For those that have read our posts before, maybe this comes as a surprise, after all we are major supporters of paid online advertising. My revelation that ads don't work comes after speaking with agents all across the country. One of the most common items I hear is that they want traffic to their websites, but it can't be with Google Adwords because it "doesn't work".
I have to admit that I was shocked that this was one of the most consistent answers. After all 95% of Google's 21 billion in revenue in 2008 was made from Adwords, but apparently it doesn't work for every industry (real estate must be the exception). Just as I was crafting my notes to write a letter to Larry Page and Sergey Brin I thought it best that I dig a little deeper into the conversations I was having.
The reason that Google Adwords isn't working for most real estate professionals isn't Google's fault, it's how it is being used by those in real estate. The flexibility of the system is what has allowed many online marketers to make millions and also allows many to waste the same amount of money.
Here are three of the most common mistakes that real estate agents (and many others for that matter) are making when they are doing their paid advertising on Google. Avoiding just the following 3 items will save some serious frustration and money.
Pointing Ads to your Home Page - The home page of your website is not nearly focused enough to be able to convert that great traffic into leads. Take time to point your ads to detailed pages within your website that make it easy for the visitor to volunteer their information. When you stop pointing your ads to your home page you can easily see an increase in your overall ad performance by 50% or more.
Bid strategy - Although being number one in real estate is great, being in the number 1 advertiser position seldom pays off. At the top position you generally pay the most and often get the impulse clicker who want take any action on your website. Place your bids that place in your ads in positions 3-5 and watch how your clicks turn into leads.
Keywords - Keywords are at the foundation of how you write ads and bid on them. The problem for most advertisers is that too many keywords are grouped with each ad. Taking time to group ads with just 8 keywords will increase your click through rates and lower your costs...yeah!
Google Adwords is certainly one of the best ways to get targeted traffic to your real estate website, enabling you to have leads every day. We certainly don't want you to be part of the group that says "Adwords Don't Work" because when done correctly you can get highly motivated clients for less than a cup of coffee.
For those who have had success with their Adwords advertising, we can't wait to hear some of the other lessons you have learned that have saved you money and keeps the leads flowing.
Minus the question mark at the end of the title and this was the subject of an e-mail that I recently received. I wonder if anyone else here on ActiveRain received it?
Facebook and the other applications involved with Social networking are here to stay and seem to be getting some of the very same buzz and reactions that blogging received just a few years ago. Just as with any "new" tool online it takes some consideration before jumping in and seeing how you can make it a part of your business.
Adding Facebook as a part of your business can certainly bring you balance. Having a balanced attack for your real estate marketing strategy is essential to avoid the swings as applications and users change habits. Balance means including everything from social networking, blogging, SEO, and your website into your total online presence. With balance you will give yourself the best chances to reach your next customer. Back to that e-mail that I received, here are just a few items to consider.
Do I need to reach that many people? - Maybe if I had a nationwide product that applied to 200 million potential buyers it could work. For many products their niches don't apply to the entire group of users on Facebook so why spend the money to try and reach all of them.
They are missing the point - One of the great aspects about marketing on Facebook is you can do demographic advertising. No longer are you tied to just marketing on a keyword, you can actually market to a specific group of people who would have a need for your product.
How would you use it for real estate? - I am starting to see some real estate professionals advertise on Facebook. I am unfortunately seeing a lot of bad advertising techniques (hint: a focused landing page is still better than sending them to your home page) and not a great deal of focus. If you are going to use Facebook advertising for your real estate business, consider advertising to a group of people that live in a city that commonly relocates to your area!
Facebook is definitely proving it is a huge application with many raving fans. It can certainly be a strong part to a complete online real estate marketing strategy, but be careful with how you spend your advertising dollars. Just because someone suggests that you can reach 200 million users doesn't mean it is the best thing for you.
I would love to hear your thoughts on what you want out of your advertising efforts on Facebook.
I was in San Diego this past weekend with my family. Most of my family throughout San Diego was able to come to my parent's house to catch up and enjoy a great sunny day. We chatted about a little bit of everything and one of the topics that came up was twitter. We did dive even more into social networking but we spent a bit of time speaking about twitter.
