“Turning Real Estate Website Traffic Into Profits”
When starting out with a new website, one of the biggest focuses is on traffic. This idea is well served because even with the most impressive website around, if no one views it, it doesn't do you any good. The problem with this being the focus though is that most real estate agents always keep that focus on traffic instead of how they can turn that traffic into revenue.
Converting Traffic to Leads
The first step into making that traffic profitable is to ensure that as much of your traffic as possible actually converts into fresh new leads via e-mail and the phone. Leads are the lifeblood of any business and a steady flow of leads provides you with the opportunity to pick the best clients to work with.
How?
When a visitor is on your website they have to have a reason to pick up the phone or send you an e-mail. Without some motivation to contact you, they simply won't do it. You don't want to do anything crazy like offer a gift card for their information, just provide a call to action that they can't resist!
Calls to action empower your web visitors to get the information they want in the format they want. For example, when you have a page on your website that is written about a neighborhood, provide them the ability to get listings in that area. You can simply write "Get ALL the homes available in MyNeighborhood Now" and that link would take them to a form to fill out so they can get the home listings in that neighborhood. Your call to action in this example is compelling and easy for the consumer to take action on.
Converting Leads to Appointments
In order to make that traffic ultimately profitable, you can't stop at just generating leads. Leads are a great first step and once you have that down you can really focus on booking appointments. The skills involved with converting leads to appointments are responding to e-mails and picking up the phone. Before you pick up the phone, ensure you are well prepared with objection handling scripts so you calls are easy!
Tackling the Phone
People making requests on websites for real estate information do want to be called. They don't want to feel pressured when you call, but they certainly do want help, otherwise they wouldn't have put in their phone number!
It is important to call people who make requests as soon as you possibly can. After doing studies on websites across the country, we found the most effective time frame is to call them in under seven minutes because they will often still be on your website.
Keep your conversations short and provide them the opportunity to meet with you. The opportunity you will provide them by meeting you is the ability to save them from making more requests all across the web so they can actually find the property they are looking for.
A New Focus
After that first push of getting traffic to your website, make sure to put the focus on converting traffic into leads, and those leads into appointments. The process doesn't have to be fancy, but keeping the focus on leads and appointments means you will have more transactions each and every month.
To Your Success Online,
P.S. If you haven't gotten a chance already, you can still get our Internet Real Estate Marketing Book(see below). It's packed with over 35 pages of information to transform your online presence from a stale ad to one that generates leads day in and day out.
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