Five Ways to Use the Internet to Make Money in 2007

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By Mike Parker

RISMEDIA, Jan. 5, 2007-It's the dawn of another clean slate: a new page in another ledger, a new chance to finally make the Internet work for you. Is this the year that you are going to grab onto that chance, or will the chance wind up missed, again?

Everyone knows that 80% of all real estate transactions involve the use of the Internet and that 80+% of buyers using the Internet to look for a home end up using a professional real estate person to help them (as opposed to only 60% of other buyers). Any one who does not know that the business is changing is either not paying attention, or whistling bravely past the graveyard. A successful Realtor told me this week that she now advertises only 5% as much as she used to in conventional papers and magazines (although she publishes her own online magazine for her prospects). Another client told me that her brokerage topped $100 million again this year in transactions, and fully 30% came from the Internet and her Web site. Yet another client told me that he used his powerful presence on the Internet to close more than 65 new listings-because his customers realize how important it is for their property to be accessible when people go looking for it on the Internet.

Can any true professional still think that the Internet is not an important component of their success? It seems hard to believe that could be true, but then why is it that most Realtors can't be found on the Internet, even when someone with a million dollars to spend comes right to their neighborhood? Twenty percent of agents and brokers get their fair share from the 'Net; 80% of you do not.

Would you like to know how to slice off a piece of this market for yourself? Doing so means taking a couple of big steps, doing some reasonably simple work and committing to "think Internet."

Step One: You must have your own personal Web site

Putting up a page on a company-provided Web site is not Internet Marketing. It's not even online marketing. This is so for two principal reasons: A) a person looking for you cannot find you on those sites (remember, they don't know that they're looking for you, they only know they want a Realtor in your neighborhood). B) No search engine can find you there, either. Here's an illustration of what I am talking about for each example:

A) Imagine you are looking to buy a home on….Martha's Vineyard, a beautiful island off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Imagine you are NOT a Realtor, but simply a buyer. You don't know anyone on the island (except maybe the Kennedys or Carly Simon and James Taylor) and you want to deal with a buyer's agent. What would you think that buyer would do? She might go to Google and enter "Martha's Vineyard Real Estate" or "Homes for Sale on Martha's Vineyard" and hit search. When that buyer did so, she would be presented with a list of 10 agents fitting that description, and a gentleman named Fred Roven is right there in the organic search results for both phrases. I'd say Roven has a pretty good chance at receiving that call (www.mvbuyeragents.com).

B) Now, imagine you are a buyer looking to engage a Realtor or look at a property in your market area. Go ahead, from your browser type in what you think that buyer might use to describe your area. 

(No cheating! You cannot use your name or your brokerage's name, you cannot use a lead service's name, you must use only the criteria you seek to fill (example: Luxury Homes Salem Oregon, Hoover AL Homes for Sale, Relocation Specialist Portland Oregon or the like). After all, you didn't know Roven's name in example A, either!) Well, did you make that list of 10? If you are not on the list, it means you cannot have any chance of making that sale.

Now, take note of the circumstance of both Roven, and your own personal search: the agent who did come up has their own Web site. Your own Web site is the single most important step you can take to get on board this phenomenon.

Maybe you don't believe this. All I can tell you is, that's your prerogative, but you can bet that Roven knows it, as does the number one agent who appeared in your search.

"But I already spend thousands on my Web site!" you groan. OK. So, you already spend thousands on someone else's Web site, you mean. Did you know you can obtain a Web site for free from a company that already services over 102,000 real estate professionals?

Point2 provides an online marketing platform to over 102,000 real estate professionals in 84 countries. Included is a complete self-maintained Web site solution, listing marketing platform and lead capture and incubation system. Listings that are added to Point2 can be instantly published online, in print brochures, to an e-mail marketing system and syndicated to many of the popular consumer search sites, all with a click of the button. Leads are captured by Point2, tracked, profiled and managed by an automatic lead incubation system. Lead conversion is maximized through instant text message notification and passive leads are converted over time with a flexible drip marketing system.

At the center of Point2's platform is a proprietary solution called Agent HandshakeTM that allows real estate professionals to cooperatively advertise listings on a peer-to-peer basis. Listing presentation materials are provided, in a seller login area so Point2 members can better communicate the results and power of organized real estate and the Handshake system to prospective sellers and clients alike.

You can join the Point2 community by subscribing for free at www.Point2Agent.com.

There are many providers of Web sites. However, you are not looking just for a Web site, you want an integrated marketing platform, from which you can improve your business of selling and listing houses. There are several companies providing competitive platforms in addition to Point2: each has its own perceived advantages and the choice is yours to make.

One last point on this topic: your Web site is always a work in progress. You should always be monitoring performance from it and making adjustments to improve that performance as you go along. Just as people who search the web are drawn to an informative site, they are not as drawn to a stale one full of outdated information. Make certain you have no ancient information still being presented as current, and be sure that you have a method to track your traffic so that (among other things) you can see what is most popular on your site.

Step two: People searching for homes need to be able to find your site

Roven appears on page one for many reasons, not the least of which is his subscription to something called Compass Search www.CompassInternetSystems.com (Disclosure: I consult to Compass on various matters from time-to-time). Compass Search is a three-pronged approach to getting a subscriber what they call, the "Power to be Found." Compass places its subscribers onto the first pages of major search engines using a combination of true optimization (they re-write your tags and suggest keyword rich text for our site), visitor tracking and analysis (They provide you with a subscription to the Web Reporter Tool www.webreportertool.com) that presents key information about your Web site traffic to you in a daily e-mail, and search engine placement that includes linking, content and more.

