Real Estate SEO: all Traffic is not Created Equal

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:35:42 GMT

Did you know that your website can rank number 1 for the phrase "Your City Real Estate", and still be a miserable failure? Read on....

So the telemarketer calls you, and you being the internet expert, the conversation goes something like this:

"SEO" Telemarketer: Do you know that we can get your website onto the top twenty of the search engines?
You: Why not the Top Ten?
"SEO" Telemarketer: OK the top ten.
You:And?..
"SEO" Telemarketer: We will get you in the top ten.
You: Sooo?...
"SEO" Telemarketer: You will get a bunch of traffic.
You: And that means to meeeee??....
"SEO" Telemarketer: You will get leads.
You: Do you even own a website kid? I want sales!

Somehow the SEO industry has done a job of making Realtors start at the beginning instead of starting with the end in mind.

Since that kid can't control your ability to get leads and convert them to a sale. He has to draw you in on the assumption that traffic equates to leads and sales. That is a big assumption.

The SEO industry has done a great job of proliferating the notion that being number whatever for a few BIG phrases will make your business. In fact, it takes a wide range of keywords to cause you to have traffic.

Here is a little exercise for you to try: Sit down and write all the localities in your marketplace. OK.

Now write down all the real estate words you can think of.

If you carried this exercise out to its fruition, then you would have over a thousand real estate phrases that relate to your marketplace.

This is part one of getting more buyer and seller leads.

So, we want to represent your marketplace (thru keywords) onto WebPages that serve to get your visitor to opt into your listings and/or newsletter.

Thus, part two, is optimizing your pages to cause you to get visitors to convert to registered leads. I have coined this as Lead Optimization.

What is Your Outcome?

More Traffic? More Positions? More Leads? or More Sales?

Depending where you start out in this scenario will leave you with possibly, unwanted results. Someone who tells us he wants to be number one for "City Real Estate", will get tremendously different results than the person who tells us to get him more sales.

By at least starting out with your stated goal that you want more leads, it forces an SEO Company like mine to adjust our strategy to make it so that we cause you to get as far as we can take you. That is the GOAL is to get you more that cause more sales. Instead of being number one or two for a keyword.

In fact, it is rare that I will take on a new client that has not stated his or her goal as more lead generation.

Tim O'Keefe is President and CEO of http://SpiderJuiceTechnologies.com . Specializing in
Real Estate Broker Agent SEO, his company creates leads and traffic generation and conversion. 310-533-9145

Real Estate Market Goes Up, Commissions Down, Criticism up

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:44:08 GMT

Real Estate Market Goes Up, Commissions Down, Criticism up

In a recent Real Estate Journal they comment on what Inman has recently coined the "agent bubble". Where, as an example there is one licensed agent per 75 people. The number of real-estate agents has grown even faster than total commissions. Membership in the National Association of Realtors has grown to 1.25 million, a 63% increase since 2000.

From the Journal "As home prices soared in recent years, so did the percentage-based commissions charged by agents. Residential real-estate commissions in the U.S. totaled $61 billion in 2004, up 42% from 2000, estimates Real Trends, an industry publication. That's bad news for people who buy or sell homes. But isn't this trend at least making Realtors happy?"

First of all, to use this as reason to bash agents for making more money is short sighted. There are many reasons for the increased earnings per house. One is that these Realtors have sold enough homes to put more people into homes than ever in history. They have been working.

Also, it is commission per house sold. When your commission is based on the sales price you will pay more as a consumer.

Try having an agent go into a listing appointment and offer a flat price of $8,000 instead of 5% which would equate to say $30,000 to list their home.

However, this is an upfront price. Pay me now Vs pay me later. In the current pay me later scenario the agent takes on all the risk if it does not sell. Unless of course the agent is not qualified and hurts the sale, negotiation or processing of the close.

You can even guarantee the sale minus some sort of expense schedule. It will be a very difficult proposition to get the seller to. Why? Because the seller does not want to pay for the sale upfront.

He either is tight fisted or simply is waiting for the proceeds to pay for the commissions.

