I wrote this article awhile back for Broker Agent News, a wonderful online and “snail mail” publication featuring many items of interest to active agents.  In it, I took a specific look at how to get traffic to your site.  Here ‘tis…..

It would be one thing for me, a national real estate speaker and trainer, to offer my opinion on how to drive traffic to your site.  It is far better to present “real world” techniques that have worked for top agents and that will work for you. 

With that in mind, I asked my CyberStars^® to send me their top two or three techniques for getting visitors to their sites.  You can find a complete list of these top agents from the US, Canada, Mexico, The Bahamas and Australia at www.AFHSeminars.com/cyber.htm.   Many of them were kind enough to send in tips on what works for them when it comes to driving traffic to their sites. 

Keep in mind that the agents who share their ideas with you here are just like you: their main job is real estate, not technology.  They are not “techies.”  Instead, they realized a number of years ago the central role a Web site could play in their business, and they have spent a great deal of time and money finding out what works and what doesn’t when it comes to getting their sites noticed. 

I have listed the individual CyberStars(r) in this article and have included their Web site addresses since it is my hope that you will visit each listed site, study it and learn from it.

We begin with a comment from Mark Fritschle of Ocean City, MD.  Mark’s site is the heart of his business, and he is very successful at getting consumers to visit it.  As we discussed in article one, these are the two basic elements of Web Centric Marketing(r), the key to a successful Web site.  Mark writes: 

“We have tried everything, from paying for click-throughs to paying search engine placement companies.  In the long run, however, I believe the main reason for the success of our site is our philosophy of giving the customer and clients a simple and user-friendly real estate resources site.  To me, that means a site where they can find all the information they are looking for with just a few mouse clicks.  All Multiple Listings and Virtual Tours are easily found on the front page.  Sellers can access their own secure Listing Activity page showing details of showings, advertising, marketing and sales calls.  Soon, agents will be able to access all disclosure, disclaimers and inventory information 24 hours a day in a simple, downloadable PDF format.  We have many customers who call and say how much they like the site and who tell us they have been using it for months, just waiting for the right listing to become available.”

Take a look at Mark’s comments and then measure your site against this successful agent’s words.  Many of us will find that we have a lot of work to do on our sites in order to reach the success Mark has.

DeDe Carney of Greenville, NC, also knows that good content will attract viewers.  To that end, she offers IDX on her site, good local information and virtual tours of her community.  She features local schools, parks, community activities, neighborhoods, and more in her tours.  She has many “points of difference” on her site and believes in featuring them in her advertising.  This has paid off handsomely for DeDe, and it will for you, too.

Ron Street of Santa Rosa, CA, also has a very successful site.  His overall site marketing strategy includes marketing his site’s URL and email address on everything he puts out.  Ron says: “Examples are my TV Guide promotion in Safeway, featuring the site in newspaper and Homes Magazine advertising, my business cards, post cards, home flyers, all correspondence, and more.  I also use pay per click with Key Names at Santa-Rosa-CA-Real-Estate.com, and I had Sandy Teller at Sizzling Studios optimize WineCountryEstates.com for better search engine results.”

The main principle we can take from Ron’s comments, then, is that “getting the word out” on your site should be the main focus of your marketing efforts.  Think about it: if your site is a good one, chances are that once you get them there, they are yours.  This is what makes it worthwhile to really focus on promoting your site through everything you do!

You have to be impressed when you look at Brett Furman’s splash page.  Brett’s market is St. David’s, Pennsylvania (suburban Philadelphia counties).  His site is a mainstay of his business.  Among Brett’s top methods for attracting visitors to his site are:

• Attaching his www.HomesOfPa.com sign rider to all of his signs
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• Putting a “tag line” at the end of his voice mail message.  Most of his fellow CyberStars^® do this.  Brett’s is, “Please visit www.homesofpa.com for all the latest area listings and up-to-date real estate information.”
  
  
• Leaving voice mail messages that ask the consumer to visit his site in order to learn more about who he is and what he does.