I think one of the best questions that someone asked was from my godmother. She is always up to speed on the latest technologies as she is a teacher in San Diego. She asked one of the best questions about social networking when she simply asked the question:
"Why would someone do twitter?"
I thought it was an awesome question. For many, especially in real estate, they are jumping onto social networks, like twitter, with little thought of "why". Let's take a look at a few items to consider for those who have jumped into twitter and maybe those who haven't yet got on board yet.
Why would someone want to follow your 140 character updates?
How can you add value to those in your network with your updates?
Who are you going to follow?
I really don't think that social networking will be for every real estate agent, especially for those that don't answer the above questions. When considering the option of diving into social networks like Twitter (or any of the others for that matter) it's important to consider your approach to social networking.
After all, you wouldn't create a real estate website without a strategy would you? Just because getting onto the social networks is easy doesn't mean it's something that you should do. It's important to consider your approach to social networking for real estate before you ever start.
In addition to the above three questions consider the following:
How much time can you dedicate to your network?
How are you going to grow your network?
What do you want to get from your network?
When you consider doing social networking for real estate it's important to set goals and consider how you can add value to your network and how your network can help you. Even though it is incredibly easy to get started take a few moments to consider how you can maximize your activities.
As real estate professionals we often have 100's of things to do each and every day. Adding 1 more activity that isn't going to bring us business or improve our business is just a waste of time. So rEmbraeally, what's your plan with your social network?
By now, I am sure you have noticed that Google has made a few changes to the results they are displaying. In case you hadn't had a chance to see what they rolled out, on the 24th they announced on the Google blog 2 major changes. Those two changes are:
Extended Snippets - The descriptive information displayed below the title of the result, referred to as a snippet, will be extended for longer searches. When a user is digging deep with a long search Google wants the user to be able to find the information they are really looking for. Providing more in-depth snippet text will allow the searcher to review the results in more detail before clicking. In some cases this has doubled the decriptive text to over 50 words.
Related Search Suggestions - Google wants to help you find the information you are looking for by suggesting additional related searches. This can mean suggesting an additional 8 related search phrases. No longer will users have to guess on what else they might need to search for, Google can just tell you what you need... :)
Ok, so the changes are there, what are you going to do about it? Aaron Wall provided some good insights on his blog and here are some action items that we can take immediately to make sure we stay ahead of the competition.
Extended Snippets - Google can only provide additional snippet information if there is enough content on your website. The focus on quality content on your real estate website or blog should continue to be the focus. Short pages that are 200-300 words may not give enough real information for Google to look at. Putting together longer, more detailed pages (400,500,600+ words) will allow Google to digest more of your content and be able to display it to the user on those long searches. Also, don't forget the obvious like Meta Description text, although it doesn't really help for improving your results, I have still seen it picked up and displayed in the snippet text so make sure to fill it out on each and every page.
Related Search Suggestions - This one is a gold mine! This is keyword research in the most obvious and public view. Run the searches that you are used to showing up on in the top 10 and then click the related searches. Look to see if your website still shows up in those related searches. If you are already showing in the related searches, then you are in good shape, and if not, then you have some homework to do. If you aren't showing up, look to add some pay per click in those related searches so you don't miss out on any traffic. For the long haul look to see where you can fill in more content on your website and grab some additional links to increase your authority.
Google is always going to be making changes, the real key is if you are going to keep your total online presence up to date to remain competitive. Whether you are running a real estate website, blog, or more than 1 of each, it is important to be aware of the changes and then take action where you can to stay ahead of the curve.
What other changes could you be making to stay competitive with the latest changes that Google made?
I got my 4Runner detailed just last week. I really like getting a car detailed. When they do the full detail such time is taken to ensure that every part of the vehicle is clean. They don't just wash and vacuum, no everyone can do that. They take the time to apply clay bar, wax, polish applying each as necessary and ensuring the paint comes out looking like a mirror. The imperfections that were stuck in your paint from driving around town are now gone and your car has the look as if it were fresh off the show room floor. What a treat!
