Not getting leads - Please review

[howard11792]

I am number 5 or 6 on Google for my search terms and getting 500 - 600 visitors per month in a small market. Unfortunately, I am only getting maybe 1 peron per month to fill out a contact form. In summary, this site is generating 1 lead a month - I am not pleased at all.

Here is the link to my site: www.grandametz.com

My thoughts are:

• Maybe people don't like independent agencies and prefer the national branded brokerages?
• Not enough listings on my site?

I can put in more work on SEO and double the visitors and get 2 leads per month. I must be missing something - this is not working for me...

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thank you.

[OCTeam]

We have the best results when we show them a little for free, then they need to sign in to see the address or get more information. IMO, your sign in page has too much information above the fold and a visitor may start clicking on those links expecting to see some homes and they never get to the sign in at the bottom. It seems to be that they do not know what they will get once they sign in on your site. Your Search the MLS page should be just for that, not to have links to take them to other pages in the hopes they can view homes on one of those pages. One or two clicks.... and they are gone. -Keep it simple (KISS) with what you want them to do.
Just my take on it.

[Lydia]

My site allows visitors to see listings, but requires them to sign in for details on the individual homes. It seems to work pretty well that way. The lookie-lous see what they want and the real home buyers will register. I get plenty of leads from the site.

[howard11792]

Last week we implemented a change requiring users to fill out the registration form for the IDX - before that we had no requirements. Not sure if either of those criteria are influencing the number of leads. We went from one extreme to the other...

[visulate]

I'd add a prominent "find out more" link to bottom the page for each featured listing. This would take them to your registration form. I'd also loose the flash animation on the featured listing page. It looks nice but distracts from the property that you are trying to sell.

[Dan Connolly]

I found it confusing on a couple of levels. First, it took me several minutes to find the IDX search, You need to create a page that has nothing on it but the IDX search. Have a button that takes you directly there. That' s all Buyers really want to see anyway. Then I would make a clear separation on the sidebar for the neighborhoods or communities, and the general Buyer and Seller info.

The actual copy on the pages seems a little spammy. You repeat things and have a lot of community names in the paragraphs, too many links and bold type, its not something I think anyone will actually read. I am not a big fan of too much dialog written in the third person, I think people respond better to straightforward words written from you to them in the first person.

[AZAgent2]

Maybe try to write some pages about real estate things that are not as common for most websites. For instance if you wanted to improve conversion with investors try to write in depth about 1031 exchanges, investing in real estate using your IRA etc. and then have a form for additional info. That's what seems to get me decent results. I think the more in depth detailed content you offer the better the chance users will be more inclined to contact you off your site because it's harder for them to find that info then just the regular intro stuff found everywhere.

[howard11792]

I'm glad I put my sit up for review. I appreciate all of the suggestions and will begin to implement this weekend.

I am open to all constructive criticism.

Thank you again.

[jessiesc]

Since you asked here is my 2cents worth (disclaimer: I don't mean to be offensive or harsh, just giving my opinion):

We do not require registration for accessing our listings at any time. We also are in a small market place (possibly getting even smaller if the airport doesn't go through ), anyway I digress...

We have had visitors looking on our site since we brought it up live, that have only recently contacted us. I know this because they have told me (actually told Jennifer) so. This fact only recently came to light. I should also mention that we get approximately 70% of our first time visitors bookmarking our site.

Also, on our details page we have a "Inquire about this property" button. We've found this much more useful than the contact us menu option. This was also a custom button by REW for us.

We get maybe 2-4 emails a month from our site ("Inquire" button), but we do get 20-30 phone calls during the same time period.

First thing that struck me about your site is the color scheme. Colors are most definately a personal preference not only to the site owner, but also to the visitors. What some will like, others will abhor. I personally like sites that have a more modest, business oriented color scheme.

While I personally like your colors, I'm not a fan of the scheme for a business site.

I can see where it might turn off potential visitors immediately. The reasons being: If you are in a small market, chances are most of your visitors are local, unless you are specifically targeting outside the area buyers and investors. As an investor, I would see your colors and say to myself "hmmm, can't take that one serious" and move on.

Locals, unless you are in a highly artistic community may view it similarly.

Again, this a personal view these colors may actually have the opposite effect and make your visitors interested enough in the colors to see what your site is all about.

One other issue is your search page. I had to scroll down to the bottom of your page to find the search (which loaded slowly by the way), it's iframed yes?. Two suggestions: If allowed by your board and you can afford it, have REW make you a customized idx that fits within your site. It is well worth the extra money!

Second, I would remove all that text at the top, leave 1 small paragraph and then let the visitors search.

It appears to me, you've created this page in an obvious attempt at SEO. The term MLS is on that page no less than 10 times! Visitors tend to know what an MLS is. Telling them over and over again is not targeting the content to them, but IMO insulting them.

Either way, good luck