Real Estate Business

Viable leads are the lifeblood of any real estate business. They are the seeds from which new business relationships grow. They are, in essence, the key to client acquisition.

Your website and online presence can be your lifeblood for new leads particularly in lean times. It is a cost effective way to generate leads locally and internationally.
Property sales and Property Rentals are the 2 most popular searches on the web globally!

Start this process by determining your "action paths"

1. If you want people to take a certain action on your website, you need to (A) define what that path is and (B) make the path very easy to follow. Map it out on paper. Think about the goals people have when they visit your site. Help them find their way, and they'll be more likely to stick around.
2. Assign value to every action you ask people to take. Increase the value of what you're offering. Tell people what's in it for them. The stronger the value of your offer, the more real estate leads you stand to gain.
3. Understand the difference between web traffic and leads. I once spoke to an agent who claimed to have over 100 unique visitors to his website every week. Care to guess how many inquiries he was producing from that traffic? Zero! He thought traffic was the ultimate goal, when in truth it's merely a stepping stone.
4. Use multiple strategies to produce leads through your website and/or blog. The best strategy for real estate lead generation is a combined strategy, one that employs various techniques.
5. If you don't have a real estate blog already, it's time to start one. You can have a blog up and running in a couple of days, and it's a great way to encourage participation from readers. Many of the people who leave comments on your blog will be local buyers or sellers, which means they could become your next client. Blog      often to increase traffic to your website. This is the primary benefit of blogging programs -- they make it incredibly easy to publish new content on a regular basis. The more information you publish, the more search engine visibility you'll enjoy. This in turn will increase your web traffic. Here are some content ideas to get you started.
   Create landing pages to capture more real estate leads through your website. A landing page is a "stripped down" web page that presents something of value and asks for a certain action on the visitor's part. It removes all other distractions and thereby increases the likelihood of a conversion.
   
   Increase traffic to your key pages, the ones where you have lead generation techniques in place. Make sure they're a prominent part of your main menu. Practice cross-linking across your site to send more people to your key pages. Try using callout graphics / links to direct people where you want them to go.

6. Generate more leads by improving the overall quality of your website. If you have a well-designed and neatly organized website, people will be more inclined to trust you. Trust is the first step to encouraging a response from your visitors.
7. Use your website in conjunction with offline events, such as home buying seminars and other educational events. You might even experiment with online "webinars" using a software product like GoToMeeting.
8. Partner with local mortgage brokers, home appraisers and others in related fields. When used properly, cross-marketing can be an effective tool for business growth. And you can take this technique onto your website as well, by creating a separate "pitch" page for each professional in your network, they in turn can reciprocate the pitch for you.

In this current climate and the age we live in, a successful web presence is no longer a luxury it is a necessity and it can provide your business with meaningful leads and potential revenues.