How good is a website for generating leads?

Question

As a real estate agent i was seriously considering paying a bunch of money to get my website on the first page of google.  Is it going to be worth it? Any tips?

Stuart Birdsong · Answer

Devin,

Truthfully, it is not going to be worth it if your website is not a lead generating website. I have learned this the expensive way. Most personal websites are just expensive business cards. that get passed over quickly no matter the content. You can blog, do youtube videos, etc.... to help with your SEO, but is this the best use of your time and resources. I was told when starting as a broker that a personal website does not generate more business for you. In my experience that has been the case.

You can hire a company such as Boomtown, Kunversions, or Tiger Leads to build you a personal home search website, and they will market it for you. This will, at a minimum, cost you around $1,000/month for the whole package. Depending on the service it will generate somewhere between 20-30 leads/month. I currently am starting with one of these companies to build the website, but outsourcing the ad campaigns as I can get a higher number of leads through another source. $1,500/month will generate 120-150 leads/ month. I, personally, can't service this many leads, but will have other buyers' agents tending to them. I realize these dollar amounts seem high, but given our median home price, this means I have to do 3-4 deals a year to break even. Typical Internet lead conversion is somewhere between 1-2% or better depending on how hard you work them.

Having said all of that, if you are trying to generate business from your website I recommend going this route, as it will provide a better ROI. If you are just looking for some exposure in your marketplace, then Adwerx or Global Media Advertising can be more cost effective ways to gain exposure. Even Facebook ads, are cost effective ways show up more often.

Best of luck to you!

Stuart

Matt M. · Answer

FORGET your website; FORGET SEO. You will never out rank the likes of zillow, realtor.com, estately, the local big hitters, etc, etc. It is a waste of money.

Get a basic site like I have with Weebly. Work your sphere, door knock, target fsbos, etc.(The basics) Hopefully you have an app you can give people to search for homes. If not, hopefully your MLS has this feature, and sign them up. Sign them up to get sold homes directly in their neighborhood too. Put everyone on your email list, and email them fun stuff each month.

Make sure you have a funnel setup to handle any and all leads coming in. Good Luck!

Todd Campbell · Answer

Hey Guys,

SEO used to be my bread and butter. As search engines have evolved they have been bettering their crawling and indexing algorithms in ways that try to get away from the generic key word hits. Instead, they are trying to use organic growth paired with relevant networking from other more established sources. To Al's point, a the generic content gets viewed more and more like white noise, and the special content, that content that drives readers back to your site, or generates referred viewership, that's what gets noticed.

I'm happy to review your site and make suggestions, or even recommend a couple of techniques to attempt to drum up more traffic. I think the biggest thing is to blog about your work in real estate, your passion, and your insights on a regular basis.

That invite goes to anyone here. I love investing and I love technology, feel free to pick my brain.

-todd

Dan Barrett · Answer

I'm so glad it's working with you, but I've had horrible experiences with Weebly - and have gotten paid a lot of money to redesign sites that started on Weebly.

If you want a drag/drop solution, Squarespace is a better service in my opinion. But to each his own! :-)

Jim Brown · Answer

@Antonio Coleman has some terrific blog posts on this subject.  Just search BP for his name and you should be able to see how effective a well designed website can be.

Trevor Ewen · Answer

@Devin  Mann

A colleague of mine just started working for Placester in Boston.

They are essentially offering a subscription Squarespace-like site for real estate agents. I would give their offering a look. These smaller startup companies usually have great customer service and potential for refunds, so it's a smart way to go if you're just trying things.

Al Williamson · Answer

SEO is an ever changing art BUT you can do well by focusing on a local area.

I would start with an SEO review on Fiverr.com.

I would also recommend that you start writing some articles about your target area so you can demonstrate your expertise.

A good website doesn't have generic content.

Best to you. Keep it real.

Devin Mann · Answer

@Abimael  Duran  the website i currently have drives 0 traffic to my website.  i've googled it a bunch of times but it still confuses me way too much.

Abimael Duran · Answer

Hi Devin!

I think this is something that crosses every agents mind at one point or another. but to answer that question I will ask one.

How good is your personal site at capturing leads?  You see, what is the point of paying so much money to drive traffic to your site if you can't capture good quality leads.

Google SEO. It explains a little bit as to how to drive traffic to your personal page by explaining the science behind googles search engine.

Devin Mann · Answer

As well. if anyone knows of a good person/company to hire please refer

How good is a website for generating leads?

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