Recently I gave a talk about internet marketing and SEO for real estate at the Ohio Association of Realtors. 

During my talk, I discussed how companies like Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor (dot) com have convinced the whole real estate world that doing search engine optimization for real estate is impossible. 

Don't even try! (They say). 

Just pay us for the leads because we are the only companies that can rank since we have so much authority in the search engines. You can never win! 

And it's worked! At this point, most brokers, teams, and agents don't even consider SEO since they think it is too hard, too expensive and they feel like they won't get any benefits from their effort.

And they're wrong! In fact, because so many people have given

Greetings valued customers,

I’m writing this post to help explain REW’s deprecation policy and also to help our customers understand the serious potential risks involved in running deprecated platforms as well as the significant advantages of upgrading to current technology. 

I recognize that if you are reading this you have likely come here via one of two channels. Either you have been sent here by an account manager who is being proactive about encouraging you to upgrade or you are an existing customer who is having a technical issue with a deprecated platform and you have been told that it is no longer supported. 

Note: If you have already ordered your Renaissance platform you do not need to continue reading. Thank you for your order, you are

Updated, March 12, 2020

During these unprecedented times, it can be hard to find your footing. While many of us learn how to run our businesses from our home offices, this is a good time to get our online presence in order.

Now, more than ever, you need to focus on getting leads, and ensuring that while they visit your site, they are having the best possible experience.

Part of this is taking a good look at your website, and taking the time (while you have it) to clean it up, to ensure your leads are spending as much time on your pages as possible.

As you are practicing social distancing and working from home, so are they. And they have much more time on their hands to prepare to buy or sell their homes, once the fears of the crisis

This article is part of a series about real estate PPC. We highly encourage you to read the entire guide as it's released. Follow the discussion on REW Forums!

• Part 1: What is PPC?
• Part 2: How Much Does Real Estate PPC Cost?
• Part 3: The ROI of Real Estate PPC
• Part 4: To be continued...

Your website should be an investment, not a business card.

In real estate, PPC is the most cost-effective way to generate traffic to your website, and fast.

But what type of ROI should you expect from real estate PPC?

In this blog, we'll cover all the factors that go into the expected expenses and commissions you can earn from PPC, including advice on how to improve your ROI.

We'll also go through a practical example, using typical results

This article is part of a series about real estate PPC. We highly encourage you to read the entire guide as it's released. Follow us on Facebook to stay up to date!

• Part 1: What is PPC?
• Part 2: How Much Does Real Estate PPC Cost?
• Part 3: The ROI of Real Estate PPC (and How to Improve It)
• Part 4: To be continued...

It's the first question we're always asked when an agent or brokerage is considering PPC:

"What's my expected cost per lead?"

To be honest, there's no simple answer. But, by answering the following questions, we can get a pretty close approximation and help you understand the mystery behind the cost of PPC:

1. How does the Google Ads auction work?
2. Cost Per Click: What is the expected CPC in real estate?

This article is part of an upcoming series about real estate PPC. We highly encourage you to read the entire guide as it's released. Follow us on Facebook to stay up to date!

• Part 1: Real Estate PPC Guide: Everything you need to know
• Part 2: How Much Does Real Estate PPC Cost?
• Part 3: The ROI of Real Estate PPC (and How to Improve It)
• Part 4: To be continued...

Let's talk PPC for real estate!

PPC is one of the most cost-effective forms of lead generation in real estate.

What is it? Why should you care? Let's dive in!

What is real estate PPC?

PPC is an acronym for Pay-Per-Click Advertising. Why is it called Pay-Per-Click? Because you pay every time someone clicks one of your ads.

The term PPC most commonly refers

If there's one contentious issue when it comes to real estate websites, it's registration settings. Some agents swear by forced registration and others shudder at the mere mention of the words.

The purpose of this blog is to provide a powerful example of how forced registration can impact real estate lead generation in a big way.

What is Forced Registration?

Before we jump into our experiment, let's clarify exactly what it is we mean by "forced registration." In this case, we mean that users are required to provide their email and phone number before they're able to browse a single listing on your website. To be clear, this is totally non-optional registration—the user has to either fill out the form to view a listing or back out of the page.

We recently hired a third-party research company to interview anonymous buyers and sellers who bought or sold property, worth between $300,000 to $1.5 Million, within the past 12 months. The participants were asked a series of questions over an hour-long interview to help us better understand their habits, opinions, and decision-making processes.

We were particularly interested in finding out how buyers and sellers choose their real estate agents in this digital age. Here's what we found out:

People don't choose Realtors on portal sites

One of the most interesting observations in the market research results was that buyers and sellers are actively using portal websites to explore properties, but they don't use those same portals to find real

Towards the end of 2017, we surveyed close to 300 real estate agents across North America, checking in with nearly 200 of those Realtors to find out where they plan to spend their marketing budgets in 2018.

We broke the agents into three cohorts based on GCI:

• GCI under $100,000
• GCI between $100 - $300,000
• GCI above $300,000

Then we asked them whether they intend to spend less, the same, or more in several areas of marketing to figure out where their investments were going to go. Here's what we discovered:

Web Platform Spending

At least one in four Realtors plan to spend more on their web platform in the 12 months following the survey. In contrast, only 1 in 10 Realtors intends to spend less. That means the vast majority of

There's a pathway to success that almost every real estate agent we work with has followed. It starts with a website to help users find information quickly and efficiently. Then, real estate agents add in digital marketing services, using PPC and eventually SEO to drive more leads to their site. Once this is done, our clients start seeing significant improvements in lead generation.

But then their progress stops. The leads accumulate, yet nothing happens. We've watched agents generate more leads than they can handle, yet... no sales. In the end, these agents end up thinking their leads are garbage and their website investment was a waste of money.

What went wrong?

They only did half the job. These agents didn't realize that lead generation is