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SEMRush - What is the Value of your Traffic?

By
Real Estate Agent with eXp Realty & Working The Magic, LLC

I went to one of my favorite sites earlier today http://www.seodigger.com/ and the site wasn't providing results.  I ran it in Chrome, Firefox and Explorer before I finally took the time to read the page.  It turns out that SEODigger was a beta site which ultimately became SEMRush.com.  Well I decided to goto SEMRush to check it out.  The first site I put in was for Bellingham Real Estate or realestate.bellingham.net to see what would come up.  It was interesting because after putting in the domain it came up with an SE Traffic Price of $28.6k per month.  I was a bit confused on what that exactly meant so I dug a little deaper into the site.  It turns out that based on the search terms that we rank for, if we had to pay for the traffic via Pay-per-click we would expect to invest $28,600/month.  Well that's huge!  I looked at some of the competitors and where they ranked relative to the search terms that we ranked for and noticed that we trumped pretty much everyone except for REALTOR.com, HomeGain.com and City-Data.  I'm assuming that this is because these are national sites that the traffic is reported differently.  I went further and looked at the results from our most direct competitor and the value of their traffic from search engines is only $5200/month.  So it felt pretty good to look at those results.

I also own one of the top real estate websites / teams in the Scottsdale Real Estate market scottsdaleparadise.com and decided to try the same thing with that site...  Talk about being blown away...  The SE Traffic price for this domain is estimated at $159,300 / month...  We knew we were getting a lot of high end buyers on that site but this theoretical value is huge...  Ultimately it seems that SEMRush has a way of figuring out what advertisers are paying to get traffic to their sites based on the keywords that we rank well for.  It then looks at the traffic that we are getting organically from those same search terms and then comes up with a value for the traffic.  Obviously I'm a big proponent of SEO and SEM Marketing for Real Estate but this is one of first sites that really provides a metric for what SEM is worth.

For more commentary on SEM and SEO be sure to check out our Real Estate SEO Blog for more tips and insights into the ever evoloving world of Internet marketing.

 

All the Best,

Glenn Sanford
--
Founder / CEO
BuyerTours Realty LLC & Working The Magic LLC
Direct: 360-220-1470
Be sure to check out our Real Estate SEO Blog

Show All Comments
Kacem Benali Bethesda & Rockville REALTOR
Rockville & Bethesda Homes for Sale, I can help sell ur home - Rockville, MD

Great post thanks for the info, I'm going to try it out right now...

Dec 02, 2008 01:37 PM
Conrad Unnerstall
Chapman Realty - Brunswick, GA
Associate Broker, Homes Brunswick Georgia 912-280-0088

Thanks for sharing this information.....working on bringing myself up to speed on SEO and websites.....going in now.....

Dec 02, 2008 01:46 PM
Marilyn Katz
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties - Westport, CT
ABR, e-PRO - WestportCTProperties.com

Glenn- this was interesting information.  My PPC traffic is worth 2.2k/month, which may not sound that great.  However, relative to search terms, I outrank trulia and citi-data.  Overall, I guess, there are just a lot less searches for Westport, CT.

Dec 03, 2008 11:16 AM
Keenan Tameling
Libertas Holding Inc. - Calgary, AB

Hey Glenn,

How many unique visitors do you get to your site each day?  Does that help in calculating the value of your site?  I'm about to launch a new website and have been tracking my old sites traffic but am a total rookie as to how to intrepret value.  Most of my visitors are looking for rental property.

Apr 14, 2009 01:04 PM
Glenn Sanford
eXp Realty & Working The Magic, LLC - Bellingham, WA

For our http://realestate.bellingham.net/ we get about 10,000 unique visits per month.  Or over 300 uniques per day.

The SEM Rush however isn't tracking uniques but its an estimate of what the Organic traffic would be worth if one had to pay for it.  We wouldn't pay the PPC equivalent for traffic.  We wouldn't even break even.  The value is based on what the top position pays.  Often you can get great traffic via PPC for a lot less by paying to be on the sidebar.  I would suggest that the actual value of the Organic is probably about 25% of what SEMRush calculates it at in that no one is going to do enough of a marketing spend with the willingness to lose money on every sale.  Of course I'm talking about it from a REALTOR perspective where all we have to work with is our net split after we pay all of our fees relative to the transactions as well as being in business.  A new home builder might be willing to spend more because they might have a larger budget per home to put into advertising (though its less likely for them to recapture the spend since they have a limited number of properties to convert the traffic with).

Anyway that's my updated commentary...

