The dirty secret that no one wants to tell real estate brokers
You know that 90% of home buyers start their search online.
And most buyers first ‘make contact’ while looking at real estate and related information at a website.
And they often find the website they make contact from by searching related keywords at websites like Google.
Now Google “Your market area Homes for Sale” like “Danville, CA Homes for Sale”. Do you notice that for the most part, it is aggregator sites like Realtor.com, Trulia.com, Homegain.com and then a few agents that are always coming up at the top of the page?
If you are not on the first page, prospects looking for real estate in your area are not going to find you by the most popular way that people find agents these days.
Do you notice that not a lot of broker offices come up at all?
The aggregator sites are using your information to attract website searchers to get prospect and lead information that they then sell back into your market!
They are using your information to help your competition, or anyone that will pay the going rate for real estate leads that day.
Internet lead’s come from 3 sources:
1.SEO is when people find you from Google, Yahoo, etc.
2. SEM is that plus all the other ways people find you on the Internet.
3. Referral Traffic is when people get to your website from another website that is linked to your website (your listings are probably being used by others here as well!)
Two equations will simplify closing business from Online Marketing:
1. More Content = More SEO/SEM/Referral Traffic = More Leads
2. More Leads + Good Business Practices = More Closings
Search Facts:
1. Content underlies SEO, SEM and referral website traffic (lead sources).
2. Rich listing data and local area and market information is the best and most searched for content on the Internet.
Rich Listing Data is the detailed information about your listings that only exist on the listing broker and agent website vs. the basic information sent out via IDX to the MLS and every other website on the Internet. You own the most seached for information already!
3. The local broker has access to biggest total combination of Rich Listing Data (detailed property information, pictures, virtual tours, documents, etc) and local information vs. either the corporate office or any agent in their office.
The broker can put ALL of the office listing’s Rich Listing Data on their website (potentially dozens and hundreds), vs. agents only have their own listings (most likely in the single digits.
Putting it all together:
SEO is one part content and one part code.
By properly integrating the marketing of your listing’s along with local and market information, a local broker can FAR surpass any corporate office or agent in SEO, SEM and website referral incoming traffic.
The good news is that local brokers are also in the best position to CONVERT those incoming leads.
The main websites that will link traffic/prospects to your website are Trulia, Craig’s List, Zillow, etc.
Why Brokers Trump Agents Everytime
A major part of SEO is the number of ‘quality’ links that point to your website. Quality in this case means other real estate related websites. Google figures that if other websites that it has already classified as being real estate websites are linking to your website, then it must mean that your website is really good. The better Google thinks your website is, the more likely it will be shown to its users when they are searching keyword terms that would lead them to your website.
This means simply, the more listings on all of these websites that are pointing back to your website, the more powerful you website becomes for generating traffic via SEO in addition to the Website Referral Traffic.
Agents at best have several listings that just simply do not compare in being able to attract SEO and Website Referral Traffic of the broker.
Most top offices now have their listings fed to Trulia via XML though there are many offices where it is left up to the agent to put their listings on, and then the listing points to an agent site or worse a single property website. NOTE: I do not think a single property website has ever come up on a Google search for ‘homes for sale’ or ‘real estate’ the two major keyword groupings along with the location name.
Or worse, the listing could be on Trulia but linking to the corporate website which then either takes hours or days to get lead information BACK to you or they send out a form email with the filled out data that really does not tell the agent much.
Imagine having every single listing going back to your broker website, where you have email/phone 800 prominently displayed going to a single point of contact to appropriately handle all inbound inquires.
At Craig’s List it takes Server and FTP access to create the level of traffic potentially available. Very few agents have Server and FTP access. Email me a request for a link to a current Craig’s List Ad. My Craig’s List Ad’s are better at generating web traffic and leads than Craig Procter’s and I’ll show you!
Broker website traffic from Craig’s List can be as high as Trulia and much higher than any other source on the Internet when done right. And the data from Google Analytics shows that Craig’s List traffic is very good traffic.
See a broker profile on Zillow here and a listing here. Notice the 800# in the listing information (yes, people call this!) with customer service personnel ready to answer, qualify and route any lead as necessary.
By having all the listings on all these sites means that potentially 1,000s of great SEO links are helping to increase your SEO standing! Vs. every agent having a dozen or so links going to their website which would obviously not compete with a broker.
Setting it up for Success
How you get your listing’s on these crucial sites is as critical as putting them on there in the first place. If you use an intermediary service that step’s in between you and the prospect, then it is probably hardly worth the money or time. The listings need to be branded by you, not a third party vendor linking back to them or one of their sites.