Mark, DeDe, Ron and Brett are all in major market areas.  What works if you are in a small market area?  Barbara Gaines of Ann Arbor, MI, works in such a market and gives this advice: 

“My Web site is very much focused on a small market area, so I make sure every single ad, piece of paper, email, pen, business card, etc., has my email address and site address printed on it.  Most of the locals know me, as I'm active in my community in many public matters, so they go to my site to search listings through the IDX feature or to see the VisualTour.com virtual tour of one of my local listings.

A number of the CyberStars(r) have moving trucks, most leased from OnTheMoveTrucks.com.  Crystal McCall of Ocala, FL, Greg Gorman of Naples, FL, and Ira Serkes of Berkeley, CA, are three among many CyberStars(r) who feature their site prominently on their moving trucks.  Photos of their unique marketing tool can be seen on their sites.

Linking to the Chamber of Commerce in Midland and Odessa, TX, has provided traffic to Jane Wolf’s site.  She also gets results from linking her primary site to/from Realtor.com.  Active Rainer Angus Woodbury of Naperville, IL, has expanded his Realtor.com listing with a link back to his site as well.  He includes text that says, "Click ‘Other Info’ below for additional pictures and a floor plan.”  Note how he gives the Realtor.com site visitor a reason to click through to his main, more profitable site.

Niel Thomas is a leader s a leader in Anchorage real estate, and his creative Web site is a big reason why.  Among the ways Niel gets visitors to his site are:

• His license plate reads "REALS8"
• His phone lines are "aliases" to REALS8.com, www.907-265-916.com and www.265-9106.com
• The name rider on his signs says, "Web or Phone, 265-9106.com."  Niel notes: “People understand quite readily that they can call or go see a Web site for the property.  Only the ones with a serious level of interest call me, and by then they are usually ready to buy.  As a screening device, many marginal leads, like people calling on signs, an ad or just for general information, are invited to use the resources of the site, which has an IDX search capability with my contact information on every page.  The ones who seriously need help get back to me.  Since I have more than enough of this type of deal-making activity to keep me off the streets and out of trouble, I don't worry about the ones I don't hear from again.” 

LaDawn Knicely of Bridgewater, VA, creates her virtual tours using VisualTour.com and then uses them to attract business to her site.  She gets a lot of site visitors because of this, since the tours can be viewed through Yahoo.com and other national sites.  She also does a tour for each buyer after they buy a home.  She gives them a link to the tour that they can email to friends and family so that they can show off their new home….and get new prospects to her site.  Finally, LaDawn has her Virtual Assistant make a set of change of address postcards that the buyers can send out to everyone.  At the bottom, in small letters, the postcard says, "Compliments of LaDawn Knicely, REALTOR^®, www.LaDawnSellsHomes.com."

Another big fan of VisualTour.com is Don King of San Diego, CA.  Don gets traffic to his site by having sign riders that read, “See Virtual Tour At www.DonKingHomes.com.”  In addition, Don’s use of his Yellow Page ad should spark you to change yours the next time you place it.  Don’s ad shows the splash page of his Web site and the text, “The Only Web Site You Need For Rancho Bernardo.”

Finally Don runs a display ad in the local newspaper periodically.  Instead of attempting to sell individual houses in the ad, he sells readers on visiting his site.  His ad has a graphic of his home page and spells out the content areas they can find there and the benefits of viewing such content.

Our Boca Raton CyberStar^®, Tim Kinzler, believes in the value of email postcards from eMailaCard  to get visitors to his site.  He uses them for holidays, new home announcements, thank you’s and special occasions.   The card features his site, of course.  When Tim makes address labels, using his Dymo label maker, he includes his site address.  His checks have his site address on them.  Finally, he makes sure that his site address is included where he inserts his name on sales, listing and lease contracts.

