Increasing Registration of Members

[LakeMichiganRealEstate]

Our leads are usually coming after a user registers on the website.

I am seeing a lot of people searching the website but not registering.

These people are coming from paid advertisements from Google and Bing.

What would you do to get more of these people to register?

I have tried two things

1) Offering a giveaway stating they are eligible to receive $100 dollars if they register today.

2) Restricting certain sections of the website until they register.

What are your thoughts on restricting searches until they register?

Sincerely,
Travis Walters

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

to me number 1 is kinda of spammy but number 2 works really well

[LakeMichiganRealEstate]

You are the second person who told me it looked spammy so I decided to take it off the website.

On regards to your second note, I made it so users must register after searching for properties in excess of 5 times.

It also forces people who already have registered to login to the system.

[ggeilman]

Might wanna reduce that to 1 or 2 and see your results.

[ozsubasi]

I actually took away the registration system that was built in to my site, but would like to learn how and why it works for you guys. My thought was that I didn't want to do anything that might put a visitor off, and making them register seemed to me to be something that could do that. But I would like to know about what you see as the benefits, as it is something I could reconsider.

[LakeMichiganRealEstate]

The benefits are that you get their contact information: email address, phone number - all you really need to establish a connection with the buyer or seller. Without capturing that information at some point, traffic is not going to be converted into leads.

[ozsubasi]

Ok I get that part - I have a contact form on every listing so that anyone interested in any property can request more info, and at the same time provide me with their contact details.
I know that if I am for example looking for some free software for something, if the site asks me to register first I will go and look for it somewhere else, because I know that registration means future emails that I don't want. As none of my competitors do it, I would be risking that same scenario regards my own potential clients.
Please understand that I'm not criticising this system, it obviously works for you and for others too, I'm just thinking aloud so that I can explore it and see if there is a way it could work for me as well.
In the cases where someone registers but doesn't make an actual enquiry, presumably you send them follow up information or call them? What kind of response to you get from that?

[satxproperty]

Most buyers start their search on the internet and 90% of those will continue looking on a handful of other sites thinking another agent's site has some more listings. There are those that don't want to be contacted (at all or at least right now) and then there are those that want us to contact them. The latter is the group I want, the ones that are willing to let me communicate to them.

I require an email address and require verification of email, after they have viewed 3 listings. Phone is optional, but a majority that give a good email address include a good phone number. Out of 10 signups, I only lose 1 or 2 that refuses to verify their email. Even those that don't verify, half the time the email is a bogus email address, anyway.

I want to hook them and establish a rapport. How can you be a salesman if you can't talk to buyers? You can be proactive and contact them or you can just hang out in the office and wait for the phone to ring.

[ozsubasi]

How can you be a salesman if you can't talk to buyers? You can be proactive and contact them or you can just hang out in the office and wait for the phone to ring.

Ok I understand where you are coming from. I'm not a salesman, never have been and never want to be one. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that approach, but I think that things work differently in different locations. To give a specific example, 2 years ago 50 bars which operate on the seafront here were closed for a week a couple of years ago for making direct approaches to passing potential customers. They were punished for "hassling".
In western Europe people really don't like anyone who appears to be a "salesman".
The problem of course is that is exactly what we are
If I phone a client in the UK of an evening and it hasn't been pre-arranged, they are likely to say that it isn't convenient and I should go elsewhere and fornicate, though not quite in those terms
I write long personal emails to clients, and my hope is that I will gain their trust as an individual rather than just as someone trying to sell them something.
But I do appreciate that we operate in different worlds and at different levels, and you guys have far more costs to cover than I do to start with.
I came here for the lifestyle, not to make money, though of course I have to do enough to make myself of value.
I really appreciate the comments made, but think I will continue with my present approach which is to lead rather than push. I don't envy you guys and I wish you well.