What works best?

[Dj]

Somehow I haven't spent much time on increasing conversion. I really plan to read all the posts here and see what I can gleam but can anyone tell me what has worked the best for them and / or give me some tips on where to start? We have about 270-300 visits per day lately and the emails/phone calls are sparse. I must need to do something. Just not sure what that something is.

[atxrealtor]

I can suggest two things:

Streamline your website. Maybe a slightly simplified menu layout where people can jump from one community info to another and look at listings. Look at some of the REW websites. Also, I strongly believe a lot of the filler text I see on websites givin lengthy generic descriptions of areas, is good for SEO but it just confuses the reader. Any information you present should be under a heading that can clearly identify it and let the reader know at a glance if they want to read it or not. Having generic titles like "TAmpa Real Estate" and then going on and on about Tampe is confusing.

Also, take your photo down and hide it somewhere in the "About" page. I know from my own exprience it just makes me uncomfortable when I have the agent starin at me from the page as soon as I go there. It's got nothing to do with how you look, just a general rule I think is true. I've even seen a study somewhere (can't find the link) that mentioned how nowadays NOT having your photo on marketing materials helps get higher conversion.

[Dj]

Hmm. Two things I did not expect to hear. First of all we live in a relocation area of Florida, relocatees are always hungry for information. I figured it's there if they want to read it, if not, they can bypass. Getting specific listings or homes for sale on the specific community page is definitely something I need to work toward.

I'm really surprised about your comment about the realtor photo. Wonder how others feel about this. On our old site, we had Bob's picture on every page, now it's just on the homepage and the about us page and I wasn't too happy with this. I really think people want to know what you look like, after all they are going to be spending a lot of time with you and putting something quite important in your hands for a little while. Why make them go hunt for it? Besides Bob's a nice looking guy :-)

Thanks for the feedback. You've given me something to think about. Am hoping to hear from others about their thoughts on the "Photo" placement.

[atxrealtor]

I think you misunderstood me:

1. Yes, they want information, but they want useful information, and they want it to be easily found and categorized. Notice how on your front page you have a bunch of generic headlines that say "Tampa and Clearwater Florida Homes" or something like that followed by paragraphs that contain very very little useful information but are written as an excuse to fill the page with keywords. That's just the front page, the rest of the site is more to the point.

2. Bob looks fine, but I wouldn't put the photo on the front page. You have on in the "about us" section and that's good enough. Read this: http://www.fredlight.com/pages/articles/nophoto.html

Just want to add something about the photo...I think online surfers like the fact that they're anonymous and they go around looking for information first, and personal connection later. If your site is informative and you respond quickly to their inquiries, that'll earn trust and you can build a relationship with them when you actually meet.

[judyo]

There has been many conversations here about photos on the home page and I was convinced by members here at REW and a local newspaper to remove my photo from my home page (only have it in my About page). I argued with the folks here at REW but when I read the newspaper article I was convinced.

People actually wrote that if they came across a site with an agent photo they immediately clicked off. There was a huge section in the Sound Off page (editorial) where many local people actually took the time to write about agent photos and it was all negative. Removed my mug shot right away!

[jessiesc]

I'm going to have to disagree with the photo issue.

One comment we get quite often is "it's nice to see the face of the person I will be dealing with". So in our case, the picture stays right on the front page! In fact, several of our visitors who became customers actually sent us their photos! You'd think we were running a dating website

I do however agree with giving the visitors useful information and as much as possible. IMO, it's a difficult challenge to figure out what is useful to others. This challenge has forced me to do several things on our website:

1. I put information I believe is useful to the visitor whether I think it's useful or not. What I mean by that is: I created a What's new page which I absolutely abhore. But our visitors requested so I built it. It's a very busy page now.

2. Local information can often times be taken for granted by those of us that live in an area. Yet, the locals like seeing information about the area such as restaurants, events and the like. Therefore, we added items for that as well.

3. Additional local information we provide to our visitors such as Police, Fire and school information I would have thought would be useful. It hardly gets any traffice at all.

4. We continue to add pages regularly and this seems to have helped us tremendously. Not only in serps but in the usability of our site as well. We have added separate sections for each condo building, neighborhoods and we are now adding an entire commercial real estate section for investors.

Now as far as conversion goes, my suggestion is this:

If you get anyone filling out a contact form, contact them immediately! Even if it's just a quick email!

This concept alone is paying off in dividends for us. Many of our new customers can't believe we actually contact them within 1 hour or less. It has made a very big difference in our business model and conversion rate.

We are not getting as many hits as many of you long timers, we still only average about 80-100 a day. But... Our conversion rate for contacts is still running about 80%! Now to clarify, we don't get alot of forms filled out, for some reason we are still getting direct phone calls from our website.

We get so many phone calls, I'm considering putting in one of those "Talk to an agent now" buttons!

Hope this helps somewhat.

[atxrealtor]

I think one of the most useful pages to have is a blog-type news page, where you post local real estate news and local developements. After a while, you'll be finished building all the community pages and this will be the only way to keep the website fresh.

Agree with quick contact as well. It's a good indication to clients about what you're like when working with them, and helps you catch them while they're hot.

Jessie, you're getting calls b/c your phone # is at the top of every page. Power of suggestion. Put more forms on there and take off the number and you'll see they'll get filled out.

[judyo]

I'd rather get a direct phone call from a prospect than a form filled out any day. I'm much happier when prospects call me direct from my website as those are the ones I can establish quick rapport with instead of "cultivating" them via the Internet.

Plus, having a prospect call you is better than you calling them when they might be busy or really not that interested. If they're calling you, they mean business!

[atxrealtor]

Do you ever gat random B.S. calls? That's one concern I have. I don't mind serious prospects calling me but I don't want dozens of phonecalls a day from people who just have some dumb question to ask and have no desire to work with me.

[judyo]

Once in a blue moon I'll get a call about local events or questions but that's because of my Oak Lawn blog that provides local information (with less emphasis on real estate) which makes people look at me as an area expert. If I can't help them I try to give them suggestions on where to find answers or if it's easy enough I'll find the answer for them. I feel this just builds my area credibility and makes them more likely to bookmark my blog and possibly pass it along.

Besides a few of those kinds of calls a year, the other calls are from interested buyers and sellers.