Opportunity is here NOW!
The market is slow, but the law makers in Washington are
going to place incentives to get it thriving again.
Will you be ready?
If your real estate website doesn't
have the MLS in it, we offer NNREN IDX for New Hampshire, Maine,
Vermont, VREIN IDX for Vermont, and MLSpin IDX for Massachusetts
, Connecticut, and Road Island.
Please read on and enjoy. I know you will get at least 5 - 10 useful
tips below. Also if you would like to discuss your site, let me know,
my contact info is at the bottom of this web page.
Think about this as you read on:
If you sold only 2 more homes a week from leads that came from your
website while you were out to dinner, on vacation, even while sleeping,
you could be selling Millions of dollars more in property a year, than
you can now!
The point is; It’s a simple formula. If you have over 30,000
MLS listings on your Website and all the inquiries go to you, you should
be able to increase sales.
The market is soft. The Sellers are not able to put a property
on the market and sell it in a few days or weeks.
The Buyer is now the new focus!
Most buyers will find their new homes on the Internet. In fact according
to the National Association of Realtors, over 70% of home buyers used the
Internet to purchase a home. Most were younger and purchased more expensive
homes than older buyers. 71% said the Internet shortened their search
time for a home, and Internet users were more likely to use a real estate
agent in the transaction.
According to Realtor Magazine online, “the Internet is surpassed
only by the Yard sign as the most effective marketing tool”. 96%
of realtors find the Internet a key part of doing business.
If you have a website, compare it to the web sites below and you decide,
will they use your site, or one of these? If you do not have a website,
than the essential features below should be in your spec. for any site
development, (or of course, we can do it for you.)
These Websites are:
12 times more productive than a website without
a MLS feed.
8 times more productive that those with the mls in a frame in their site.
4 times more productive for those with an
inexpensive IDX feed.
Your investment will be returned many times over in the first few months
with incremental new business from buyers, and sellers,
that may never contact you. You spend thousands each year on print advertising
that is useless after a day or at best a week.
Brokers:
Grow your agency by providing highly qualified leads to new agents
in the office.
Give your new agents just starting in the business the lift up they
need to get past the first year of trying to build relationships and
get listings. Provide them prospective buyers, from qualified leads from
your website. Buyer Brokers will have all the tools they need to server
the buyer on the web. You can even feature listings on your home page!
Agents:
Get more listings by having a website that competes with the other
realtors who have the MLS on their site. To the outside world it is better
to contract with an agent who has 30,000 listings on their website
than one with only few! But the biggest plus is when you don’t
have listings; you can still sell like crazy!
Your Website needs to be customized to your needs. It needs to offer
the following features and benefits to make it fit your niche
in your market and conform to your Internet marketing
strategy! (By the way most don’t have an Internet strategy.)
Real
success is what we offer.
We do this buy servicing a
limited amount of realtors and offer monthly ongoing search
engine optimization. Each of our SEO contracts offer an exclusive for your towns served! If our goal is to make you the dominiate player on the search engines then how can we do it for you, and the office down the street from you?
One of our customers Mike Gannett, has used us for over 3 years
and dominates his market.
Burlington
Vermont Homes shows all the current listings for the week on his
home page. This useful feature brings visitors back daily. On average
30% of his visitors return to his site using a direct link (saved in
their favorites) or typed the website name in the address bar of their
browser. He is #1 for almost all burlington related searches.Dont take
our word for is see the stats
from google on his site, and in a recient email he wrote an ad he wants to send to fellow Coldwell Banker agents in Vermont.
"... if you are doing $5M or more in business and wish to double it through
web site leads within 1-2 years, you need to contact me. Your business is my
business. Building an effective web site does not happen by accident. Just
as with your success, my success in building effective sites comes from
years of experience. Ask Mike Gannett with C.B. Hickok & Boardman Realty
whose site www.BurlingtonVermontHomes.com is the #1 web site in his
marketplace."
So here is a freebie. This is how we make our clients successful.
The Bakers Dozen of Real Estate Website Essentials
#1 One Click Searches: see listings in one click right
on the navigation bar of your site. For example, click here to see homes
in Homes
in Manchester NH You can customize this to any mix
of NNEREN listings. Click here to see Land
in Nashua NH . If you want to combine databases click here to see
investment properties Multi
Family in Concord NH. We can create
any type of search you want in one click.