As I was watching the gentleman do the detail, I noticed that he paid extreme attention to different areas of the vehicle. As he would make laps around 4Runner he would often stop, notice an imperfection, apply a compound of some sort and polish out the imperfection. He did this process for about 2 hours until he felt it was ready to show it to me. I went around the vehicle myself and was pleased that so much of those awful scars came out!
No, this isn't a post about auto detailing, how does it relate to your real estate SEO efforts? I was thinking that our websites and blogs aren't too much different than our vehicles and sometimes we need to put the attention in of a good detail.
We can go around and around our websites fixing imperfections to get them looking even better than new! After all a website that has been "detailed" gets better attention from the search engines and your visitors.
Here are some items to tackle to get that website looking like it's ready for a show:
Looking for imperfections - Look through your website and see where the problems are. Don't take action on them on the first pass, just write down a list so you can go back to polish those spots. Making a couple passes through your site will allow you to see different problems each time. It takes a bit of effort and you may end up with a lengthy list, but you will know where the problems are located.
Use different compounds and waxes - Not all of the problems on your website or blog will be able to be fixed in the same way. Take time to understand each issue so you can apply the appropriate fix. After all if a page is doing well organically, getting lots of visitors, but no conversions, then don't change your page titles, look at your Calls to Action first. Make sure the changes you make will be an improvement for the right problem.
Get ready to show it to someone else - When you have made your changes diligently (yes set a deadline to make these changes) share the results with someone who has seen your website before. Does it look fresh to them? Can than see that the smallest of details have been addressed? Sharing it with someone else will give you accountability and maybe even help you find some areas you missed.
With the search engines getting more and more advanced your real estate SEO efforts are going to come down to the smallest of details. It's ok if you miss them on the first run through, but taking time to detail your website and blog every few months will help you to gain greater exposure to your next customer.
Related Must Reads(going to my outside blog for these):
When you focus on getting people to visit your website there are plenty of challenges and expenses involved. Even when you focus on SEO, you are putting countless hours of work in to get people to visit your website and you certainly want some rewards for all of that work. The obvious main benefit is getting people to contact you for helping them with real estate help, but what about those people who don't contact you? Wouldn't it be nice to make money off of those people who have just used your site for information?
Keep the focus on Conversions
There are many ways to make money from your real estate website. The primary goal should be one that focuses on generating leads from your real estate business. When you take the time to add other revenue streams to your real estate website it means not taking away from your primary business of real estate.
Before you start to add these aspects to that can generate revenue for you, ensure that you have a good understanding of what your current conversion rates are at currently. If you are currently hitting 7%+ conversion rates then you are doing good and are ready to consider making money from those who aren't converting into contacts.
Generating Revenue
When you decide to make the leap to generating revenue there are many different directions to go. Here are two different ways that you can tackle to generate some extra revenue.
Google Adsense - This is one of the most well known programs to generate revenue easily from your website. With Google Adsense you can place small ads on your website and Google will display the most relevant ads based on your content. You can see how these ads are displayed on our Long Beach homes website. We have placed them at the bottom away from the core content so if someone clicks on it, they really must not have wanted any help with their real estate goals :). Don't worry about your competition showing up either as you can filter which ads are allowed to be displayed on your website.
Amazon - Amazon has one of the most widely known affiliate programs. You could display books related to home ownership or even common things that your visitors might purchase when they move-in to a home. Amazon gives you many different options for making money so you can choose the ones that will work the best for your audience. For maximum results, don't just display the product images, but provide your insight into why someone might need the product.
You may never make a killing on using Adsense or implementing an affiliate program, but it certainly can help you to offset some of your spending. As long as you monitor your conversion rate to make sure you aren't taking away from your core business the extra revenue can be a wonderful way to help pay for server bills or offset the money you spend on pay per click advertising.
As you are working away with your real estate SEO efforts it is common to type in some searches to see how your efforts are resulting in new rankings. In fact, it really is exciting to see what progression you have made. Maybe you couldn't even find yourself in the SERPs before and now you actually show up on page 2, yeah progress!
