Pamela Cendejas wrote an excellent post about your website's Privacy Policy on this blog.  Thank you Pamela!

I was kind of surprised by some of the comments people made.

One person said "I never collect personal information on my website".

Another said something like "I never collect personal information as a condition of searching for homes".

I'm curious... why not?

If you've invested time and money in a website, isn't it reasonable to expect a return on that investment?

I've spent thousands of bucks, and hundreds of hours in building content for my website and blogs. This wasn't some kind of philanthropic exercise... my reason for doing so was to capture leads that lead to more commissions.  And the only way to do that is to ask them for their name, email address and phone number.

Someone on Pamela's post said something like "if I ask for their contact information as a condition of searching for houses for sale, they'll just move on to some website that doesn't request that information".

If that were the case, the big lead aggregators would be out of business - instead of raking in big bucks by selling those leads to the Realtors who don't know how to capture leads from their websites.  If that were the case, I wouldn't have gotten over 50 leads from my website in the last 3 months.  Granted, some of those leads contained bogus information.  But at least a few others will lead to sales.

OK, let's say just one sale.  That's $4,000 to $9,000 in commisions I would have lost, had I not asked for contact information. Some lucky Cincinnati home buyer is gonna have the opportunity to get great service and make a new friend because I asked for their name and number.

Let's say someone moves on to another website because you asked for their information. What have you lost?  Do you expect they'll be so thankful you gave them free MLS access, they're gonna pick up the phone and call you?   Let 'em move on if they're not willing to give up their contact info!

So the question I asked earlier is, "Why have a website?"  If it's for lead capture, then set it up as a LEAD CAPTURE MACHINE.  If it's to put up a smiling picture of you with your arms crossed and looking all cocky, and boast about all the initials after your name, save the cost of the website!  Here's three great alternatives for you:

1. Give the money to Habitat for Humanity
   
2. Invest it in the stock market
3. Take your spouse out for a nice dinner.
   

Any of the three are likely to give you a better return on investment (specially the third one, if you get my drift..... >;)

My post, "On-Page SEO for Realtors" offers a few more ideas on lead capture that just make sense! (to me, anyhow).

And if you disagree with me, please let me hear from you.  I'm always (OK, usually) open to new ideas.

To your wealth!