Real Estate SEO

Posts Tagged ‘Leads’

How to measure quality in a real estate  SEO campaign and in a SEO provider.

I’ve talked about similar topics before, but I wanted to lay it out succinctly for our readers since we get a lot of questions on this. The lists below are ways to judge and ways NOT to judge a SEO provider. They’re also metrics and methods for measuring the effectiveness of a real estate marketing campaign overall.

Indicators of good real estate SEO campaign performance:

• Leads generated
• Site traffic numbers
• Average number of pages visited by users to your site
• Average time visitors spend on your site
• Search engine ranking (placement) for a long list of terms

The most important things that a SEO campaign can do is to cause more visitors to arrive at your site and to generate more leads for your real estate business. Now, the number of leads that your site generates also has a lot to do with the design and architecture of your site. So, if the SEO provider has little control over these contributing factors, then the traffic numbers are the best indicator you have of quality.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t touch on benchmarks for a moment. You must have benchmarks to measure against. If your site is seeing 150 visitors per month from Google when your SEO campaign starts and 1050 users part month 6 months in, this is strong performance. If your website was producing 1 lead per day before the campaign started and how it’s producing 10 leads per day, again, your SEO is doing a good job.

An indicator of a good SEO provider and of any real estate marketing firm is whether or not they provide these metrics to you. If they’re willing to be accountable to you, and they’re not hiding anything, then they have no choice but to show you good work. Otherwise, you’re liable to fire them when the contract is up.

Here are some ways NOT to measure performance of an SEO campaign or of an SEO provider:

• Whether or not you rank for 1 particular term
• Traffic numbers 3 months into a campaign
• The frequency with which reports are delivered to you.

Believe it or not, search engine ranking is NOT what makes for a good SEO campaign. Marketing campaigns MUST produce results. Results = revenue. Results and ranking don’t mean the same thing. As I’ve said before, ranking and a token will get you on the subway.

This same analysis must be applied to all real estate marketing campaigns, media, and ad buys. If the money ain’t producing the biz, then it’s not well spent. Ask the questions, do the math, get real numbers to judge performance.

So, every once in a while, I read an article that makes some great points.

Mike Parker, who I’d never heard of before, wrote an article for Broker/Agent Social network and it touches on a lot of good facts and points. The web address and a link to the article are below.

The article is entitled Traditional Agents Earn $36,700 Annually; Internet Agents Earn $100,000+ Annually. It’s an attention getting name for sure. The article goes on to tell how real estate agents have a lot of trouble existing solely on the money they make from being in the real estate biz. That is, accept for the folks who have embraced the internet.

Now, I don’t agree with everything Mike said. Intelligent and reasonable folks can disagree. That’s fine. But I’m going to highlight some of his points and I also want to look at some of the comments he received.

The best part of the article is that Mike tells us that the average “Internet Agent” makes more than $100,000 per year. Now, I’m not sure that the numbers are quite that high, but let’s assume that the Internet Agent does make a lot more than the average agent. Who is this agent? Well, they get 70% of their leads online. They sell more than one home each month. And lastly – and I don’t really agree with this statement – Mike tells us that they have a positive outlook for the future because, “There are no economic downturns online.” That last quote is not completely true. That said, there’s a reason why we’re seeing Boston Logic’s real estate clients growing in a down market. The reason is online marketing: SEO, SEM, and social media. A general embracing of online strategies to succeed in real estate marketing.

Mike tells us that the AVERAGE Real Estate agent doesn’t get many leads from their website. Well, regular readers of our blog will tell you that we’re not surprised to hear that at all. In one of the comments, a reader says that they have a website and haven’t seen results. Again, no surprise. Mike’s comment in response is really quite spot on. Mike says that it’s likely that the strategy wasn’t implemented properly. Just having a website isn’t nearly enough. Yes, you need to invest in online marketing. Yes, it will cost you money. The Real Estate brokerage business is like any other, you have to invest money to make money.

Next, Mike makes a great point saying that you need professional Real Estate SEO help. He says, “…let someone manage a site built just for you that produces these leads, and that site must employ the best in REAL SEO…” I’m not sure what he means by Real SEO? I’ll assume he means white hat techniques that won’t get you banned from the search engine results pages. Of course, Mike is right on the money. You probably need a professional and you need to have a site that’s build just for you that produces leads. Not some cookie cutter template site. Read our Snake Oil category to learn who not to buy from.

Now, it’s very important that you remember a few things. In order to succeed online – in order to see a return on your investment – you’re going to need a site that gets visitor traffic, you’re going to need a site that generates leads, and you’re going to need to follow up with those leads. I think we’ve posted about a dozen times on just those topics. Here are some recent posts that back up just what the stats from NAR tell us:

• SEO is a means, not an end
• Setting goals
• It’s not 1989 any more
• Results are what really matter

Here’s how you can get to Mike’s Article:
http://www.brokeragentsocial.com/article.php?article_id=364

Thanks for reading.

