Real Estate Lead Generation & Conversion

Posts Tagged ‘online real estate lead conversion’

What do you want from Google?

In my last post I stated that when doing Internet marketing for real estate you don’t want to be found for a very popular search term.  I stand by that statement with two exceptions:  1) You might do this if you are building a brand, like you would at a very large brokerage firm, or 2) You might do this if you have a lot of under utilized resources on your payroll and you don’t want o fire anyone.  Either way optimizing for very popular search terms will not result in a positive return on your investment in the short term.

Before I go into why, let’s discuss “very popular search terms.”  Clearly “Chicago real estate” (with 31.1 million results) or “Las Vegas homes for sale” (with 9.7 million results) qualify as very popular search terms.  What about “Bethesda real estate” (with 869 thousand results) or “Homes for sale in Traverse City” (with 159 thousand results)?  Probably yes, still quite popular.  Even a search for “Granby CO homes for sale” with only 30 thousand results looks pretty popular.  These search results can seem very daunting for those of us with pretty small marketing budgets.  On the other hand I would suggest that this is not where you want to compete anyway.  These simple search queries “,city. +  real estate” are the targets of all the internet aggregators like Zillow and Trulia but this is not where you want to be.

Let’s now switch our focus to “How prospects use the internet.”  We have examined user behavior and classified searches into three phases:

1)       General Searches, like the ones mentioned are the place where many prospects begin their research process. To position your website to be found for this type of search will typically require the largest investment.

2)       Searches for specific locations (subdivisions, in a specific school district, etc.) or Searches for features (waterfront, granite counter tops, etc.) and

3)       Searches for streets or specific addresses

Now let’s build a profile for a typical visitor that comes to your site from each of the Three Phases of Search:

General Search Visitor: This person has typically just started their quest.  They are early in research mode.  They often don’t even know what they are looking for themselves.  Someone searching for a home in Chicago by typing in “Chicago homes for sale” still has to decide on the best area, features, etc.  The one advantage of connecting with a visitor at this time is that they probably have not engaged a real estate agent yet.  If they do give you their information at this time and you are able to set up an appointment you should expect to show this customer a lot of properties before they are ready to make an offer.  Of course there are always exceptions to this rule.   I’m just not sure I would spend the money on SEO to find those exceptions.

Visitor Searching for Specific Locations and Features: At this point your visitor has an understanding of what they want and where they want it.  They are still looking but are now zeroing in on what they feel will be their perfect home.  For example someone looking for “the Links at Poplar Creek” Hoffman Estates has done enough research to know where they want to live and here’s the best part – your website will be competing with under 6,000 other results on Google.  Another actual search example: four bedroom double bay window houses for sale in Birmingham brought a customer to our site. Search visitors in Phase 2 have enough information to be ready to make an offer when they find the right property.  Now is when the guidance and support of a real estate agent is most needed and will add the most value.

Searches for Streets or Specific Addresses: These visitors are in buy mode.  They think they know exactly what they want and have their wallets out and on the table.  The fact that they are still searching on the internet is an indication they still need an expert to help them close the deal on the perfect home.  But these visitors are so far down the search process they are the ones most likely to already be working with an agent.  We can not read people’s minds,  sometimes people start with a narrow focus but then broaden their search parameters.  For example the search: Hazel Drive house for sale in Petoskey brought a visitor to our site that spent the next 18 minutes viewing 45 different pages.  And the visitor that searched for: 9107 East Starhill, Lonetree then spent the next hour and a half viewing different homes listed on our site.  BTW only 21 websites showed up for this search.

Okay now we know what Google wants and we know what we want from Google, next we discuss how to match this up and achieve SEO success with your website.

A key characteristic of real estate agents that are successful at converting online leads into sales is that they follow-up immediately. Real estate leads contacted within less than 15 minutes convert at the highest rate. The prospects recall filling out the form and their motivation for doing so. The value of real estate leads degrades by 10% or more if not contacted in the first 15 minutes. The rate of decay slows down from the 15 minute mark until the lead switches activities (leaves work, turns off their home computer. etc) This period of slowing degradation typically lasts about 3-4 hours. Contacting a lead more than 4 hours after submission results in another 10-15% decline in conversion rates. Real estate prospects are bouncing around the web, looking at multiple sites and often filling out multiple forms. If you don’t contact them within four hours, they may not remember visiting your Website. If they are not contacted same day, they probably will not recall your site or why they filled out the form and you will have given other real estate professionals an opportunity to get their foot in the door. Failure to contact a lead during the day of registration degrades the value of the lead by 40-50% versus contacting them within 15 minutes.

An article by LeadQual describes how speed wins when it comes to converting online leads because “Internet leads die a quick death”. LeadQual’s research indicates that “the first to contact a lead increases conversions by 238%”. While the above referenced study is in regard to leads in general and is skewed based on lead generation companies that sell their leads simultaneously to multiple sources, results for real estate leads are similar. The LeadQual article was based on a study by Dr. James Oldroyd of MIT on lead response management.

A survey by the California Association of Realtors reinforced the importance of response time:

86% of leads felt that response time was “extremely important” when deciding on their real estate agent

31% of Internet homebuyers  expected their real estate agent to respond instantly to their online inquiry

96% of Internet home buyers expected a real estate agent to contact them within 4 hours of their online inquiry

Following up on leads immediately after they were submitted will significantly increase your online lead conversion rates and increase the number of homes you sell.