So, when Roven decided he wanted to be found by people looking for property on Martha's Vineyard, he subscribed to certain phrases he felt that buyers searching for what he offered would use. In December—the dead of winter– Roven received about 3,000 hits to his site. Clearly, people looking for Martha's Vineyard Real Estate can find Mr. Roven. The object of this article is that people looking for real estate in your town and your neighborhood can find you!

You get a daily e-mail report on your site, and a monthly e-mail reporting on your search engine placement. Or, if you'd rather, you can log in and see the information at anytime, 24/7. Compass has a wide variety of customers from Hawaii to Martha's Vineyard, and most places in between, too.

An alternative to organic search is pay-per-click (PPC), available from Google, Yahoo and MSN in various formats. In this product, you pay so many dollars per click (visitor, hopefully) that they can bring to your Web site by placing you in the paid search results section of that page. A little PPC can be a good thing, but I feel building any kind of reliance on it is not. PPC only benefits you on the search engine your purchase it from, and we have found that a great many real estate searches start on the searchers' e-mail browser. Yahoo & MSN have far more e-mail accounts together than Google, and all three are important places to be found. Unfortunately, PPC is also riddled with "click fraud," which even Business Week magazine calls "The Dark Side of Online Advertising." Write me if you'd like to read that article (mparker@theblackwatercg.com), and we'll send you a copy.

Step three: You must do some reasonably simple work

The Internet works autonomously, but only if a real live human being is supervising it. Likewise, while you do not need to become a technical person, you need to understand how to best market yourself online. Fortunately, there is a supply of free and constant good advice online that you can utilize (you are reading one of those resources right now: RIS Media (www.RISMedia.com) is a great source of ideas and information we all can use). Remember, it is not about technical stuff, it is about marketing. You'll need to read what others do, how they are successful, what doesn't work—then adapt your efforts accordingly. I tell people new to the experience of online marketing that they should expect to spend at least one hour a day staying on top of their site and on new methods of making people use it. When it comes to be that you are getting enough leads that you are spending three hours a day on it, it might be time to hire a virtual assistant. Even if that comes to be, you will be selling more homes than you ever have, and you'll be selling them from your Web site.

Step four: You must be permanently committed to thinking "Internet"

This means that you must re-learn however many years of thinking you have acquired in this business in some ways. For example, cut back your newspaper advertising. Cut back your Yellow Pages® advertising. The Internet far outperforms both of them. What's more, a good Web site is better than having a listing in every Yellow Pages® in North America. Over 80% of real estate transactions do not begin in the newspaper or the Yellow Pages anymore: they begin on the Internet, and that is according to the NAR®.

Promote your personal Web site, and only your personal Web site. Put your Internet address on everything; letterheads, cards, pens, yard signs, every ad you run, every postcard you send out. Learn to think how to promote yourself and your listings online—first. As you succeed, you will be able to secure more listings by showing people how your savvy about the Internet translates into more exposure for their property to a wider base of prospects.

Offer premiums to your Internet visitors: a newsletter, a discount from a local business-think creatively and you'll be amazed when you begin to harness just a little bit of the awesome power of the Internet.

Step five: Chart your progress.

How many listings did you obtain through your Web site last year? How many sales did you obtain from your Web site? (If the answer is "zero" that means that you missed out on 80% of the business in your area.) Now that you are going to be equipped with a first class marketing platform (Web site) with tools to track everything that happens from that platform, you will know what works and what doesn't.

Set a goal. Have reasonable expectations. If you've not utilized the Internet before, why not start realistically? Your first goal should be to obtain one listing or a sale from your Web site; then, to obtain one of either monthly, then weekly, then more frequently than that. Your first year try to make at least 20% of your income from the Internet.

Learn from others: many real estate professionals report selling 20 or more properties annually from their Web site; some report sales in the millions from their Web site. Find one of those persons and try to imitate what they do. Look at all your competitor's sites and see what they have that you don't. Narrow your aim: you can't sell every home in your state and you might not be able to sell every home in your neighborhood: choose your target market and work it hard. Remember that the Internet will bring you the buyers from anywhere if you go about having the power to be found by them, but that your life's bread is going to be earned in your local market with the folks in your town.

A final word

I was recently on the telephone with a client, Vickie Regen, a non-licensed partner in Prudential Taylor & Taylor Brokerage in Lincoln City, OR. She and her husband, Dennis Regen, own and operate a very successful brokerage that ranks in the top 10 at Prudential and completed over $100 million in transactions again last year (www.DennisRegen.com) where about 30% were Internet based.

As I complimented her on their performance in a tough market, I asked her what she attributed their success to: Vickie thought for a minute, then said, "Well, we couldn't succeed without our customers' loyalty and referrals. And, of course, we try to follow our slogan, every day." "What's your slogan?" I asked. "100% service, 100% of the time," she answered.

Online or offline, that's what selling and listing real estate is really about, and in the final analysis, isn't the Internet just a powerful tool with which to provide better service to your customers? Make this the year that you experience what so many already know: Online marketing can make you more effective, more efficient, and more successful. If you aren't looking for your portion of 80% of all property sales, you don't need the Internet and you can ignore everything said in this article. Otherwise, take that first step, and start using the Internet to make money for you.

Mike Parker is a principal at The Blackwater Consulting Group, Inc. To receive a copy of his new booklet: "The Five Steps to Selling Yourself to Your Clients," e-mail mparker@theblackwatercg.com. For ideas on improving your online marketing results from your Web site, e-mail realestate@theblackwatercg.com and ask for "15 Tips to Make your Website make Money for YOU."

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