4 Tips for Boosting Customer Traffic Online

Real estate practitioners hoping to generate more leads and increase sales should consider taking advantage of several inexpensive online marketing options.

Those with Web sites that adequately capture leads could take advantage of pay-per-click advertising in Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

If sites need about 10 clicks to generate a lead and each click costs 80 cents, then practitioners would spend about $8.00 per lead; and if an average of 40 leads is needed to sell a home, they would spend $320.00.

Practitioners also should take advantage of Craigslist and other online classified pages with the ability to rank ads in Google.

Their ads should include neighborhood and property characteristics in the hopes of indexing at least 10 to 12 ads, and each ad should include a link that allows visitors to search all homes for sale.

Meanwhile, a new technology uses MLS data to create Web pages for each listing using long-tailed keyword phrases, and these hundreds or thousands of Web pages are added to the agent's existing site.

Finally, practitioners would be wise to post videos of their listings on YouTube -- which automatically connect to Facebook, Twitter, and Google videos to maximize exposure.

Source: RISMedia, Sean Callahan (08/11/10