Why do I get real estate leads from the web?
Eric Richardson is the VP of Agent Sales for a la mode and an active real estate agent. He has over 10 years of experience in marketing, real estate, and all combinations of the two. He’s a certified instructor and has taught thousands of appraisers and agents how to use technology to boost their businesses.
I talk to no less than 20 agents a day. “That’s about normal with showings and cross-selling”, you say? Nope, not for me. You see, I’m that “techie guy” in the office. So I’ve made a lot of friends in the industry really quickly. And more than half the time the first question I get is “How do I get leads from my website?”
The first thing that I ask is, “What does your site say to your visitors?” That’s when I usually get a quirky tilt of the head with that far away quizzical look – that’s answer enough. But when I dig deeper, the root of the problem is always the same. Their content is generic and as stale as three day old bread.
On the Web, content is King. And if yours isn’t solid, online leads will be hard to come by. Here’s a list of rules I stick to when it comes to writing my web content. I don’t mean for you to rush out and try all of them tomorrow. But they’ve worked for me, and I bet my next listing they’ll work for you.
Start offline. When I first launched my site, almost none of my traffic was a direct result of search engines. So I changed my focus. I started with the small things.
At the time, I was communicating with all of my past clients via e-mail, and I made 100% sure that my URL was in my e-mail signature. I also changed my voicemail message to direct people to my website. And when I started getting into printed postcards, I made sure that at least 25% of the printed area was devoted to my website. Even now, most of my traffic comes from the offline marketing I
do. And I get hundreds of hits each week.
Engage prospects with information that buyers or sellers can identify with. Talk about your area. Why would they (or you) want to live there? Is your school district rated highest in your community? Is your area considered a historic area? What features does your area offer that your visitors would want to read about and how do you fit into this? All of these things are more important than the awards you won at last year’s annual banquet.
Be proactive. Point them to links that are useful. If you like working with sellers, point traffic to your XSites home value estimator. If you’d rather work with buyers, point them out to the Steps to buying video. The point is, don’t leave anything vague on your homepage. This is the first impression that your visitors will have about you.
Don’t compartmentalize. I see a lot of my agent friends that segment everything on their site. So the only place that you can talk about schools is on the “Schools” page. That doesn’t have to be the case. If it’s relevant information and it flows with the context of your farming area, mention it on the homepage of your website. Buyers with new families are looking for this very information. Making them dig for it defeats the purpose.
Blog till it hurts. Blogging is the new communication for web surfers everywhere. It’s a content rich feature that search engines love and it shows your visitors that you get what marketing is all about. So what exactly do you blog about? Everything. Did you have a recent scenario where you saved a closing that was almost off the table? Write about it. Do you have an insight to that new subdivision that’s going in right down the street? Write about it.
There aren’t any boundaries when it comes to blog posts. So just write about everything, keep it concise and people will read and respond.
Go on a diet. You’ve seen them – the websites where you feel like you’ve stepped off into a never ending stream of button links, cheesy animation, and cutesy pictures. Here’s a rule of thumb - if you have to scroll more than twice to see all of your buttons on your site, put your website on a diet.
You don’t have to have a button for everything you want to say. Keep it thin and keep it on target. People visit REALTORS websites to see homes. I make my website very easy to navigate. I have two buttons right on the front page that are very easy to see. I have a “Buyers” button and a “Sellers” button. No matter which one you are, there’s an easy button for you to get right into the action.
Don’t hold people hostage. The deadliest sin, and the one I see most often is the “I’m not getting any leads on my website so I am going to put a required sign-in sheet before people can see anything on my site” mindset.
I call this the “please wave goodbye as you leave my site approach”. There are simply too many other real estate websites out there that offer information for free - and home buyers and sellers know it. Starting a friendship out of obligation is no easy ticket to success.
As a REALTOR, the best way to make your site a success is to stop looking at websites as those “techie things”, and embrace them as the hub of our marketing. The content on our sites has to be as compelling as a fac e-to-face meeting, and provide at least that much local expertise. Without that type of commitment, we’ll always wonder, “Why am I not getting any leads”?
Want to get published?
Have you always dreamed of sharing your coolest ideas with the world? Do you want to be known as a thought leader in the industry? Do you want to be able to tell clients that you’re a published real estate expert? Now you can.
If you’ve got a knack for writing, we’re looking for more agents to contribute to the Marketing Insider. If you’re interested, contact our Agent Marketing Manager at . He’ll give you all of the details on the upcoming editions of the Insider so you can get your articles submitted.