When you are performing these searches (yes we are certainly all guilty of them) it only gives us one aspect of the problem. You see when we are typing these searches there are a few limitations:
We are only running searches that we can think of
It takes quite a bit of time to run these manually
We don't know if people are actually clicking on us
It is fun to see our website show up in the results pages, however, when we really focus on the results of people finding our website, then we can take a moment to dig a bit deeper.
Google Webmaster Tools
If you are using Google Webmaster Tools already, great! There are many different tools to look at and in this post, we want to examine just one aspect. Examining this one area will give us the opportunity to see what searches we are showing up on and find out if people are actually clicking away when they see it.
When you are in Webmaster Tools, select the website you want to look at, then go to Statistics à Top Search Queries. This will show you where your website appeared in the results (top 20 queries anyway) and then the right hand column will show you the top 20 queries where someone actually clicked to visit your website.
The interesting part is that the sides share some commonality, but in general, have some very different results. Items that I look at each time I review this report (which is probably too often) are the following:
Am I showing up on what I am anticipating?
Can I improve page titles or descriptions on pages on the pages that are showing up, but not receiving clicks?
Can I improve the rankings of the pages that aren't at number 1?
Thankfully each link on the page runs the search in Google so you can not only see your result in the search engine, but also see which page is the one that is being found. This way you can go back to each page and see where you can make improvements.
This report is updated frequently so you can revisit and track the results over time. The best part is that it is FREE. When you consider that this tool is free and lets you easily the results side by side, it just can't be beat. Have fun and take a look at how your real estate website is showing up in the search engines and what people are actually clicking on!
Ok, so they don't have cameras mounted on our computers (yet) but they are doing some great research on eye movements in relationship to search. If you had a chance to check out the post last week on Google's Blog it really is interesting and gives you some good things to think about.
The Research
The great thing about Google is they aren't just sitting on their hand counting all of the money from Adwords, they invest in a all sorts of new technologies. The eye research was looking to "see" where people's eyes looked when they first viewed the search results. I don't think it is any surprise that the focus of people's eyes went to the top of the results.
Furthermore, the researchers tested the addition of thumbnail images in the search results to see if it would help people find more relevant information. It did help people find the information they were looking for with minimal distraction. Good right?
What Do We Do With This Information?
This research revealed other conclusions for me. More than just the focus of people's eyes it shows where we can focus our efforts of search engine optimization.
Get to the top - If you watched the videos on Google's Blog post you noticed that the eyes did not stray far down the page. This could have been because of a limited about of search results returned, but really it appears that people don't want to scroll too much.
Images help - Images are being indexed so make sure to provide images on your site that help describe your product or service. Real Estate is a perfect example that we should be providing images on our neighborhoods and maybe even diagrams of the home buying or selling process.
Put keywords in your Title Tags - The keywords are displayed in bold and definitely attract the user's eyeballs. Make sure to focus each page on a keyword for maximum impact.
So we don't have to be on the most cutting edge of the research to take action. Google is spending big money on research to find out more on how people search. At the end of the day we have to focus on providing the MOST relevant content to our next customer so Google can continue to reward us by sending visitors our direction.
As many of us have been marketing online for our real estate businesses for years we often forget that we had to start with a single step. That single step was filled with many different emotions. Thinking back, I was excited, nervous, and not altogether sure what would happen, I just new that in order to succeed in real estate it meant being online.
As 2009 is into full swing, and the community here is off to another great year of sharing, I just wanted to reach out to see how everyone started their journey online. One of the really great things about marketing online is that you truly get to choose something that will best fit your personality.
Now for those newer to technology, maybe it is a little scary to take that first step, and that is why I want to share (and hopefully get some great sharing from everyone else) about what the very first step could be. The operative word being "could", because the first step will be different for everyone.
Getting started with your marketing online is easier than most people think and sometimes that's the biggest problem (too easy usually leads to poor planning).
Here are a few ideas on that first step to take.
Writing Content - It doesn't have to be fancy, it can just be on paper (or Microsoft Word) to start. Write out 10-15 pages about your city and neighborhoods so you can build a foundation of solid content. This content can be used for a blog or website, or maybe even an article.
