$$$ to # of leads

[rvolk75]

Hello everybody,
I was wondering. What is the average ratio between the amount of money spent on the website and the number of leads it produces?

For example, on average, if you spend $10,000 a year on your website (seo, marketing, ppc, etc.), you will get 1,000 leads. Hypothetically.

Something like that. Obviously, the more money you spend on your site, the better placement you will have in search engines and thus, more leads. But is there a correlation? If I was to spend $20,000 a year on my site, would I have 2,000 leads?

REW, perhaps you can answer that question? I don't need any specific sites or names, just numbers.

Thanks in advance.

[webmaster]

That's not really a fair question (Or at least there is no easy answer) the reason being, is every market is different, different search volumes, different searchers (In some areas they are more likely to give up info than others) and all kinds of other factors. (Do you have forced registration etc)

Also, what did you spend the $ on? Was it all custom design and very little SEO was it a template and LOTS of SEO, Did you spend it on an IDX? etc

I can't of course give you real customer numbers but here is a hypothetical:
$740 USD template
$2500 USD CORE IDX (With registration the way I like to do it)
$360 for the years hosting
$360 USD for IDX data hosting
$10,500 USD for full service REW SEO
55 extra hours of content development ($5500 USD)

There is your $20,000 in ONE kind of REW scenario - now SERPS don't come overnight (In fact with a brand new domain it is a year+ to hit the top 3 for your most competitive term)

But once you get there let's take a look at some numbers:

Assuming first page rankings
Small market 50-100 unique visitors per day
Medium sized market 100-300 unique visitors per day
Large markets 300+ unique visitors per day

These are obviously quite nebulous or generic small medium or large classifications but anyways here is a guestimate:

Small Market 3-5 leads per day
Medium Sized Market 5-15 leads per day
Large Market 15+ leads per day

I calculated those numbers based on a conservative 5% conversion ratio - we have sites that perform quite a bit better but anyways.

So what do your next years leads look at?
Small market: 1095 - 1825 leads
Medium market: 1825-5475 leads
Large market: 5500+ leads

Now of course in your first year, you spent (Typically) most of your time ramping up your rankings and developing your site, so those totals would be calculated for the following year - but I think they are quite representative

Also, although I cannot (Would not) share specifics of an REW customers project, one of our members / customers posted his numbers in terms of sales etc in another thread, you can read his post here http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/...0&postcount=27

Should give you some perspective.

[rvolk75]

Morgan,
I was hoping you would answer this question. Thanks for such a detailed breakdown.

I do understand that results don't come over night, especially for new sites. I also understand that in order to end up in top 3 for the most important keyphrase, takes lots of time, work and money.

The numbers that you provided are higher than what I though they would be, which is great.

If a site spends $20,000 the first year (SEO, link exchanging, content development, custom IDX, custom website, etc.), would it be possible to end up in top 3 in 12 months in a medium market?

I would assume that it would be a tough question to answer.

Thanks again.

[FindCRE]

IMHO I think it can be done pretty easily.

Building a great site from the beginning will give you the best ROI by far. I've done every type of marketing know to man from mail-outs, Ads, magazines, PPC campaigns, etc and nothing comes close to having a top ranking organic site.

[webmaster]

Incidentally, Richard (Findcre) went through a virtually identical process (Except he used a third party IDX) in terms of what I laid out above when he started with us - I do not expect him to post his numbers in this thread as it is public, but what do you think Richard - are my "estimates" fair?

[FindCRE]

Actually your estimates are right on point! Have you been looking at my analytics? lol

[FindCRE]

Russell, also make sure you hire a company you trust and has a proven track record. I hired two SEO Firms (so called anyways) before and lost $1000s of dollars, make sure to do it right the first time

[OCTeam]

nothing comes close to having a top ranking organic site.

How true if you work your site. You don't necessarily even need to be found for key phrases that most want to get placement for. We find that long tail search results get plenty of lead activity.

And, yes, those number are fair based on what we know.

[rvolk75]

Oh, there's no doubt that REW would be my only choice. I've seen their work. I've analyzed their websites. Very impressive work. So far there's nobody I know that is better than REW.

I'm just wondering what to expect.

My broker wants to meet with me on December 1st to discuss what type of expenses to expect and results to expect.

I want to dominate my market. I just want to know how much money needs to be budgeted on the website and the time it would take to start seeing results.

Thanks again everybody. Keep those comments coming.

[FindCRE]

:Morgan can go into detail, however from what I've seen you'll want to do full service SEO for 3-4 months.

In regards to your broker, tell him you'll be hitting forward a lot. (with the overflow of leads)