(Benefit: This means your visitors don't have to think about how to
find listings, they can just click and see listings! So they use your
website to search for listings because, it is easy to use. )
Plus, we can have your listings show up at the top of the search results
pages.
( Benefit: Sellers love this feature, and is a great closing tool.).
#2 Map searches. You can customize a map of your area,
and let users click to see properties, or create their own searches.
This especially helpful for users who know are not currently living in
the area but are planning a move, and do not know the names of the towns
that are “bedroom communities” for their area. See an example
of ultimate use of this by clicking
here. to see the home page www.lakesregionproperty.com
(Benefit: For users that are not web savvy, or don’t know the
area well anyone can see the listings they are interested in.)
#3 Personalized: When a listing of yours is found,
the visitor sees the listing agents picture, contact info, and a link
to their bio. To see an example click
on any of the listings on this page and click agent bio
(Benefit: Gives your site a personal touch and makes your agents feel
a part of the site.)
#4 All the Images: If a picture is worth a thousand
words, than your Website property display page is worth 12 thousand.
You see all 12 images from the ml s. It easy to see a larger image by
either clicking on it or simply place your mouse over one of the small
images and it will enlarge in the existing window click here to see and
example
in Claremont NH Real Estate.
( Benefit: cost per month from Quest is $100.00 ask how you can get
them for only $25.00 per month!)
#4 Always up to date!: Tired of entering your listings
into your website. NO MORE! Just hours after your listing
is entered into ambiance, it is on a page in your website devoted to
your listings automatically! Vermont Real Estate Agent
example. These listings are sorted by price; you can
sort yours any way you want! Keeping content current is a major key to
success on the Internet.
(Benefit: Sellers will think you are working hard for them, and you
will be! Most real estate professions don’t have time to work on
their website everyday. We keep it up to date. The only thing you need
to do is add a new agent to site when they join you company. That’s
it! And we can do it for you if you want. )
#5 Put your best foot forward: Want to feature your
newest listings on your home page. Do you have to pay your Webmaster
to do it for you?
We automate the process! Your newest or updated listings will appear
on your home page hours after being added / changed in Inovia. There
are many ways this can look on your site. Click
here to see an example.
There is also and option to add the “featured listings” to
the site. These may not be the newest listings but are ones that need
extra promotion. This is done through a simple admin tool in your site.
You simply pick the listing and add it. Click
here to see a site done this way.
(Benefit: This alone saves the cost of monthly hosting by no maintenance
costs.)
Here an individual agent uses this feature to offer
his favorite listings and show more inventory on his home page. This
allows him to feature properties that are not always listed by him, but
allow him to sell more Quechee
Vermont Real Estate.
(Benefit: don’t have any listings, so what, you can still sell
properties on your site. This is great for new agents or buyer brokers.)
This site offer all the newest listing for his target market right on
the home page. this allows for better search engine optimization by delivering
his keywords using his content. he offers New
Hampshire Lakes Region Real Estate and the home page does just that!
#6 Your Office Directory must look great! See an example
of a multiple
office site all together or separated
by office or an example of a small
office with your agents on your home page, or a customized
page for each office
(Benefit: Make it easy for your clients to find the agent they are
working with, and learn a little about them.)
#7 Stickiness is important. If the property they are
searching for is not in the MLS at the time they are looking on your
site, they have 2 great options:
1) Automatic email updates. They simply put in the search criteria
they are looking for, and if a listing comes on the market they get an
email with the listings page of your site! So they see an image of the
property, description, price and location. They can click on it and they
go directly to that property's page in your website. Others offer automated
updates, but none sends the info like we do. Call us to see an example.
2) They can fill out a customized form, to request an agent to find
the property for them.
(Benefit: If you keep them coming back to your Website as the resource
for finding properties, than the deal is yours when they find it.)
#8 Ability to inquire about multiple listings. Users
can select multiple properties from any property types and add them to,
what we call a "Wishlist", or a saved list. Now they send one
inquiry for all the properties they are interested in at one time. (
Benefit: This lets users not have to give their information over and
over and makes it easy and fast to use.)
#9 Ability to Goolge map your listings! (Due to the
competitive nature of this feature we will only reveal how
it works by phone or in person, after establishing you are interested
in this product.)
