Just begun to SEO need some advice

[Tim7332]

I believe in modeling when it comes to business. By this I mean learning from those who are successful and doing the things that made them successful so that you can be a success yourself.

I recently committed to having Morgan do SEO for my site and I want to be prepared for web leads when they begin to come in.

For those of you regularly closing deals from your website each month can you offer me any advice on how to properly service your leads? I want to make sure I do my best to contact them right away but is there anything else you have learned that really made you successful at converting leads and making the web model work for you?

[Falcon Living]

Tim, from a fellow Morgan client, here is some fast advice that might sound ugly. It feels like you are being a pushy salesman on the website. That question comment section? It does not work too well in a big town but your town might be a different story. But to put the exact same window on a second page without letting the people see what they will search. I dont know... It seems that the potential clients have a really short attention span and rather than going through a multiple page process you might want to keep it all in one page (check my search page for the example) or else they will move on to the second website in line. That is just my humble opinion.

[mattheaton2]

Here are my suggestions to improve conversion rates.

1. Follow up times are critical. From a recent survey the expected follow up times by the buyers/sellers.

* 21% Instant Response
* 23% Within 30 Minutes
* 22% Within 4 hours
* 16% Same day
* 18% One business day

Contrast this to the industry where 70% of leads are not followed up on within 48 hours and more than half are not followed up on at all.

2. Tracking throughout the sales cycle. Only a small percentage of leads off the web site are going to be ready to see a house right away, expect <15%. From data I collected from over 4 years for a partner, the average time between when a client registered on the website and when they wrote up an offer was 7 months. So basically this means, don't discount a lead even though they may not be interested in buying now or even within a few months. Most of your deals will be long term relationships. This also means you need a formal tracking system, if you generate 50 leads a month and the sales cycle can last 1-2 years that means that at any one time you will be juggling hundreds of leads.

3. Continuous follow-up throughout the sales cycle. I'm not saying pester them but make sure your staying in front of these hundreds leads so when they are ready to buy they are going to use you.

While this is an SEO forum so most of the focus is on lead generation, it's the follow up systems that add the most value.

-Matt

[Tim7332]

Ok, I'm going to choose a new idx service with a sign up "option" instead of making it mandatory. That way people will only enter their info if they want to see a house or whatever.

Also, when it comes to follow up systems, is a generic email follow up system acceptable or do I need to enter them all in act and follow up on the phone? I plan to hire agents as soon as the leads become more than I can handle.

I mean if I'm averaging 5-10 leads a day do you think 2-3 of those will convert if I aggressively follow up and have patience with them? Or is that a little unrealistic?

[webmaster]

Matt,
Some great advice, just wanted to chime in and say, this forum is not just an SEO forum, we are interested in all facets of succeeding in real estate based on initial web efforts. Yes there are sections on lead generation, search engines, web design and the like, but there are also forums on increasing conversion etc and we would like to encourage not just yourself but others reading this post to discuss anything to do with their real estate business, not just SEO.

Do you think we need a forum (Other than the real estate chat) more specific to the follow up process (Post lead capture)? Always open to suggestions
Morgan

Here are my suggestions to improve conversion rates.

1. Follow up times are critical. From a recent survey the expected follow up times by the buyers/sellers.

* 21% Instant Response
* 23% Within 30 Minutes
* 22% Within 4 hours
* 16% Same day
* 18% One business day

Contrast this to the industry where 70% of leads are not followed up on within 48 hours and more than half are not followed up on at all.

2. Tracking throughout the sales cycle. Only a small percentage of leads off the web site are going to be ready to see a house right away, expect <15%. From data I collected from over 4 years for a partner, the average time between when a client registered on the website and when they wrote up an offer was 7 months. So basically this means, don't discount a lead even though they may not be interested in buying now or even within a few months. Most of your deals will be long term relationships. This also means you need a formal tracking system, if you generate 50 leads a month and the sales cycle can last 1-2 years that means that at any one time you will be juggling hundreds of leads.

3. Continuous follow-up throughout the sales cycle. I'm not saying pester them but make sure your staying in front of these hundreds leads so when they are ready to buy they are going to use you.

While this is an SEO forum so most of the focus is on lead generation, it's the follow up systems that add the most value.

-Matt

[Tim7332]

Yes I do.

I'll be honest, I was hesitant about committing to our project. It wasn't because I doubted I would get a lot of leads or traffic. I know I will.

The information I couldn't find but wanted to know was what people have experienced with their leads and how many of them turned into deals. What kind of deals they turned into: listings, buyers, etc... I know people might be worried about giving out secrets but the information is out there already. most people wont implement it anyways.

I just want to know some true stories of success and answers to questions from successful web brokers like:

How long it took before you started to close online business?

What situation are the leads generally in? (relocation, moving up, listing etc)

How many deals you close a month from your site, what percentage are listings?

What mistakes have you made and what do you do now that allows you to convert a higher amount of these leads into closed escrows?


This is the elbow grease part of the business and its where I am looking to learn as much as I can so I can be ready to service leads as they come in. I'd just like to know about people's systems and whats worked for them so I can model after them and tweak it so my system for lead follow up gets better and better.

Any successful online brokers willing to share?

[mattheaton2]

You will get much better leads with the optional registration rather than mandatory, and also the more information you try and capture the less likely they are to enter any at all. It's always a tradeoff in that respect.

Phone contact is critical, auto responder emails and such are very ineffective. Tools such as emailed home searches are great for keeping in front of potential clients throughout the sales cycle.

2 or 3 conversions out of ten leads is unrealistic. Industry wide I've seen numbers that put the conversion rate at less the 1%. Brio Realty sees conversion rates between 5%-10% (leads to actual sales) with the top agents, following a very strict follow up routine, and using ActiveRain for lead management and follow-up. I'll post more information about the ActiveRain system in the near future as it is rolled out and becomes more publically available.

Think about the value of a lead with a good follow-up system. If the average sale is $200k and at a 3% commission the agent with make $6k in commission. If the agent is able to get a 5% conversion each lead is worth $300 to that agent, of course not including all the agents time, fee's, etc. Leads can be generated relatively cheaply compared to what they are worth.

-Matt

[Tim7332]

Outstanding. That's the type of tool I'm looking for.

Yeah I understand phone contact is essential with any lead no matter where it comes from. Has it been your experience that you need to agressively keep calling them every week or so until they're ready to buy? Or is one phone call, followed by email contact thereafter preferable?

Another concern of mine is my market. I live in southern california in a county where homes average 1 million plus. Are most of your closed clients move up? first time homebuyers? or other? Any other systems you use for capturing clients that you can share?

[webmaster]

We will be switching Tim from a forced registration to optional once we find a good IDX solution for him. Anyone out there in Cali using a decent MLS / IDX servicing socalmls? If so please share your experiences - we are developing a custom IDX for the socal market for one of our brokers, edit oops so we might look at this option as well

[Tim7332]

I am a broker.