One of the key challenges we face as web site designers is getting a web site ready for an effective PPC campaign.

I have found that a PPC ad campaign does not really work well if your landing page is your home page. You have to offer a very specific service in your PPC ad, and when the user gets to the landing page, that service must be the one and only service on the page, or they will be confused and may simply go to another ad or site. Nine times out of ten, they will also go away if the very first thing they see is a registration form asking for their personal information, or they will simply give you bogus contact info to get by the form.

So, if your PPC ad says:

Mytown ST Homes for Sale
Homes for Sale in Mytown Mystate
Buy/Sell, Search All Listings Now!
www.MytownHomes.com

Then the landing page must be a community specific home search for Mytown, preferably one with homes for sale displayed immediately or with no more than a single click, and not a generic search form where they have to enter lots of specifications and go through several more pages to actually see homes in that community.

I prefer to let users browse basic listings info as much as they like, and I require them to register only when they want to save a listing, save a search, request email new listing alerts, or request more info or a showing appointment for a particular listing. Most of the time, this would be a function of your IDX, so you should look for an IDX solution that operates this way. This process allows the user to be anonomous for awhile, which most Internet users appreciate and demand. When they are ready, they will raise their hand and let you know who they are. It also allows me to focus my time and efforts on the serious prospects, and let the "lookie-lous" poke around on my site until they do become serious. And believe me, if you don't harrass them, the lookie lous will come back and eventually register, on their own timeline.

You may have noticed that the landing page URL in the example above says: www.MytownHomes.com. This is another way to let consumers know that the target site is specifically for that community. For each community I service and build PPC campaigns for, I buy and use a community specific URL, and direct it to the community specific home search page on my site, usually by pointing the primary domain name to a third level domain on my Point2Agent site that points to the specific web page, since it can have a rather long URL. Third level domains are great for this purpose.

Note on seller PPC ads: I don't do them any more. In my market, they rarely attract consumers, and even when they do, they rarely result in registrations or CMA requests. Therefore, I focus all of my PPC efforts and investment on buyers, and since many are also local sellers, I get them anyway.

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate and Homes for Sale,
AdWords PPC Consulting and Support for REALTORS®
Hobby: Goodman Family History and Genealogy

I am starting to get curious about why there is so little discussion on this topic in such a progressive forum as REW.

Is it because PPC is still a mystery to so many, and they prefer to work on traditional SEO, even as frustrating as that can be these days of unstable search engine algos?

Is it because those using PPC effectively and generating lots of leads and lucrative business don't want the word to get out to their potential competition?

Is it because of some past bad experience with PPC results or lack thereof?

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate and Homes for Sale,
AdWords PPC Consulting and Support for REALTORS®
Hobby: Goodman Family History and Genealogy

I believe people are very curious about the workings of the local real estate market. What's the market doing? How quickly are homes selling? etc.. If you can provide easy pre-defined searches and market summaries for various neighborhoods, it'll let your prospects get what they want anonymously without having to register.

Many realtors will believe that this will lose their business. As if someone who reads info off of your site and finds it very useful will for some reason go to another realtor's page (who has a cheezy site with no info and requires registration for everything) and deal with that guy.

You know how they say whoever contacts first gets the lead. I conjecture that whoever is the first to make a very positive impression (i.e. demonstrates great knowledge and fulfills the online prospects needs through their website) is the one who will get contacted first.

RonnieG, I couldn't agree more that the destination page for PPC is crucial.

I'm guessing many folks think, "Hey, I'm spending all this money on branding and integrated marketing, and have this great home page-- why would I direct PPC users to page 3f of my site?" But as you point out, PPC users are demanding users who want truth in advertising. If the PPC ad promised me Denver home search, then by gollly the link ought to take me to Denver home search. Trust that I, the user, am smart enough to realize that your well-designed site has other content listed over to the side. If I like your home search feature well enough, I'll register and keep coming back, and I'll check out all those other neat pages on your site.

By the way, RonnieG, I like your MLS search feature. The key decision for brokers, IMHO, is when to capture lead information from the user. I'm looking at opening my own brokerage eventually, and web presence will be my #1 strategy. I'm bookmarking sites that I like something about. You just made it to my "Nice MLS Search" folder.

Question: I like how over to the left side of a listing's details, it has the neat icons for Pricetracker, map, aerial map, etc. I think that those features are why a user might choose your site as the one on which they register. If I want to replicate something in that spirit, is that something my IDX provider does? Or the original site designer? I'm still confused, though I've spent many hours reading these forums. Am I right in thinking I need:

1) A site designer, e.g. REW or whoever
2) An IDX provider, who integrates with my local MLS
3) A seo co. if I so choose

Sorry to expand the thread so much... ignore me if I'm being annoying.

IMHO:
1) or: A good template site that you can build on yourself with minimal initial expense, such as Point2Agent or a basic REW template site.
2) .. and the IDX plug-in solution and vendor should also provide the advanced features like a price tracker, saving seaches, automated email alerts for new listings, saving properties, "schedule showing", property mapping integration with GoogleEarth or similar, and an integrated CRM for managing prospects and notes on prospect activities. Map based searches are the wave of the future, and many IDX vendors are finally getting the point on that. The IDX features should also allow you to monitor what areas and price points the prospect is searching in, which gives you a good idea of how to open a conversation with them.
3) Yes, but understanding that SEO is a continuous process of tuning as search engines change their rules and programming, and as other webmasters improve their sites to get better positioning. Also understanding that no amount of SEO will result in instant positioning, and that in fact, your site may never get into the top 20 if you are in a large and competitive market with lots of tech-savvy RE webmasters already in the game!

As I have mentioned before, I am not convinced that an IDX solution that is totally and tightly integrated into the site is necessarily a good thing, since I could change my mind about my site hosting company at any time. That's why I like my particular product and vendor. I can easily integrate it into every site I own, whether it is a REW site, a Point2Agent site, or one that I have custom designed and built for me, and every site would feed and utilize the same CRM prospects database and back end.

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate and Homes for Sale,
AdWords PPC Consulting and Support for REALTORS®
Hobby: Goodman Family History and Genealogy

Ron;

You are spot on with ALL of what you have said here. The REALTORs in my office WHO ARE DOING PPC ALONE use low cost (with one exception) sites that are not integrated tightly with the IDX.

LOWER COST = HIGHER ROI They spend their money on buying clicks rather than a REALLY COOL site. Who's template you choose is immaterial. You want one that is flexible so that you can create the landing pages you'd like.

Now to the question of why so little attention is paid to that on this forum...

The path to success of an SEO site is different. Who you choose for a template there is CRUCIAL. Cost will affect where you end up (to some degree)...

Therefore it is not the main focus of the forum, but you have done a good job of bringing up excllent points here are head it in that direction...

Nice post

Eric

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Eric Blackwell
Technologist, SEO Specialist and Consultant

Louisville Real Estate

Southern Indiana Search Engine Marketing Blog

Real Estate Industry Watch - Real Estate Industry News Blog

I'm starting to see your point on IDX solutions being totally and tightly integrated into a website. I have a message into my companies tech support now about being able to link to a specific county or city search result with out the user needing to select all of that first. Its not the WORSE thing in the world to have them pick their county, then city, but I would have liked the option to dump them right to the town my PPC ad was advertising.

Just something I thought of as I read more and more articles on this forum. Outstanding intel here.

Before I get too down on anything though let me hear back from my web guys. Their may be a feature I am not aware of which has happened before. Programmers have a knack for that sort of thing!!

George

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Gwinnett Real Estate