Unbelievable!

I got a call yesterday from a guy who wanted to learn more about our SEO services. Actually, first a lead landed in my inbox from one of our websites. I think it was bostonlogic.com. So, I responded to the lead via email. The lead had written that they were interested in optimizing their website www.harrymoore.com. So, I wrote back. Then he called me to discuss his site.

I felt like I was a mechanic telling someone that their car had been totaled or maybe like a cop telling the victim of a robbery that they shouldn’t expect to see their possessions again any time soon. All I had to do was look at the site for about 15 seconds and I knew that there was nothing we could do.

First of all, the site is built by Advanced Access. The readers of this SEO blog have read my post about them. That post met refutation from someone in their marketing dept and there was a sting of about 7 comments and responses that followed. They told me that their sites could be SEOed and yes, some of them were based on old technology, but they help lots of agents…etc, etc.

ANY SEO worth half their IQ would know that this site was built improperly if you want to achieve organic ranking. Let’s look at why. The problems with this site spell out an education in how not to build a website:

1 page website
This site is, in fact, only one page! Click around Harry’s site. You’ll notice that the pages have names like:

/Nav.aspx/Page=%2fPageManager%2fDefault.aspx%2fPageID%3d2020443

Now, Nav.aspx is the file name and the rest is a database query. That query is actually telling the system that powers this real estate site what page to put into the iframe on the right side of the page, which makes up the majority of the page.  (more on iframes in a moment)  So, as you navigate around the site, you’re just reloading the Nav.aspx page again and again with a different bunch of content in the iframe.  A 1 page website will NEVER rank well in the search engines.

The “pages” of this site (I use that term loosely) are actually just 2 iframes each. There’s an iframe on the left, which contains the nav and an iframe on the right, containing the body

I-Frames =  No SEO help
Iframes are universally regarded as poor SEO. Sure, they get used all the time. They are not without purpose, in some situations. Google uses them to build some of their applications, even, but this is not the right place to use an iframe and here’s why. When spidering a site and considering it for search engine ranking, the search engines ignore the content that’s inside any iframe. It may as well not exist on your site at all.  Most folks would say that iframes just don’t help whatsoever. They’re certainly not the right way to construct AN ENTIRE SITE!!!

So, a 1 page site made up of iframed content…well that’s the ballgame. But let’s proceed with this analysis assuming that this weren’t the case. Maybe there’s some imaginary real estate website out there that’s similar to this one, but without the iframes and actually made up of more than 1 page.

Nav made of images
The navigation is made up of a number of images on this site.  When possible, you want your nav to be made up of HTML text. If you’re implementing some design that requires a font that is not an html font, then you want to make image files with names that are the same as what the images say. You also want to use alt text to tell the search engine spiders what the images say. The file names for the these images on this site are all similar to this: 1165984.jpg.  Oh, and there’s no alt text.

Being Constructive
Before I get carried away with more ranting about the snake oil that the people at advanced access will sell you, I want to be constructive. I want to give our readers a few tips on how to avoid getting yourself into an SEO hole.

Know what you’re buying. Realize that you can’t achieve good ranking for $50/month. A $15,000 car is never going to do 150 MPH either. Don’t believe the salesman when he tells you that it will.

If the company that sells you a website doesn’t offer organic SEO services for thousands of dollars, don’t buy your website from them. I’m not saying that you have to have a huge budget. Follow this logic: If a company sells sites and then takes on expensive SEO contracts and optimizes sites for superior placements for marquis terms using the technology that those sites are built on, then at least you know that the technology CAN support good SEO. You might even try calling the company and asking them to show you some sites that rank for marquis terms (and not just the agent’s name) and then make sure your site is built on the same software platform.

Lastly, remember that if you want to achieve good placement, you’re going to need an seo expert on your side. Ask your real estate seo consultant to look at the site that you’re going to be investing in and have them give their opinion of whether or not the system running the site is suited for SEO in the future. Most honest SEOs will do this for free in the hopes that they’ll get your business later on. We sure will.

Have a great holiday weekend.

How many ways do you think Social Media can contribute to good real estate SEO? Jot down a list and then compare it to mine. If I left off any major ones, please let me know. Here goes:

1. Blogs are social media. Blogs only get read when there’s new content. New content helps your search engine placement.
2. You can syndicate your content (let’s say from your blog) to social media sites. You could even feed your real estate listings, by RSS to your twitter and Facebook profiles.
3. Many social media site pages are public. These pages are bound to have links back to your site. Linking will improve your SEO.
4. Social bookmarking links on your site will produce back links from those sites (Digg, Reddit, Stumble, etc.) to your site. Again, these links will improve your SEO, your rank, and bring you more traffic and more leads. Remember real estate buyer and seller leads are the goal, not just ranking!
5. Users spend a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, and many other social media sites. The referral traffic will help you gain more visitors, more clients and sell more real estate.
6. Promotions have more power with social media. Post a promotion on your site, edit your PPC ads accordingly to drive clicks, broadcast the promotion to your Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn connections and watch your traffic spike.
7. Remember that real estate SEO is about leads and customers. What you care about isn’t always ranking but leads and real estate transactions that come from those leads. Use your analytics system, like Google analytics,  to look at the social media sites that are driving traffic and leads to your site. My money says that you’ll see a good conversion rate on this traffic.
8. Chatter on Facebook and Twitter can fuel your blog. Look at what the people are saying about your real estate market, your real estate business, even you as a real estate agent. You’re likely to get inspired and find a topic to blog about. Also, here’s another post about blogging inspiration that could be helpful.
9. Social media is all about linking and showing the world what you’re up to. As a result, your friends and followers are likely to check out the stuff that you’re pointing them to. So, engage your community, send them to your site – full of great resources and information – and they’ll convert into leads.

Ok, that about exhausts my list of how Social Media can improve your Real Estate SEO. I’m sure there are many others that I forgot, but I have to get back to SEOing a couple of sites today. I look forward to your additions to my list. Leave them as comments please. Thanks.

This is an ongoing debate among real estate brokers and agents.

Here’s the situation, you’re marketing your real estate website online, you’re investing in SEO, maybe you’re working with PPC, maybe your office site is getting hundreds of visitors every day. The question is this: When do you ask the user to sign up? How do you acquire the most leads and, more importantly, customers? Which is your priority, quantity or quality? Let’s explore:

When a buyer is looking for a new home, they’re going to be looking for information. Most often, they’re going to want to search for real estate that’s on the market. Maybe they want market data or some other kind of information beyond simply listing search results. At any rate, they want to visit a site and get some information. Knowledge is power and they want to feel empowered.

Now, there are some horrible website vendors out there who sell websites that require the user to sign up to access just about every part of the site other than the home page. You make the user sign up to search, to get a report, to get a home valuation, to do just about anything. These sites will kill your prospects of achieving good search engine placement. Remember, the search engines will not fill out forms. They will not hit the submit button. In short, they won’t know about the majority of your content. If you want to optimize your site for SEO purposes, make sure the search engine robots can get to the information using regular HTML hyperlinks.

Now, when we build sites, we usually put the sign up in one of a few places:

1. Sign up before the user can see search results. Yes, most visitors to your site will want to use the property search. So, it makes some sense to have them sign up in order to search or to see the results of their search. There are two major objections to this method
   1. Plenty of other sites don’t make the user sign up to see their search results and lots of users don’t want to sign up for anything. They prefer to remain anonymous. So, you risk loosing the possibility of converting this user into a lead and sending them to your competitors’ sites.
   2. If you make a user sign up just to browse, they’re somewhat likely to give you fake contact information. This is a risk. Our experience shows that when a site forces a sign up earlier in the search process, then they see more fake leads who are tossing bogus information into the sign up form just to get to the good stuff. Now, you may be willing, as many folks are, to sift through these fakers in order to get to find the real leads. There’s nothing wrong with this tactic.
2. Allow the user to browse and only ask them to sign up to use advanced features
   If your site is built well, then it should provide the user with many different interactive features. This might include the opportunity to register for an account, save favorite listings, save searches, sign up for nightly listing updates by email, schedule a showing, inquire about a listing, etc. Lots of sites allow the user to browse the search results without registering. In other words, the user doesn’t convert into a lead until they’re ready. The argument in favor of this strategy is that the user who inquires or requests a showing is a better lead. The argument against is that you’ll see fewer leads.  Indeed, when someone requests a showing or more information or signs up for nightly email listing updates then they are indeed a more qualified lead. That said, there are lots of folks who don’t want to sign up until they’re ready to buy and using strategy #1 above may turn these folks away.
3. Hybrid approaches to lead gathering
   
   1. You can give away some information and require the user to sign in for more. Lots of sites don’t give away property addresses, for example, until the user has signed in.
   2. Another approach is to allow the user to use the site for a while – say giving them access to 2 searches or 4 listing details pages – before requiring them to sign up. This is sort of like tempting the user. You show them that there’s a lot of inventory and features for them to use and entice them to sign up in order to stay inside the promised land.
   3. One of our favorites is to show the user the search results, but to then use something called a Lightbox in order to ask them to sign up. That’s when the screen goes dark/opaque and the user is presented with a sign up box.  They can still see that search results are behind the sign up and they’re more compelled to sign up to see what’s just beyond. Again, some users may just click the back button and go back to the search engines to find another site where they don’t have to sign up at all.

Customers come to us all of the time and ask about the best ways to implement lead acquisition within their site. It’s not a simple question to answer. If you have a lot of agents to satisfy, we recommend going for quantity. Make the user sign up early in the search process. If you have a lot of traffic and you want to get the best quality leads farther down the search road, then ask them to sign up later in the process.

Overall, your site must be engaging and the user needs to want to stick around and come back again. If you’re not designing for a superior user experience, then you’re just not going to get the leads that you need out of your real estate website.