How to Get Leads From Your Real Estate Website
By Jamey Bridges

Getting leads from your real estate website is possible from the first day you launch your website, if you have the right focus. The focus of your website needs to be on the customer and what they are searching for. It may sound obvious but most real estate websites don't meet the customers' needs so they just keep on searching.

Creating a website that is a lead generating machine doesn't mean you have to be a web developer, it just means concentrating your efforts on key areas that will bring you the maximum amount of return in the shortest period of time.

Unique Content

The content that most websites start with is nice "stock" content that 98% of real estate websites have. It may be information about the home buying process or selling a home, but it isn't unique and the person visiting your website knows it.

To get your website to generate leads you need to offer your web visitors information they can't find anywhere else. This doesn't mean you have to do heavy research at the library, it just means you have to put the information you already know up online. Put the information that you have learned about your area through years of experience up on your website. This unique information will differentiate your website from everyone else and keep people coming back for more as you continue to grow your online presence.

Make it easy for people to contact you

Even the best content will fail if you don't make it easy for people to contact you. Visitors online may want to e-mail or call you, so make sure it is easy for them to find a way to contact you for help. Make sure you have a phone number easily displayed on each and every page of your website. It's not annoying; it just allows the customer to see that there is one easy phone number to call should they need help.

In addition to a phone number, provide easy to fill out forms on your website so visitors can request more information about neighborhoods, get listings, or just ask you a question. Contact forms on your website should be short and take less than 30 seconds for someone to fill out. Remember they are just a click away from another website so make sure it's quick and easy for them to get the information they have been searching for.

Give people what they are looking for

Traditionally buyers are looking for home listings and sellers are looking for the value of their home, so give it to them! Too many real estate agent websites aren't providing the most basic of tools to consumers. Within your unique content make sure to make calls to action that let visitors know they can easily find the home listings in that neighborhood or get the value of their home.

There are many IDX providers out there that will allow you to display listings on your website. Choose one that allows your customers to save listings easily so they keep coming back to your website to see the latest properties in the neighborhood that they have been craving.

Drive traffic

Putting up great content with powerful tools won't do you any good if no comes by to look at your website. Don't just count on the search engines to bring you traffic, you need a balanced approach to getting traffic if you want customers knocking down your door.

Getting get quality traffic means you will be getting traffic from sources all across the internet. Don't just focus on one, getting a high volume of traffic means getting it from more than 1 source.  Try the following sources for great traffic:

• Pay Per Click Advertising - Get targeted traffic in your area for the keywords that you want. Make sure to direct them to the most appropriate pages in your website.
• Directories - Directories are a great source of traffic. Concentrate on the most used directories like Yahoo and DMOZ first before branching into niche specific directories.
• Article Marketing - Write articles about buying, selling, and even searching for real estate in your market. Submit your articles to sources like Ezines, Buzzle, and others as you will get access to some great traffic that converts into leads.
• Search Engines - Making sure your website is search engine friendly is essential to driving large volumes of traffic. Submit your website to each of the major search engines so they can start sending great traffic to your website in no time.

Tracking your efforts

If you want to get enough leads to close business each and every month it means you need to track your results. Whether you are using tracking software like Google Analytics or any other website reporting tool, you need to keep track of key metrics to see where your efforts are best being spent.

The reports for any website are enough for you to spend hours on, so concentrating on just a few key items will give you good information that you can take action on. Here are some of the top items that you will want to keep a careful watch on.

• Unique Visitors - This shows how many unique people are visiting your website. If this number is growing then you are reaching a larger and larger audience!
• Conversion Rate - This is the number of people that visit your website divided by the number of people who contact you. Set a goal of having at a 5% conversion rate will ensure that as you add new content you are also getting leads from everything you do.
• Avg Time on Site - If this number states less than 30 seconds you are in trouble. Getting people to stay on your website for a few minutes means you are providing valuable information and increasing your odds of having them contact you.

Whether you have a real estate website today or not, the focus needs to be that it generates leads for you each and every day. Keeping this a constant focus will ensure that your website is no longer an extension of your business card, but a serious piece of marketing that you can count all year long.

Jamey Bridges is one of the coaches and founders of the Online Real Estate Success program. The Online Real Estate Success systems allow real estate professionals to learn what they need to succeed with their online marketing efforts.

All aspects of real estate marketing online and conversion are covered from Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click to Social Networking. Training programs are designed to help agents learn quickly, apply the learning, and see results each and every month. He and his twin brother even developed a free ebook so real estate professionals can get started in the world of online marketing quickly.

Get the training and coaching you need Online Real Estate Success.

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