Top Rankings..Thanks Seo Guy

[Wayne Griggs]

I would just like to send out many many thanks to Seo-Guy. As of today I got a lot of number 1 rankings in G for some major key phrases. Over the last 2 months we have been coming up in the top 5 for a lot of minor key phrases and now have hit number 1 and top 10 for the rest.

I still cant believe it... all this in only 2 months of the domain going live. I would say to anyone..and no this isnt something I was ask to do...if you need a website or optimization done on your site Seo-Guy is well worth the cost ..he was able to deal with me so everyone else would be a cake walk.. LOL but he knows what he is doing. With all the suggestions he made and appied to my site they have paid off for rankings.

Once again thanks Seo Guy.. I have never seen another seo take a new site to the tops of the rankings in only 2 months for a a major real estate market!!

[VRI]

Congratulations, I've been watching that progression myself. I just couldn't believe the sheer link volume/weight applied in such short order. Maybe the better news with all the sanboxing links discussions is, it's likely there to stay. Again, congrats

[chachi]

yes, saw SG's post on seochat...congrats. Now you better close some deals out there in hotlanta.

[Wayne Griggs]

Thank you VRI and chachi lets hope it sticks now ..lol..G has been known to play games with us all.

[IgotDreams]

are they working on that "atlanta real estate" term. Thats the hard one! At least your on the first page. I am sure with all this attention to the real estate market they are doing you should get that, as long as you stay with there monthly plan.

Please let us know, how many closings you get from the internet.

I have a person here in Orlando that may be interested in there services, but before I open my mouth and tell them their monthly fees, I have to know that;

1. I can trust them
2. It works
3. They are continuing to focus on that particular industry
4. That the return is worth the cost (which I understand any SEO company is not responsible for)

[RayDay]

I agree with Dan. I'd like to see some stats related to amount of business acquired over the Internet to determine the payback. And I think it's important to see it from the person paying the bills.

Ray

[IGotRealEstate]

Stats mean nothing unless you have the ability to close deal...

[IgotDreams]

Maybe closings were not the right word. Maybe quality leads would be more appropriate. The point is this;

No one here has a top spot for the number one keyword for our industry. We would like to know if it is worth it. I think he has a site that can convert the traffic to leads. I am interested in all aspects of his business on this matter. For instance;

Traffic
Leads
Quality leads
Closings

It would be up to us to decipher this information. If he was getting 1 million hits a month because of this new ranking, but he only got 4 leads, one of which he considered a quality lead, but he had no closings. We would all interpret that data differently.

I would look at his web site and determine if it was able to capture a lead, like;

Is his contact info on every page?
Does he give away free information?
Does he give the right content for what they are looking for?
Does he have an open MLS SYSTEM?
Etc, etc...

If he did not, then I know I can at least factor in what little information I was able to take away from all this, which is the Traffic. An increase of 1 million hits a month. I know I can handle those hits differently then some of you.

Even though he is not in our market, we can still use his information as a guide for other markets. Just like using the Overture Keyword Suggestion tool. We use it as a guide.

So to sum this all up, this is information we currently do not have and it is a test market scenario for us. If it works well for him, then we may look into using SEO-GUY as well.

[Rich@vtws]

Ok Skeptics...here's some ROI for ya

To begin with, I have grown to have enormous respect for Morgan and his company. I'm no "seo-guy"... that said...If you want to hear it from the horses mouth, I got a call from one of my clients on friday, Terry Ditty, saying that her office had 3 closings this past week from leads gererated by her site. 2 Lakefronts around 350k+ and the other 189k. This wasn't the first 3, just the first time for 3 in the same week. Was it the site alone, I 'd like to think so but the truth is, the site is only one of the commitments they have made to technology. They have virtual tours for every listing and great offline advertising and marketing as well.

Ongoing site development and optimization are costly but well worth the investment. Why is it that many think nothing of doing a one off print ad with a salesperson that walks into the office for several hundred dollars which will most like produce Nothing, but are reluctant to invest in the internet as a serious component of their business. Seems like the vast majority, (again...not the people here ) , still seem to regard their website as something they just have for the sake of having

One thing I will say that I think an equal amount of care is required on the client/follow up and level of service end as the reanking in the serps. Put those 2 things together and your off to the races.

We get copied on all the leads and inquiries that come thru our sites for tracking and have actually dropped clients that couldn't come to the realization that someone inquiring on your website isn't the same as someone leaving you a message with the secretary. I'm sure that doensn't pertain to most everyone here but if someone sends an inquiry about a specific property or service and they are not responded to immediately or the same day at the VERY least, it's a no win situation. First page-last page same outcome except that that person is even less likely to contact that company for anything since getting a bad taste in their mouth from the original contact.

2 months ago, my brother in law asked me to help look for some properties for him since he's know's the business we are in. I visited MANY sites looking for just the right homes and inquired on about a dozen or so. Out of them, I received 3 responses besides the typical autoresponder. 2 were 2 days after I sent the inquiry, 1 was almost a week later and the rest either didn't respond at all, bounced or were returned for over quota errors.

This makes it clear to me that with the right combination of exposure and follow thru, there is enormous opportunity for those that embrace and invest in the internet component of their real estate business.

(for any doubting Thomas's...the client mentioned above can be reached at 888-332-2121)

Rant over...

[chachi]

I think Jeff and Rich both bring up some interesting points. Jeff is correct, if you can't close deals, all of the "leads" in the world are not going to make a difference. It is hard to compare apples to apples when it comes to "web generated leads" because:
1)expectations of what a lead is are different
2)the "after lead generation" process is different in most cases (as Rich pointed out)
3)some people can close and others cannot

I am sure there are more factors involved, but these are probably some of the most important. From the sounds of it, Rich's house search was conducted on many of those cookie cutter R/E sites, that to me are kind of like the geocities sites of the R/E world. If I am looking for something R/E related and I end up at one of those sites, I leave before the page finishes loading.

A committment to conducting business on the web is more than just committing to spending a certain dollar amount each month (hosting, marketing, etc). As Rich pointed out, agents and brokers need to realize that there is a time committment involved as well.