From the Journal "As a result, there's not even close to enough commission income to keep all those agents in Porsches. The median annual income of real-estate sales agents in 2004 was only $37,600, down from $39,300 in 2002, according to the Realtors. Even that figure overstates agents' well-being. Because most agents are independent contractors rather than employees of the firms where they work, they need to pay out of their own pockets for such things as health insurance, pension plans, driving customers to see homes, and even pumpkins".

I am sure this is a shocker to most consumers who see the glitz, and not the work an agent puts into running a small business. Of course this fly's right by so called experts that see the agent population as a necessary rip-offs. The average agent only does about 5 or 6 sides a year for goodness sake!

From the Journal : "Mr. Hsieh, an associate professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, ..... explain what's wrong with America's real-estate brokerage business: Rather than competing on the price of their services, agents tend to spend heavily on marketing gimmicks -- and pass that cost to the consumer." He was referring to a reference in the article about agents flooding homeowners with pumpkins, and Tommy Hopkins type stuff.

This misses the point entirely. Instead of competing on price, the agent needs to separate him/herself from the rest of the pack of licensees. The challenge throughout the country, as it is in Californ ia where there is an agent for every 75 people, is that it leaves less sides per agent. Why?

Because many agents get into the business knowing two or three people that will buy or sell thru them. After that initial success, they either fly or die. This is why the churn rate of active Realtors is so high. However, what is troubling is that this recent influx of agents makes it even more difficult to survive.

But that is how it has always been. I remember talking with a local broker who used to own a Big Franchise. He told me that their whole approach was churn. Train them, find out who they know. Teach them to sell to who they know, and who those people know. A "6 degrees of separation" kind of thing. He told me that they knew the vast majority would leave the business, as they recruited more potential licensees.

I guess you can say they leveraged the 80:20 rule. The problem is that most agents throw money at every vendor pitched gimmick out there in the hope and promise of big pay days.

More from the Journal: "Of course, some agents do get rich. Those most successful at selling luxury housing can earn more than $1 million a year. Even in average neighborhoods, the best-known agents tend to get the bulk of the listings because homeowners want a proven performer. In 2004, Realtors with 26 years of experience or more had median income of $92,600, up 37% from two years before..."Somebody is paying more -- us, consumers -- but nobody is better off," Mr. Hsieh says. He calls it the "tragedy of the commission."

$92,600 is rich? This quote above is bothersome as this kind of talk only obfuscates the issue. The commissions are the same as they always have been. It is always 3.5% to 6%. If the market is hot, and an agent wants that listing, they take less of a %.

If it gets tight the agents demand more of a %. Agents may not advertise this, but it has been going on thru history. The challenge is that the actual dollar earned is more because of increased home prices.

So competition for listings cause price drops generally more than the increase in agents. But with more agents comes more competition. And with more competition the promotional costs go up.

And as my ex partner, used to say." Your Client today pays for your past lost clients". Escrows that fall out, prospects that jump ship after showing them a jillion homes, etc.

"But as Mr. Hsieh and other academics have found, a large number of competitors doesn't necessarily mean lots of price competition. Commission rates have come down only modestly in recent years. Real Trends estimates that the average fell to 5.1% in 2004, the latest year for which survey data are available, from 5.5% in 1998."

The problem, is not increased costs of sale. The problem is that agents think a pumpkin dropped at someone's door will win the loyalty of that client. The answer, in my humble opinion, is to make the State Tests more restrictive. It is still way too easy to pass b.s. continuing education credits and State exams. Feel free to comment on our blogging site.

Tim O'Keefe :: Spider Juice Technologies, Inc
Real Estate Search Engine Marketing: SEO, PPC, Traffic, Lead Generation and Lead Follow-up. 310-533-9145

Articles, Newsletters, & Videos from Spider Juice Technologies

Real Estate SEO: all Traffic is not Created Equal

Did you know that your website can rank number 1 for the phrase "Your City Real Estate", and still be a miserable failure? Read on.... So the telemarketer calls you, and you being the internet expert, the conversation goes something like this:

Real Estate Market Goes Up, Commissions Down, Criticism up

Did you know that your website can rank number 1 for the phrase "Your City Real Estate", and still be a miserable failure? Read on....

So the telemarketer calls you, and you being the internet expert, the conversation goes something like this: