Internet Marketing for Real Estate Professionals
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Click Through Rate - Make Sure You Check Your Cost
With all of the great tools that Google has to report to you what is going on with your ads, campaigns, and keywords it is quite easy to get soley focused on a few stats and the one that is, in my opinion, the easiest to get focused on is CTR or Click Through Rate. Now obviously this is a very important part of the Google formula. Google uses CTR to judge how effective your ad is and by that where you will place combined with your bid amount. That is not the point of this post however. Today I want to make sure you focus on your cost per conversion. This is how much you are paying to get a lead or to get a purchase. In real estate you are paying for a chance to help someone with real estate information.
So the cost you pay is very important. We find that at least 1 out of every 10 leads that we receive is ready to meet with us today. Now of course we have to ask them to meet with us but we find this to be true time and time again over the number of leads our team generates every month. Keeping an eye on the cost is key. We of course always want the lowest cost per lead possible and are always looking at our ads to drive the cost down. Currently our cost is just slightly over $10.32 per lead for our condo website. The average commission on condos we sell, we focus on the entry level, is $7,950. We know that it will take at least 10 leads or $103.20 to get 1 solid buying appointment and 25% of the time that person will buy within the next 90 days. So we pay $412.00 for each closed sale or a 19.29 times our money in return. That that is just within 90 days as we know that another 25% of those will also buy within 12 months and we just have to follow-up with them.
So with all of these numbers you want to focus on your ads and your cost per lead. Make sure that you use Googles conversion code in your website. Have your webmaster put it in for you so you can judge the ultimate success of your landing pages.
Labels: google pay per click, landing page, PPC Campaigns, real estate pay per click
Thursday, October 18, 2007
5 Tips to Increase Page Visibility
As you are adding to your web presence, it is important that when you do add content that it is viewed by as many people as possible. Here are 5 tips to increase your page visibility:
- Focused Content - Don't try to accomplish too much in 1 page. When you write a page concentrate on a particular topic (like california first time buyers, or condos in Long Beach) so the meaning of your page will be clear to visitors and to the search engines.
- PPC Ad - Create a PPC ad on Google and Yahoo and direct it to your page. A nice targeted group of words and phrases can bring that traffic you are looking for.
- Site Map - Make sure to update your site map to reflect that you have added a new page. Optimally you will have physical HTML page as for a sitemap as well as an XML sitemap. Keeping this up to date will help your the spiders to see you regularly update your website and bring them back more often :)
- BLOG Post - As are are all BLOGGING, put up a blog post providing a snippet of information about your new page. Maybe it is about a new loft development or a new loan program, whatever it is, give a hint about it on your blog and link back to your website!
- Internal Linking - Hopefully the content you are creating is somewhat related to other areas within your website. Link from one of your other pages in your website (optimally one that is indexed already) and link to your new page!
Following these 5 tips everytime you ad new content will belp increase the visibility of your new pages. With powerful Calls to Action, you will be able to quickly get some contacts out of those new pages ! Good luck.
Labels: BLOG, Google, PPC Campaigns, real estate blog, Sitemap, xml, Yahoo
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Traffic Generating Keywords vs. Conversion Keywords
As you are continuing to practice your SEO skills through development of content and use of tools like WordTracker to find the most often searched words, sometimes we lose track of which words are the ones generating traffic and which ones are actually leading to conversions.
The high volume search phrases "myarea real estate" are usually the most competitive and many strive to show up on the first page of Google so you can get those customers, but are they converting for you? It very well may, but before you spend more time writing up pages and garnering those coveted back links take a look at which words are really working for you. Here is a small sample from one of our websites. This is a snapshot from Google Analytics of some terms that are providing traffic to our Long Beach Condos website.
(the first column next to the keywords is the number of visitors, 2nd column is # of pages visited, and the last column is the average time spent on the website)
Now, note the same portion of the report, but we have a view of the word phrases that are converting.
Now, note the same portion of the report, but we have a view of the word phrases that are converting.
(the column next to the words is the number of conversions for that phrase)
Hmmm, they aren't the same! This is important as you are working on your website as you may want to add content, create PPC ads, or put up some BLOG posts for the words that are converting.
Now, dig in your reporting tool deep so you can find out what is going on. We looked and found that the plural version of one the phrases we listed above "long beach lofts" is converting so we added some more content and kept our ads running for that so we can continue get contacts from our website.
Now, dig in your reporting tool deep so you can find out what is going on. We looked and found that the plural version of one the phrases we listed above "long beach lofts" is converting so we added some more content and kept our ads running for that so we can continue get contacts from our website.
Labels: BLOG, conversion words, google analytics, keywords, pay per click, PPC Campaigns, word phrases
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
5 tips on how you can increase the time a user spends on your website
Increasing the time that a visitor stays on your website, increases the likely hood that they will contact you! This metric has been focused on a great deal by companies that run e-commerce websites, but we should be focusing on it as well. Here are 5 tips on how you can increase the time a user spends on your website.
- Pay Per Click Campaigns - Ensure that when you a user visits the landing page, it is what was advertised in the advertisement. For example, if you are advertising "Get a Free Foreclosure List" in your ad, and then the ad takes them to your "Home Page", it is unlikely you will get that user sticking around on your website!
- Links on Every Page - The navigation menus that you have on your website should not be the only way to navigate through your website. Within every page of content you should be linking to other areas WITHIN your website that can provide additional value. This way a user can stay on your website to learn more and see that you are the expert!
- Quality Content - Getting content from your title officer or the library of sources from your template provider is nice, but it is not unique! Concentrate on writing up content about your area from the perspective that only you can provide. Help people learn about neighborhoods, condos, homes, and more through your eyes!
- Calls to Action - Providing great content is essential, but you must also give them a reason to contact you. Make appropriate calls to action like "If you like this neighborhood, get the FREE list of Homes available" or "With lovely tree lined streets here in Bixby Knolls, use our FREE Long Beach MLS to see what is available".
- Multi Media - Sounds obvious, but enrich your pages with pictures, videos, or sound. Great products, like Instant Audio, allow you to put sound on your website for Testimonials or just explaining about your area.
Concentrating on these aspects of your web presence will increase a visitors time on your website and get you more contacts out of the same number of visitors! Our websites have increased by over 1 minute per visitor in just the past month, just by updating some of our Pay Per Click campaigns! :)
Labels: anchor text links, landing page, marketing real estate web site, pay per click, PPC Campaigns, real estate internet marketing, real estate leads, real estate pay per click
Monday, July 23, 2007
Guarantee You Always Run the Right Ad on Google?
If you are focusing or at least are running pay per click ads for your real estate website you want to make sure that you are focusing on always running the right ad. So how can you do this? Well there is a way to make sure that your real estate pay per click ads are fine tuned and operating at the best of their abilities. We walk about a great website today of http://www.splittester.com/. This website is completely FREE and in fact tells you which ad it recommends that you run.
This post is about running ads on Google Adwords and works with their system. It may also help you with your MSN or Yahoo campaigns but the site has been designed for Google.
The great thing that I always like about the Internet is the ability to test an ad's effectiveness. In fact the greatest part is that you can test the effectiveness immediately. Now especially in pay per click advertising you want to make sure you are only spending on ads that you want to.
Hopefully everyone is always running two ads at a time. With Google Adwords you can run different ad variations for the same set of keywords. I always recommend to friends and co-workers to run two ads as Google will run the ad that it deems is the most relevant. They determine this by judging based on the CTR (Click Through Rate). This is simply (number of times the ad is shows)\(number of times the ad has been clicked). As the ads run the one with the higher click through rate will be shown more often. It is hard to judge just by this number which is the better ad. Now since we always want the best chance at success we want to always be testing new messages. If you can get a CTR rate above 1% you are on your way. It is not uncommon for us to have some of our ads have CTR rates above 15% or 17% it just depends on the words and the ad that is running.
A great site http://www.splittester.com/ helps you judge the effectiveness of your ads. This site was created by Perry Marshall and if you have not had a chance to read any of his books on Google I would highly recommend them. I hope this site helps everyone judge the effectiveness of their ads!
This post is about running ads on Google Adwords and works with their system. It may also help you with your MSN or Yahoo campaigns but the site has been designed for Google.
The great thing that I always like about the Internet is the ability to test an ad's effectiveness. In fact the greatest part is that you can test the effectiveness immediately. Now especially in pay per click advertising you want to make sure you are only spending on ads that you want to.
Hopefully everyone is always running two ads at a time. With Google Adwords you can run different ad variations for the same set of keywords. I always recommend to friends and co-workers to run two ads as Google will run the ad that it deems is the most relevant. They determine this by judging based on the CTR (Click Through Rate). This is simply (number of times the ad is shows)\(number of times the ad has been clicked). As the ads run the one with the higher click through rate will be shown more often. It is hard to judge just by this number which is the better ad. Now since we always want the best chance at success we want to always be testing new messages. If you can get a CTR rate above 1% you are on your way. It is not uncommon for us to have some of our ads have CTR rates above 15% or 17% it just depends on the words and the ad that is running.
A great site http://www.splittester.com/ helps you judge the effectiveness of your ads. This site was created by Perry Marshall and if you have not had a chance to read any of his books on Google I would highly recommend them. I hope this site helps everyone judge the effectiveness of their ads!
Labels: paid ads, pay per click, PPC Campaigns, real estate internet marketing solution, real estate marketing online, real estate pay per click
Monday, July 16, 2007
3 Tips to Increase the CTR(Click Through Rate) in your Ads Today
So why would you want to increase your click through rate? Well it means that more people find your ad compelling and want to see what you have to offer. There is nothing better than increasing your click through rate on the ads you run on Google, MSN, or Yahoo. So we thought we would put some of our favorite ways to increase the click through rate.
- Use the keyword that you are advertising on in the title of the ad. For instance if you want to advertise on the word "San Diego Condos". Make sure this shows up in the title. It could be as simple as "All San Diego Condos".
- Use the key word in the domain name. Users on search engines and the search engines themselves reward for the word you are advertising on appearing multiple times within the ad. So in our above example if our domain was www.LovelySanDiegoCondos.com that would be fantastic. The user would see the word they typed in multiple times in your ad. Remember you don't have to have a separate website just a domain name that points to the landing page on your website that you want it to go to. You can pick up more domain names at www.TopAgentDomains.com. Now you don't have to have a domain name for every keyword but for the top 5 or 10 you want to dominate in we highly recommend it.
- Make sure all your ads tell the user the benefit of going to your website not just a feature. For example a feature would be FREE MLS. The benefit would be "See all available homes without signing up". Remember it is about them not us.
We hope these three tips help you increase the performance of your ads today. Good luck on the Internet!
Labels: Google Adwords, msn, paid ads, pay per click, PPC Campaigns, Yahoo
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Discover Hidden keywords with Wordtracker
It is often difficult to find out what keywords are being searched for on the internet. There are free tools out there so you can see what searches are being done, but they often rely with you guessing different combinations of words, which can be tiresome! We have put together a resource on our website so you can learn more Wordtracker with a FREE 3 page report.
If you are taking real estate search engine optimization seriously, then you will want to try a tool like, Wordtracker. They have memberships starting at just 1 week so you can develop a powerful word list! We have been using Wordtracker for quite awhile, and here are some of the highlights of how it works.
If you are taking real estate search engine optimization seriously, then you will want to try a tool like, Wordtracker. They have memberships starting at just 1 week so you can develop a powerful word list! We have been using Wordtracker for quite awhile, and here are some of the highlights of how it works.
- Searches over 300 million searches to determine what searches are actually being made
- Visits 200 related websites based off of the term you type to find related terms
- Gives you the actual search volume of keywords for the last 90 days
- Allows you to save projects so you can keep track of your words while you are developing new content and PPC campaigns
Labels: BLOG, keywords, PPC Campaigns, real estate internet marketing, real estate search engine optimization, SEO
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