Many agents do not see the value in having multiple sites, a main site and a number of lesser ones.  CyberStar^® Allyson Hoffman is a big believer in this concept.  She runs multiple sites that are interlinked.  This increases the chances that viewers will hit one and maybe more than one of her sites.  Allyson says of this concept, “This seems to work well in that I find by responding quickly with an invitation to check out another site for a different purpose that those with the higher level of motivation and readiness will many times take that step and go to a second site.”

To encourage this transfer from one site to another, she has a series of Outlook "signatures" that are really letters she created and stored as signatures.  She has signatures for an initial response to an in-area prospect, an out-of-area prospect, a prospect who has already visited another site and one for a specific information request.  The letters are similar but have slight changes that reflect where they have visited, already visited and where she wants to push them next.

Judy Higgins, Lewiston, ID, was one of the first yberStars^® to try a blog embedded in her site.  Her Web master faithfully writes one article a week and a short quip/note every day or two for the blog.  Judy says it definitely makes her site more visible.  Her Web master also suggested they link up with an ABOUT.com site to enhance hers.

Ken Deshaies and his wife/team member Mary have always been innovators.  Located in Summit County, CO, they pioneered the “social club” concept on their site.  Their Summit County Social Club, which you can see on their site at www.SnowHome.com, has long built traffic to their site.  I have written about their use of the social club concept in my free online newsletter, and they wrote a wonderful article on the technique for my new book, “Secrets of the CyberStars®: Making Money With Today’s Technology.”  They also use the “1/3–2/3” concept I have long promoted at my seminars: the top 1/3 of their real estate magazine ads promotes their site.  If you look at your local real estate magazine, you will see that few, if any, agents are using this vehicle to promote their site.  Instead, they are “stuck in the 70’s” by promoting a number of homes with tiny photos…just as we did when these magazines came out in the 70’s.

The next time you run an ad in a real estate magazine, do what Ken and Mary do: devote the top 1/3 of your page to a “screen grab” (photo) of your site and a reason or two for the reader to visit your site.  You’ll be happy with the results!

Ken and Mary also promote their site through the use of plastic tags on the back of their vehicles, tags that feature their domain name.  One excellent supplier of such tags can be found at www.RealtyTags.com.

Most of the CyberStars^®, including Ken and Mary, have long known the value of having your site address as a link in their email signature.  A “signature” is a segment of pre-written text that you store and then add to the bottom of your emails with just a click or two.  If you don’t know how to do a signature, use the Help feature of your email program.  You send email to hundreds of people who are not agents: why not include a subtle commercial with each email?  A good signature with your site link helps get some of them to your site.

The Deshaies also link to every site they can link to if those sites fit into their overall link plan.  This includes other individual REALTOR^® sites which grant reciprocal links as well as lead generator sites where they pay for exclusivity in their market area.

Finally, they use a marketing tool that many of the CyberStars^® have adopted: their logo embroidered on shirts.  They now have all of their “work shirts” and most of their casual shirts embroidered with their logo and site address.

(Whew!  Have you picked up any ideas yet?  I’m sure you have…but there are more!)

One of our small market members, Chris Laurence of Front Royal, VA wrote a stunning article for my new book on using technology to dominate a small market.  Chris came to the US from England, began with a small firm in Front Royal, and within two years came to dominate his marketplace.  He credits his Web site as the main reason for his fantastic success.  He seriously studies what makes sites work and how to drive traffic to them.  His top three techniques for increasing traffic are:

• Continuous review and updating of search engine optimization features
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• Using Overture’s pay-per-click system.  He has had good results from Overture’s “Site Match” feature, which increases your positioning on such sites as Yahoo, Excite, Altavista and others.
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• Promotion of the site through home book ads, where he ensures that his site’s URL and features get high profile treatment on the page.

