How much should I budget for SEO?” Here was my response:

That’s a very open ended question.

To bring this down to earth, you should look at SEO, or really your entire online marketing budget, as a percentage of your overall marketing spend.

For example:

For clients who have been using traditional media for some time, and are about to make their first investment into online marketing (including SEO), we recommend aiming to devote at least 25% of your marketing spend to online marketing. After some time, you’re likely to increase that percentage when SEO and online marketing prove to be the more efficient spend. So, if you’re grossing $2MM/year, for example, and your marketing budget is 10% of your revenue, then you should look to spend roughly $50k on online marketing. If that spend is all devoted to SEO, that’s about $4k/month, which is a realistic number.

If your business is all online, you’re probably going to want to allocate a larger percentage of your marketing budget to the web. Suffices to say, it’s important to start with your budget and not with a “what it is going to cost?”

I’m quite sure that whomever posted that question isn’t the only person pondering the same.  If you have other questions, send them to us and we’ll post answers. Thanks.

Overcoming blogger’s block.

I’ve been working at Boston Logic now for 2 months, 2 days, 16 hours, and 57 minutes.  As an online marketer, blogging is a part of my job. I know I need to do it.  I know I can do it…but what should I write? There are over 171,476 words in the English language (I Googled it), and it feels like there is  no original combination left.

I know I’m not alone out there. There are real estate professionals all over saying, “yeah yeah I know I should start a  blog”‘ or “yeah yeah I know I need to blog more”, but what’s stopping us? We’re busy, we’re unsure, and maybe we’re afraid. I’m not talking Robert DeNiro on your houseboat fear, but maybe just fear of commitment.  Fear of needing to write something every week.

We talk a lot about WHY blogging is important for real estate online marketing and what to do to optimize our existing real estate blog.

But what about HOW? How do we get over that fear. My suggestion—let go.

Write from your phone when you’re on the bus. Write from Starbucks. Write whenever you’re thinking about something. This morning on the bus with my coffee I thought—gees why haven’t I blogged yet? And look…a blog post.

Write after you show a listing and talk about the questions asked. Write after you read an industry article that gets you thinking.

Don’t spend 2 months, 2 days, 16 hours, and 57 minutes worrying about HOW. Just do. Your keywords and links will find there way in if you write about what you know—your neighborhood,  your business, your industry.

We’re in this together, so let go and let me know what you think.

I saw this post on a Yahoo Group that I’m a part of. It’s amazing to me that anyone would even consider this business in 2009.

Hello to all
I am looking for some help. I’m looking for an investor or angel investor. I am looking to start a hobby store in my area. What I would be selling is. All kinds of sports cards. Video games and acssereis, (I think he meant Accessories) and lastly all kinds of coins. If there is any one that could help me. I would be very thankful for the help. If you would like to contact me, my email address is xxx@yyy.com or my phone # is 555.222.4444. if I don’t answer my phone please leave me a message. thank you for the help.

Sincerely.

Wow, this brings back memories. I was a hobbyist when I was a kid. Baseball cards were all the rage. There were coin collectors and memorabilia shops, but those are tough businesses these days. Let’s look at why.

Well, it’s obvious that the internet has changed things in big ways. eBay really killed the collectibles market. Think about it. If you wanted a rare coin and you live in the countryside, well, you’re really pretty limited in your options. So, there’s the local hobby shop or memorabilia shop. Maybe you have a book that tell the prices for things. Remember those books? They were published annually and gave you the going rate for a 1989 Gary Carter baseball card in Mint Condition. PUBLISHED YEARLY.

These days, you can go online and see the last 100 transaction where a Gary Carter baseball card changed hands. The market and the buyers in that market have MUCH more information. The result is that people know what they should pay and the margins are razor thin.

Now you’re thinking, ‘I’m a realtor. What’s this got to do with me?’ Remember, the buyers you’re working with have access to information. They have more than they ever did before and they can get their hands on more every day. The thing about real estate is that you work on a percentage. The guy at the office around the corner is likely charging the same rate for his services. Probably 5 or 6 percent. So, you don’t have to worry too much about eBay coming along and taking your business. In fact, you’ve been able to sell a house on eBay real estate for years and the impact on the industry has been small.

This means that to get ahead of the other real estate agents in your town, you need to capture the market. You need to get your marketing in front of more people. Then you need to provide great service. Now, we’re here to help you with the first part, Real Estate SEO is how you capture more of the market. Providing great service is your job.

You should also realize that the buyer can find out a lot about homes and they can find out a lot about you! They can look you up on LinkedIn and Facebook. They can Google your name and your real estate firm’s name. You need to have your Social Media profile in order, just in case someone goes out looking for you. Luckily we wrote a post about this a while back. Check out how to do social media right.

Lastly, realize that we’re not going into hobby shops any more. We’re shopping on the internet. We’re searching on Google and letting our fingers do the walking. The Real Estate search starts on the web. Realtors come second. Yes, it’s true. The first thing they’re going to know about you is that they found your site and it was helpful! If your site isn’t findable then you need to do some real estate SEO work NOW. If, when they find your site, they’re leaving or not signing up, that’s an issue of design. We can help there too.

Thanks for reading.