#10 Customized email configurations. Make your email
look professional and reinforce your Website by having all you email
with your domain name on it. We own the email services so we can create
any email setup you need. If you have an agent that uses AOL email, but
would like to have an email address that is XYZ@yourdomain.com, we can
do it. We also host all email for you, and offer Web mail on your domain!
Your hosting provider needs to do this for you. Email is the most used
form of communication in this day and age. Getting your website address
in front of every person you contact is crucial.
(Benefit: No need to contact your ISP, when you get a new agent. We
handle it all for you. No need to change email address if you want to
change your ISP, to lower your Internet service costs. Consistent and
free advertising for you website.)
#11 Internet marketing.
“ We guarantee top of the search
engine results placement”,
this is a lie! Period.
No one controls the search engines. But there are 2 ways to obtain
placement on the first page for your selected keywords. First
is a content rich website, and second is through
advertising.
You have 2 choices in designing a website, and to be found on search
engines, they are in conflict with one another. A site that ranks high
in search engines also ranks low in usefulness. This is because to rank
high in search engines you need a lot of information. You need
to cram your keywords over and over on the home page, and in doing so
you lost the ease of use with a lot of text.
We have resolved this conflict
with providing dynamic content through specific search of the IDX to
deliver lots of listings to your page. We then imbed your key works
in the results. An example is the home page for NH
Lakes Region Real Estate, our newest fully search engine optimized
website You will notice that the home page has hundreds of links to
specific properties that a visitor is looking for.
You also need lots of
links to related sites, this is why most of the top sites under real
estate searches are “portal
sites”, and they are link farms for real estate. (Many are a good
place to advertise for little or no cost.)
Your second way for getting found on the internet is focused advertising.
The best choice is to use pay per click advertising. This places your
site on the first page of a search engine results page either at the
top of some pages, and on the right side, or both of others. You can
even make the link they click go directly to the property pages of the
site related to the Keyword. For only pennies you get target advertising
and you get targeted results.
This type of marketing is also consistent. Search engine placement
that changes month to month, takes time to show up in the first place,
and then if you drop off the page it takes even more time to get back,
you can be there in days and never leave unless out bid for the term.
At that time you can revise your bid and be back on top in minutes.
there
are 2 choices for Pay Per Click advertising. Goolge
AdWords and Yahoo
Overture.
Managing this type of marketing is easy. This initial setup is confusing
and for a first timer may be rejected from not conforming to the rules.
But we can get you started and show you how to do it from there.
And about your Print advertising; It is a passive media that is thrown
out with only a small percentage even seeing you ad. Use the print ads
as a tease to compel readers to go to your website. Now have a way to
tell them your whole story and sell them on your services, and show them
thousands of properties.
(Benefit: What good are hits to your site if they are not targeted
to what you offer? Get less traffic, but more productive traffic with
targeted advertising. I’m certified as an Adwords professional
and know how get PPC advertising setup right and can show you how to
maintain it.)
#12 Email Marketing. If your goal is to get their
name and email address.
We can show you several ways to accomplish this. If you can’t
contact visitors to your Website than how can you let them know of new
developments in the market? Also, there are legitimate opt in lists that
are available from list brokers. We have seen one client who used such
a list to generate over 500 leads in 2 weeks!
#13 Understand the business. I have taken the real
estate license class, but choose not to be a real estate agent. Your
consultant needs to understand the real estate business. The rules of
what you can and can’t do are complicated. Most members of NNEREN
are not aware of the rules regarding their website’s use of an
IDX feed, and find out when they get a nasty fine in the mail. All our
functions have been reviewed by a member of the NNEREN board’s
Internet committee and are approved by them. Not one of our realtors
have received a fine for any of the functionality of their website.
(Benefit: I took the class to understand your needs and what it takes
to thrive in the industry.)
So if this does not peak your interest, than success on the Internet
is simply not a priority for you and I thank you for your time.
If this does spark a thought of how you could increase your business
now, and in the future, than call me and lets talk about you joining
our other realtors who have found success on the web. Or if you have
a consultant, ask him to look into doing the above essential features
for you.
For more information on our real estate websites click here.
Thanks
Clif McNaughton
President
Business Services Consultants
Lebanon NH & Windsor VT
603-448-9241 802-299-2045 |