Blog - Ahh, the mighty real estate blog. There are some great ones here at AR, and all over the internet. Before taking that first step into creating a blog, try reading around the blogosphere for a week. Seriously visit blogs all across the country and read some posts. If you get frustrated reading them for a week, remember that you won't just have to be reading, you will have to be writing and writing often to get results. If that first week just flies by and you can't wait to read more, maybe you have found a great first step.
Real Estate Website - Yes they still exist and still can lead to serious business. Before pulling out that credit card though, do research on the different web vendors out there. There are many that specialize in the real estate industry, but look carefully at some of the top performers online (checking traffic, rankings, etc) and see who they are powered by. That will give you a start, but remember, buying a Ferrari doesn't make you Michael Schumacher, and so you need to be prepared for the journey ahead of learning how to "drive" your website.
Pay Per Click - Crazy I know, but if jumping into the world of online marketing means you should be prepared to invest in marketing for targeted traffic. Even the top SEO guys (see Aaron Wall's Blog) mention PPC as a way to get targeted traffic, so it's definitely ok for the rest of us :). PPC is a great way to compliment some of that fresh content you have put up in a website or a blog. Even if you don't have content built yet, you can still look at tutorials and read book (Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords by Perry Marshall is a winner) to see if PPC is for you.
There are tons of other first steps to take. Maybe it's just taking a training course to learn more about websites, blogs, etc., but the point is to take that first step. I know the first month our website was launched, late 2003, we didn't get hundreds of leads pouring in (month 2 was 7 leads and we were thrilled) so we all start from somewhere.
I can't wait to hear more about the steps you took.
Running a series over on our blog about some great lessons learned when I was at a tech mastermind. Be great to hear your thoughts on it.
It's nice that 2009 is off and running. I know the AR community is experiencing success all around and it's good to see :). I have heard a few agents complain that buyers are just looking for deals or just want to see a few homes and then don't purchase. For some reason these same problems seem to exist in every market. I thought some sharing would be in order to turn those problems into appointments.
We really need buyers to understand the benefit of coming in for an appointment (in fact avoid the word "appointment" at all costs). It would be easier if buyers instantly trusted us, came in for an appointment, pre-approved with our preferred lender, and then bought a home that afternoon just because we told them to do so, but sadly that's not reality. Well it could be reality, if we know what to say to empower our prospects with the right information and lead them to the conclusion that they should arrive at.
Control the call
The first step to helping your buyer prospects "see the light" and realize they need to meet with you before viewing properties comes in the very first phone call. It is essential that you control the call and put yourself in the driver seat. This may sound odd at first because you will feel that you aren't being "helpful" but it really works.
Here are 3 tips to focus on, for that first phone call:
Understand you won't meet at a property - Seriously, when you pick up the phone you need to have the mindset that you will not rush out to a property to meet them. You are going to get them to come into your office so you can maximize their time and help them to find more than 1 property that could meet their goals. If you understand this before you pick up the phone it's easier to stick to. So on that first call you need to go for the appointment.
You don't answer questions, you only ask them - First and foremost don't answer their questions. You need to ask them qualifying questions to see if you actually can help them. They ask "what's the price?", you tell them you need to look it up and ask them another question like "Have you just started looking?". Put yourself as the interviewer and you are in the driver seat.
Provide 2 times to meet - It's easier for a prospect to come in to meet with you if they have options. Since you are going for an appointment give them options that are easy. Don't give an open ended question like "what time works for you?" because they will have to think too much. Give them specific options like "Would a Tuesday at 5pm work better or maybe a Saturday at 10am?". This way they just have to pick one, much easier, and it will dramatically increase their ability to agree.
Honestly following the above 3 tips will lead to more appointments than you can handle. Remember to practice your scripts before the call and the calls will go a whole lot easier. Now, start dialing, control those calls and start booking more appointments. I can't wait to hear how they go.
Discover methods of real estate internet marketing that generate traffic, leads, and business from former web developers and now practicing real estate brokers who get 75% of their business from their websites. Learn the tips to generate 100's of leads each and every month.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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