Gatlinburg, Tennessee’s Jeff Schoenfield sent in the following tips:

“We use several methods to make sure that our sites get visited as often as possible and by as many prospects and clients as possible.  First and foremost, we make sure that our site has current, meaningful and useful information for the folks who visit: lots of area information, lots of real estate info, and of course, we have a very user-friendly IDX search that is critical to our efforts.  We also participate in the pay-per-click services such as Overture and Google’s “Ad Words.”  We print our Gatlinburg-Homes.com URL on everything that we do, including all advertising, letterhead, promotional pieces, etc.  Next, we link to several other sites so that our site scores well with the all important search engines.  By a combination of all of these methods, we have around 400 visitor sessions (not hits, which are nearly meaningless) on our site daily.”

Online magazines, inlcuding tourist magazines, can also generate leads.  Vermont has an online magazine, VTLiving.com, which attracts a lot of attention, so Irene Gaffigan of Ludlow, VT got a link from the magazine to her site.  Look for such magazines in your area and explore the possibility of linking to them.

If your site is not making you money, you may want to pay attention to the techniques used by Susan Orth of Santa Fe, NM.  Over one half of her income comes from her site.  Susan credits the promotion her Best Image site designers do, but she does not stop there.  She continues to promote her site in many ways.  She is listed on many Web directories relevant to her area and on her Chamber of Commerce site.  (She reports that she just got a prospect from the Chamber link, a $500-$700K buyer.) 

Susan uses a Virtual Assistant for adding content regularly to her site.  Like other successful site owners, Susan is convinced that visitors bookmark her site because of it, and a large percentage sign up for more information.

As for getting visitors to her site in the first place, Susan credits the fact that she sends out her Realty Times Newsletter monthly and uses “ecards” from eMailaCard liberally.  It is important to note that Susan does not just sign up for a newsletter to put on her site: she gets a message out to her sphere of influence monthly “teasing” them with some of that month’s content and providing a link to the newsletter.  Again, she uses her Virtual Assistant to implement these projects.

If you send out a lot of printed material, remember to place your site address on everything that goes out.  Gena Gilbert of The Crystal Coast, NC, does, and it pays off for her.  In addition, she links her main site to her Realtor.com ILead account and has her site address printed on the front door of her office, on her business cards, and on her personal checks.

Here are some specific tips supplied by CyberStar(r) and Active Rainer Margaret Rome, a market leader in Baltimore, MD :

 

• The signature file on her email reads: “You can find all the condos and homes for sale by going to www.HomeRome.com and going to ‘ALL Listings.  If you put in your criteria, such as number of bedrooms, zip code, county, price etc., you will be shown all properties that are currently on the market.  By putting in your email address, you will be notified daily as new homes meeting your search criteria become available.  You will be given price, photos and the address. Don't forget your email address."

• Her phone message contains these words: “To view any of my properties, please click into www.HomeRome.com.” 
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• Her license plate reads MROME, but the license plate frame features her site address.
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• She uses eMailaCard to send birthday, anniversary and holiday cards.  Each card features her Web address.
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• Margaret often hosts or is a guest on a local radio show, "All About Real Estate."  She frequently gives out her site address, rather than her phone number, during each program.
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• When Margaret lists a home, she buys a domain name that is the property address, such as www.123MainStreet.com.  She prints it on her business card along with a photo of the house.

If you have been counting, you know we have looked at over 60 specific ideas that succeed for agents just like yourself.  I point out many of these to my Web site evaluation clients and I am happy to list them here, since they work!

I will leave you with one final suggestion, an action plan for increasing traffic to your site.  Review this entire article, pen in hand.  When you see an idea that you do not currently apply to your site, jot it down.  When finished, choose the one idea you think will provide you the greatest increase in traffic to your site.  Implement it.... right then!

You can get to the others later, implementing them in order of importance.  If you want increased traffic to your site, though, it is crucial that you implement one idea right away in order to get the ball rolling.  Knowing what to do to drive traffic to your site is one thing: doing it is another.  You know what to do now: it is time to do it!

(Note: A number of you have emailed me about my Web site evaluation service.  You will find information on it on my site.) 

It's a great day here on the lake in Reston...hope it's a great day wherever you are, too!