By creating an Office Profile you present a clear brand to the market and ensure every listing is posted which creates more Referral Traffic and SEO Traffic (surveys show less than 30% of office listings are on Zillow and of those 15% are posted by OTHER AGENTS!).
Also consider that it is a common advertising maxim that it takes many impressions of your message and brand on a person before it has an impact, let alone a desired result. Again, the broker has as many opportunities as the office has listings to achieve this goal vs. each agent’s 1-3 at best.
Now that you know how to leverage your listings and other information to maximize your website traffic via SEO, SEM and Website Referral Traffic, what you next is the key between a website visitor and a lead for your agents.
More than likely, your home page is not the most visited page of your website. If you are active in SEO, SEM and Referral Website Traffic almost any page on your website is likely to be ‘landed’ on by prospects.
Rotating call-to-action banners and Landing Pages
By analyzing Google Analytics, you will be able to make observations about your website visitors that will allow you to craft unique ‘call-to-actions’ that have a goal of getting them to either sign-up for a property search or to give you their contact information for some other information (open house info, school report, etc).
How your call-to-actions are written and presented are critical in making it easy for the prospect to do business with you.
Think like Amazon.com
People are at your website for only a few reasons. The quicker you make getting to the information they want with One Click and add value at the same time, the more likely you will achieve your website goals.
This is where looking at the Google Analytics data is key. You have to make sure that you are putting the right message in front of the right person as much as possible without leaving out any key markets.
Landing Pages: The Soldiers of Your Website
The best landing pages are about specific actions or promotions (Free Home Warranty, Seller’s Guarantee, etc) or specific sales markets / key words (Danville, CA Homes for Sale or a particular neighborhood or condominium complex perhaps).
A good landing page maximizes SEO and SEM on many levels as well as providing the prospect with One Click ability to find what they are looking for. Someone searching for San Ramon Real Estate, Homes for Sale etc could easily find this page here, which gives them numerous ways to One Click the information they expect to find and it includes other reasons to contact us.
It is important to create appropriate call-to-actions on every page of your website while also having specific Landing Pages supporting your SEO and conversion efforts while giving prospects Amazon.com like One Click ability to find what they are looking for.
Make is clear and easy for people to do business with you and more business will come to you.
You have a lead, now what? Or, "Not all leads are created equal."
Getting a lead to an agent is one of the most critical aspects of actually closing Online leads. Why? If you give a lead to the right agent in the right way (put the right person in the right place at the right time with the right information), your chances of closing it and getting the revenue are much higher.
But you cannot just GIVE an agent the lead, there has to be an exchange of information from the person giving the lead to the person getting the lead. And it has to be immediate.
If an agent is getting 'a notification' of a lead from an email system, all interviews I have done tell me it is about worthless. And that is true, most leads are worthless. And if they are not worthless, the time it takes until they close can be over a year!! Agents soon learn that they are just 'wasting' their time with tire kickers and quickly lose interest in even receiving new leads.
On the other hand, hot leads only last for minutes sometimes, and hours most of the time (I have had agents tell me this after they learn that another agent had been emailed first but never responded or responded late, etc).
If the lead is not to the agent within 15-20 minutes of the prospect clicking 'send', 'enter', etc. forget about it. A good way to think about it is, take 10% off the chance of closing it every hour an agent does not respond. So if you are getting leads hours or even the day after they made contact it is likely that they will not go with your agent.
Why? Internet browsers typically visit more than a few websites looking at more than a few properties that may catch their interest. So they very easily could email 2, 3 or more offices. Most of the time none of them will respond 'right away', but when an agent does, the close rate skyrockets.
Figuring out 'what is up with leads' is most definiatly not the strength of most sales people. Many companies have dedicated departments called Customer Service to deal with inbound leads and calls before ever 'turning them over' to sales people.
Lead Qualification
Before ever 'turning a lead over' to a sales person (Realtor), contact, and preferably voice, must be made between the prospect and the office. When an inbound lead is received, either by email, phone, etc. an office representative must immediately be able to respond appropriately providing whatever information is being sought along with 'upselling' the person on the agent's services.
"Yes, this is still for sale, I will have one or our agents that knows this home call you with the details. Are you currently working with an agent?....."
A professional that is available and able to respond 24/7 is obviously critical as well as being trained to 'handle' the lead in both questioning and distributing. That is not too much to ask for is it?
Lead Distribution
AND THEN......... a call must be made to the agent that is going to be able to respond to the lead either right away, the next day, etc as requested by the prospect.
