Thread: PPC click through

Max...I can't tell you how many clicks you need to close a deal! However, that being said I can tell you it works... You need to have the proper consultant and Conversion Tools in place just like Organic!

Thanks Al. I'm just a little nervous about the whole thing. I'm #1 in MSN for lake oswego real estate, and #5 in portland real estate. No where in Yahoo or Google yet. But with that, I'm not even getting more than 4 or 5 visitors a day. Pathetic, huh! That makes me wonder what the heck is going on. Will PPC increase traffic by leaps and bounds in any way? I'm shaking!!! LOL.

Well Max...there are no guarantees in life as you know! However I will say that is the nice thing about PPC...you can adjust the traffic...to fit your needs!

Max,

SDR is absolutely right!!!

Make sure you have a plan in place before starting. I do PPC for some agents in my area. As of recently, it has been working great, but when we first started (1st month), it was a complete mess.

You truly need a system in place to manage the leads coming in. Furthermore, you need someone to manage the calls that must be placed right away (15 minutes of receiving the lead). It is imperative that those people using this lead system be somewhat technically savvy. I would recommend a blackberry or something similar so you can work leads in the car etc. In addition, you should really have someone fielding the leads and making those initial contacts to validate the lead and gather intial information. If you or your people are afraid of picking up the phone, you will fail.

Lastly, Follow up, Follow up, Follow up! You have to work the old or stale leads as hard as the fresh ones coming in. We are making 3-4 phone calls on each lead and then entering into ACT for follow up in the furture if we strike out.

There may be a better way than what I listed above, but we learned the hard way. I can tell you this, it does work, if worked properly.

afm1...thanks for the advice and getting me ready for it. I'm going to start PPC in 3rd week of June. I've got less than a month to put everything together. This is going to be fun.

Max,

before you start your PPC you need to work out the algorythm of actions of your visitors. How they are coming to your site, what they are looking and where they are going.

I like the design - looks pretty and unique. But I had to stare at the home page for a few minutes to realize what is where. I'm used to read from left to right and comprehend info this way.. you have thin comlumns and visitors have to read each of them separately, it's kinda hard and when I read, columns next to it with different colors are disturbing. I can't really concentrate on the info and figure where I need to go right away... kinda need to take some time. May be its jut me.

MLS search is one of the most visited parts of a web site - I think you're making a big mistake providing listing details without asking visitors who they are (no registration). In your case PPC won't drive you a lot of traffic - too expencive, so you need to try to convert each visitor into lead carefully. People don't like to fill out forms unles they get something for it and they will get listing details if they register, till then you give them free basic MLS search with limited info.

The second most lead generating part of a web site, in my experience, are smaller communities - people would like to leave in a city/town/country but they want to see the exact place, community, neighborhood with nice houses/townhomes/condos etc. What are
* Portland
* Lake Oswego
* Beaverton
* Hillsboro
* Tigard
* West Linn
??
Are those cities? towns? communities? I see now they are cities. When visitor comes in, mostly, they already know where they would like to leave, I mean areas as small as city Now, give them communities in different areas of the city, different living, price ranges etc; lots of pictures of those very specific communities, drawings, floor plans if available etc. You have to have a "request more info" form on each community/naighborhood page. People start spending more time on your site just browsing through because you took your time to take all those nice pictures and now they have a good idea on the specific areas. I get so many requests every day on small communities, new developments etc.

Right now I think your site can generate leads on your MLS search, I don't think it will generate you a lot of leads on regular contact forms unless there is no alternative information on your area or you drive tonns of traffic.

I see you have investment page - this is good, add a few links to investment articles somewhere where people can see them right away and read area specific investment info and general knowlagebase. Also, there are a lot of First Time Buyers - I would use this posibility to create a separate page for them just like the Investment page - I'm getting a lot of those. Also, I get a few 1031 Tax Exchanges per week, not too many, but I get them.

Hope this helps, and don't take my advise as criticizm The site is very stylish, looks professional its just feels confusing on the homepage.

Hello,
Which company u gonna use with ppc?

If u have high budget of course google adward but if ur budget less than $150
I suggest 7search or searchfeed they both nice , I had previous experience with them.

Originally Posted by gemini

MLS search is one of the most visited parts of a web site - I think you're making a big mistake providing listing details without asking visitors who they are (no registration).

There's a lot of debate over this, and I have tried it both ways. From my experience our agents receive more valid contact information and more MLS information requests by not having visitors fill out contact info before viewing properties.

When we made them fill out the info first, the majority of the email addresses and other contact info were bogus.

We use other ways to collect contact info. While this method does not garner as many email addresses as having a web surfer submit info, 99% of our contact info is valid and over 80% are inquiries from people serious about buying a home.

The net result is that the agent does not have to weed through tons of contact info to find the few good leads. This means that they spend less time on their web site, and more time doing other important tasks (like playing golf ).

I do agree that you need a good plan with PPC, especially to track visitors. I suggest that you create a new page specifically for people that enter your site through PPC. You can also create multiple PPC landing pages that tie in to each PPC phrase that you use.

Hey Golf Guy,
Can you elaborate on "doing other things" to obtain information?

My experience (although very limited) has shown that asking too much information can be "threatening" and people will exit the site. I agree however, that more info yields a more serious buyer and better information. However, the hits would be less. Is that what you mean about not having to weed thru BS leads?