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Why real estate leads are not finding you

November 4, 2010 By Tom Leave a Comment

Wondering where the leads are?Two data points that will make any real estate professional sit up and take notice:

•   Ninety percent of homebuyers start their home search on the Internet, according to the 2008 National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.
•    Seventy-three percent of Realtors® surveyed said they were not satisfied with the amount of leads they received off the Web.

Wait, what?

The vast majority of homebuyers are looking online, yet most agents are not being found as much as they would like? What’s going on here?

Here’s what’s happening: Online reviews, like those at Google, Yelp, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook and other sites are affecting online traffic, and determining who gets local leads.

Think about it. When someone goes to Google or Bing and searches for a Realtor in say, Del Mar, they see a list of seven to 10 Realtors. These Realtors achieved premium positioning by properly registering with the search engine, and accumulating the positive reviews that help them get to the top of the list.

And guess what? There are lots of Realtors in Del Mar, and everywhere else. But almost nobody doing a Google search, whether from their smart phone or on a computer,  is going to click to the second, third, fourth or 10th page of results.

And that’s a big reason why 73 percent of Realtors are not happy with the number of leads they’re getting from the Web.

Because their contact information is buried and no one is finding them!

If you’re a real estate pro and you want to generate more local, qualified leads, there are two things you need to do immediately:
•    Get registered in the right places.
•    Ask your happy clients to post positive reviews about you online.

That’s how you improve your search ranking and generate greater numbers of qualified local leads.

Search is evolving from paid and organic (both costly and very competitive) to the next stage — local. It’s still early in the local search game, which means the time to act is now. Put this off and you may find that you’re too late. Others are staking out their territory (and maybe yours) right now.

Contact us today to start generating more leads through local search.

Photo: Marco Belluci, via Creative Commons 2.0.

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Increase click-throughs by more than 500%? They did.

August 31, 2010 By Tom 1 Comment

Word-of-mouth recommendations are more powerful and persuasive than slick advertising.

Real stories from real people who have done business with you demonstrate the value you provide in ways that self-serving marketing statements just can’t. That’s why third-party reviews at sites like Yelp and Google Places are becoming critically important to your reputation – and ultimately your sales.

It’s about trust, and reviews help build trust.

Reviews also help build traffic, as proven recently by Intuit, provider of QuickBooks, and Bazaarvoice, a company that enables Web-based reviews. ProAdvisors are consultants and trainers certified in QuickBooks, and those with reviews in their profiles are 555% more likely to get click-throughs than their peers without reviews.

What’s more, the rating doesn’t matter as much as the number of reviews. A business showing a four out of possible five-star rating that had 10 reviews attracts more clicks than a five-star rating with only two reviews. This means that volume matters, so it’s time to start generating reviews now.

This is true for real estate professionals as well as other small businesses.

Let us know if you need help claiming your Google Places or Yelp listing, or you need any help at all with your review program.

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It’s time to optimize your marketing for local search

August 16, 2010 By Tom Leave a Comment

The revolution will not necessarily be televised.

But it will definitely be texted, tweeted, Googled and photographed in mega-pixel magnificence.

It’s nothing TechCrunch readers haven’t been exposed to over and over. Or that  the millions of people who bought iPhones in the last few years haven’t known all along. But the idea that high-powered handsets are going to change the world is finally real for me.

I started using a Droid X recently, and I get it now. I got it last Friday night, when the MapQuest print out led us astray. I turned to the Droid and asked it how to get us where we were trying to go. We thought we were miles away, but it was a quick u-turn to the Stone Brewery — and we made it just in time for our reservation.

Once there I checked in with FourSquare, and got some valuable tips from previous patrons. I took pictures. I enjoyed myself.  And I have some opinions about the food, service and overall atmosphere that I will be sharing on Yelp.

My experience, in aggregate with the thousands of others who visit Stone this year, is going to become part of a permanent public record that will either be good for Stone’s business, or bad.

A trend will eventually emerge — a majority of people will say they love the place, or that it sucks. And that will have some veracity and real influence in the decison-making process of other prospects and customers. It’s a dynamic that smarter real estate professionals  know they can’t afford to ignore.

Again, this is pretty much old news in some quarters, but the winning Realtors of the future will be those who are the first to master:

  • Mobile search that facilitates real-time decision making
  • Connecting and engaging on social media platforms
  • Really listening to customers, and managing to give them what they say they want

That future is here already. Adapting to it is not rocket science. In fact it’s pretty simple. If you in real estate, it is imperative that you optimize your marketing for the new realities of hand-held search. At the very least, you need to:

  • Set up your Google Places page (and do it correctly)
  • Have a Facebook presence that generates leads for your business
  • Respond to reviews on Google Places, Yelp, etc.
  • Control your local presence at Yahoo and Bing, as well as Google

Of course, you have homes to sell, and no time to spend on this stuff. But it’s critical, in this economy, to stay competitive. The future of your business depends upon it.

If you haven’t taken these steps yet, call us today at 858.922.3006, and we’ll get you started.

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