Emailing a notification to an agent that is in a concert with their blackberry turned off is obviously not going to work when the prospect wants to talk now about another broker's listing!! And that happens.
The office representative can give the agent all the information they need including any 'sense' of the prospect that they gained during their conversation which will put the agent in a MUCH better position of then meeting that prospects needs and asking for the committment for business.
By setting the agent up for success out of the gate with the prospect, you give your agent a major advantage in getting the business of that person.
Keep in mind the power to generate traffic and leads that a broker website will achieve when it has every single listing pointing back to the broker site vs. each agent sending their 1-2 listings back to their sites. It is David vs. Golaith, but in this case, Golaith wins. And all it takes in one broker to get all the leads from SEO in any one market.
To ensure you receive these e-mails, please add email.zillow.com to your e-mail address book.
Improve your Google ranking with Zillow's help
Want to show up higher in results on search engines like Google? We can help. Zillow has a lot of "Google Juice" and we want to share it with you. By using Zillow and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you, too, can boost your Google search results.
Don't be scared - it's pretty easy.
Here are 3 tips:
1. Post your listings on Zillow with good links to your site - Zillow is one of very few sites where your listings actually improve your Google ranking. To enjoy this, make sure your listings on Zillow link to your Web site - preferably with links to the exact listing pages on your site.
2. Join the Zillow Professional Directory - When you create an active profile on Zillow, it will automatically load into our "Find a Pro" directory. Make sure the link to your Web site from the Zillow Directory is accurate so your ranking on Google improves.
3. Update and optimize your Zillow Profile - Complete or update the "About Me" section of your Zillow Profile. In your description, use keywords that you want to be recognized for in Google and link those words to your Web site or blog. By using links to your Web site within Zillow, your profile gains authority in the search engines.
Bottom line: The more active you are on Zillow - through your listings, profile, directory, or discussions - the better your Web site or blog performs. Learn more about how to ensure that your listings are helping you to rank in Google.
Search Engine Marketing: Good writing leads to good SEO.
The importance of writing: Local content, call’s-to-action, blogs, etc.
Headlines are keywords strung together to increase SEO
(Since SEO is what people are searching, it makes sense, this is a good thing)
Anyone can post local information and links. It is important to do this correctly so that you maximize both SEO and SEM potential. There are not many agents that do this at all, let alone do it well.
Knowing how to create the right content, posting it properly both structurally and organizationally, is the difference between people finding you or your website living in obscurity.
Headlines sell, but they also have the power to attract when done right on the Internet.
There are probably hundreds of “city real estate” reports running around on the Internet. But you can greatly increase the chances that it is your “city real estate” report that is found.
During my time as the head of Internet Sales at PR Newswire for the West Coast I learned a lot about this.
Your Office is an Information Resource
A smart broker will co-opt their agent’s as the experts in their markets by creating a publisher/writer relationship with agreeable agents; publishing local reports on the broker website or blog with the agents contact information and link to their website given.
When done correctly, the agent’s information will be presented better and will be seen by many more people potentially than if it were on the agents’ own website. This makes the agent an ‘authority figure’ to everyone that comes to the office website, which is now a lot because all the SEO, SEM and referral traffic!
Good content (interesting topic, well written and laid-out nicely), written and posted properly, is an easy, but mostly untapped way to gain the best kind of SEO there is. Organic and unpaid from people searching for exactly what you are ‘writing’ about.
This is when success can start building on success as far as SEO and SEM and when the website can really attract leads which are then given back to the agents.
That leads to increased SEO and leads for both.
This is such a new area that is not being taken advantage of for many reasons.
But Broker’s could easily provide agents with editorial guideline and content requirements and then post to the main office
Another reason that an office blog in some form is critical is that when an agent leaves your office, the blogs and other content leave with them.
Broker Level (real estate) Marketing is based on the fact that there are brokers all over the United States that have profitable Online Marketing programs. But that there are the other 99% that are struggling to even make a business case for it, though you know "You have to do it."
With over 90% of people starting their real estate search Online, tapping into this market for growth, or even survival, is crucial. If you do not do it, another smart broker will.
The first broker/agent/Realtor to make the relationship with the Online customer usually gets the business.
On the Internet, quality and quantity of search information, along with other factors, directly influences the traffic, number of potential clients, coming to your website.
If 90% of people start their real estate journey on the Internet, where do Internet leads come from?
Website SEO, SEM, Website Referral Traffic and other marketing. That is from every Internet person and Google Analytic statistic that I have ever spoken with or seen.
And for real estate, SEO, SEM and Website Referral Traffic all start from the Broker's Listing's and local market information.
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