Apr 14, 2009 02:50 PM
Eric Egeland
RE/MAX SUBURBAN - Libertyville, IL
SFR, e-PRO, CDPE

Thanks for the post Glenn.

Interesting information, I'll have to play around & see what my sites are 'worth'

May 03, 2009 02:37 PM
Anonymous
Pat

Glen,

Here's an article I wrote, which might further assist & was recently published in trade magazines:

Expanding the Realtor Reach - Five (Free) Building Blocks to Fast Forward Future Sales

Realtors don't need to be reminded how competitive it is to gain new clients, nor do they need to be reminded how the recent economic turmoil affects local transaction activity. Instead, well-healed Realtors are better served focusing on the future and how they can progressively promote their skill sets to attract and retain new clients. Below are five free building blocks to expand the Realtor's reach and gain new clients:

Website - Okay, this may be a bit obvious, but let this be your core - your foundation for the building blocks that follow. Make sure it presents well, personifies your abilities, showcases your listings, and conveys confidence. 
 
Blog - Consider the website your formal business card and your blog is the less formal conversation you have as you exchange business cards. Make sure you have something good to say. Chronicle a unique experience. Feature timely information about the local market that only you know best. Feel free to provide tasteful links to your listings, but don't dilute your blog with that (admittedly important) content. Instead, let that content reside on your website. If your reader likes what you share in your blog, then they will find you and your listings on your website. 
 
Facebook - A nifty profile with lots of friends just isn't enough. Instead, create a fan page and encourage all your friends and past clients to "fan" you. Using this platform, broadcast recent listings (with links, of course), sales, recent blog posts, open houses, and all other meaningful activity. 
 
Twitter - Twitter is now the medium where news breaks first. Think of it as your personal news room. Create an account, follow only those who interest you most (not the whole planet), and encourage your clients and prospective clients to follow you. After all, this is the platform you will use to broadcast the latest listings - in most cases before they surface anywhere else. This is your chance to get a leg-up on the competition. Do not underestimate the power of this free resource!
 
www.VillageVoyage.com - The Internet is an abyss of information and you've worked hard to build your brand. Tie it all together with Village Voyage. Similar to Wikipedia, Village Voyage is a wiki and anyone can participate. Think of it as your on-line cocktail party with many different conversations all centered around your community, your target audience, your clients. Create a Village Voyage page to further expand your online presence, while at the same time, taking advantage of the opportunity to add valuable back-links to your website, blog, and other online pages. Beyond that, be bold. Use Village Voyage to meet new clients, build credibility, and differentiate yourself by demonstrating your local market knowledge and expertise. (See the State index to locate the market(s) that interest you most: http://www.villagevoyage.com/wiki/Category:States )

May 06, 2009 06:12 AM
#7
krishna kashyap av
home - Syringa, ID

Thanks for the post

Idaho Real Estate

Jul 06, 2009 02:56 AM
Anonymous
Carlos
Here is a promocode for 2-weeks account to SEMRush.com: 7K0R-D8Q9-7H18-KBHJ Activation period is till 2009-10-21. This promocode can be used for several times. Taken From Here: http://www.googlelady.com/1179/semrush-review-keyword-competitor-research-tool/
Oct 14, 2009 04:14 PM
#9
Anonymous
lorina anne

thank for the info 

Apr 28, 2010 02:00 AM
#10
Steven Betolatti
Maximum One Executive Realtors - Lilburn, GA
Best agent in Lilburn!

Thank you- I am bookmarking that site now.

Jul 07, 2010 01:41 PM
Grant Hammond
Metropolitan Brokers, LLC - Nashville, TN
Nashville Homes

I have been steady building traffic to my Nashville real estate site, but despite the increased traffic, I am not really seeing an incremental increase in the number of clients. Are you guys getting a similar result? Thanks for all of the info you guys put out there to help us!

Feb 22, 2011 03:13 AM
Erik Pearson | Spring Hill TN Homes for Sale
Home and Country Realty - Spring Hill, TN

This is an interesting figure. Essentially, if I understand it right, SEM rush is using the Adwords marketplace to value a site's organic traffic (with a site only being as valuable as its traffic). Based on the assumption that Adwords bidders are efficient in finding the highest and best use of traffic and the assumption that the site in question uses traffic in the same way, then the figure that SEM rush returns should be a reasonably accurate valuation of a website. I wonder if they adjust for the fact that organic tends to get more clicks than sponsored. Maybe I should get out of real estate and go into SEO; all this stuff is fascinating to me.

Jan 16, 2012 05:04 AM
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