Online Marketing: It’s ‘Almost Heaven’ in West Virginia Brokerage

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By Mike Parker

RISMEDIA, September 10, 2008-When John Denver wrote his great song, “Take me Home, Country Roads,” he described a beautiful place that was “almost heaven.” He was referring to the State of West Virginia. Many of us remember that song, but chances are not good that many of us would answer “West Virginia” to the following question: “Can you name a state where a remarkable real estate online marketing success story is happening, right now?”

The firm of J. Phillip Kesecker, Inc. www.jphilipkesecker.com is located in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, which probably would not be anyone’s first guess as a place where real estate agents are experiencing excellent Internet success. What the firm accomplishes daily in their entire operation, however, is a splendid example of adapting to the new paradigm of Internet home sales. From their office in Morgan County-where there are only about 300 residential listings and 200 land listings in the county at any given time-they are obtaining about 20 solid leads per month and 2-4 sales per month solely from their website. This small independent brokerage in a small real estate market continues to succeed online when so many agents and brokers are frustrated and unable to succeed online. This success is no flash in the pan; this has been going on for over a year now. What do these folks know that you don’t know? We spoke recently with Mike Pearse, the general manager of this 50 year-old independent firm to find out.

Mike returned to his home town of Berkeley Springs after 12 years in the U.S. Air Force “Emergency Ordnance Disposal” squadron (”EOD” in Air Force talk means “Bomb Squad,” folks!) and later, information technology, because he wanted to go home for good. He always loved real estate and so when the opportunity arose to join Mr. Kesecker’s firm, he did not hesitate. It was a wise choice and his current job is certainly much safer than being on the bomb squad!

Anatomy of an online success

Once Mike became immersed in the business in 2006, he realized that he needed an online marketing strategy and an online presence to tap into the rising population of Internet home buyers (now up to 84% of buyers). He obtained a website for the business and spent lots of time working on it. He put together a good looking site with lots of features and was very pleased with the suitability of the finished site. However, despite his IT savvy and the fact he was using a very SEO-friendly platform, not much in the way of sales and leads were produced from it. [Does this sound familiar? It's an all-too-frequent thing-lots of work, no results.]

“No matter what I did in the way of trying to improve my position on the search engines, we couldn’t get any higher in the search engine rankings than the third page of Google,” Mike stated at the outset. He knew that he needed to somehow bring power to his site that would move him up the rankings. As he puts it; “We rarely received prospects from the Web. I kept reading each week (it seemed) how important SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was. My site provider recommended I contact Compass Search from Compass Internet Systems. We subscribed in August of 2007 and almost immediately* we were on page one of Google and we started receiving inquiries from our site. It was exciting! Since then, we are averaging two to four sales per month from our Internet leads, and we get a solid 20 or so monthly. What is really amazing, however, is that regardless of market conditions, those leads keep coming. We close a pretty high percentage of these leads within a few months. Right now, we have many of those leads at the point where they are close to buying and are zeroing in on exactly what they want at a time when many agents have virtually nothing going on.”

“Because we are on page one for Berkeley Springs WV Homes for Sale and other searches, our site is visited first before competing sites in our market. Our site is still a work in progress, but the coaching and advice I received from Compass has greatly impacted the success of our site; once I implemented the soft lead capture and certain other recommended elements we really started succeeding online. I’m pretty tech-savvy but I can tell you this: our monthly sales from the Internet would not have been possible in this real estate market without our subscription. I believe agents can replicate our success if they are willing to work on building their site and willing to invest in succeeding in Search Engine Optimization. Once those points are covered and the incoming leads are promptly and carefully responded to, the selling begins online.”

What kind of Internet shoppers does this site attract?

“Our average house price is about $200,000+ and much of our business comes from Baltimore MD and Washington DC metro areas-people who are looking for a retirement or second home in the mountains close to the services and attractions of the major cities. We are about a 90 minute drive from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Additionally, Mr. Kesecker is not only the broker, he’s also a developer. One of our specialties is cedar-sided cabins and chalets as vacation and weekend getaways. Mr. Kesecker has been doing this business for a long time and he delivers a really fine product. With our position on the major search engines and our user-friendly website, we show this product to people from all over the world, every day.”

Last year, over 3,000 people who were thinking about a cabin or home in the mountains found Mike’s website — just on Google. Thousands more found him on Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Those people could never have found him and the website without his search subscription. The different things buyers typed in to find him consisted of over 100 different phrases that refer the searcher to www.jphilipkesecker.com. Whether these searchers are simply dreamers or serious buyers, they represent future and current business that you simply can’t find any other way. “We’ve sold 12 homes this year to folks from far outside our market because they found us with our search subscription,” Mike reports. “That could never have happened if folks couldn’t find us when they go looking for property online in Berkeley Springs.”

First page of search engine rankings gain many listings

“We obtain about 90% of our leads from our search subscription. We expect that, now, but one of the benefits of our subscription other than as a great lead source is demonstrated whenever we make a listing presentation. Our Internet marketing focus and our high search engine rankings for our markets give us the ability to give our clients maximum exposure of their property for sale. We find that clients understand that today’s buyers are performing their own initial house hunt on the web and they instinctively understand the importance of affiliating themselves with a firm that is proactive in keeping an edge over competition with search engine placement. It is a powerful thing to go into a prospect’s home and set up my laptop and tell them to type in Berkeley Springs WV Homes for Sale and see which firm is always there, on every search engine result – it’s our firm: J. Phillip Kesecker, Inc. I’ll tell you, that little demonstration is more powerful than about an hour of talking about what we can do for them! When we come up on the first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN in the organic-not paid-listings, it is a real closing tool. They believe that we can bring them more prospects than firms not on that first page, and they are correct.”

Staying on top online

“It’s been a year since we made it to the first pages, and I have to say that the ability to reach a larger audience has us hopeful that we can increase our business about 25% over last year. We feel confident that we can stay high in the rankings because of the feedback tools that come with our subscription. We are monitoring those tools to stay in tune with what our Internet shoppers want and we are making sure that we are maximizing our potential to reach our targeted buyers. By implementing our organic search plan for increased web exposure and by following up every lead we receive immediately and personally, we’ve created a source of business that we never experienced before. Today, I wouldn’t want to even contemplate operating our business without our high search engine rankings. To us, it has made the difference between being hurt by the soft market and continuing to prosper and perhaps even grow, regardless of the overall market. It’s no secret that 80% or more of residential real estate buyers choose their agent through a search engine and I am happy to say that the search engines choose us for people searching for homes in our marketplace, first. It’s a huge advantage that we treasure and protect.”

It’s this marriage of a good website with good SEO and good online marketing advice that can make the difference in whether your website produces business for you, or whether it is simply a good looking part of your marketing that never lives up to its potential. I view stories like J. Phillip Kesecker’s as instructional to agents in other states where specialized community-focused agencies are the norm. Online marketing-(making a positive force for sales from the Internet) often has its biggest impact in communities that are considered “out of the mainstream” by the big city folks who go on and on about “Web 2.0,” or the latest techie innovation and “the next big thing.” As a market, the Internet is everywhere and where you are makes no difference in your potential to make it succeed for you: if houses are sold there, the Internet can work for you. If your competition is not up to speed on organic search engine marketing and utilizing the Internet, by implementing these things yourself you might find yourself spreading a very wide net that lands you a great catch while your competitors are continuing to scratch for any prospect they can find the traditional way. Continuing sales in steady streams arriving in your inbox isn’t “almost heaven,” it is real estate heaven and the Internet can make it happen for you-in West Virginia or anywhere.

*Mike Pearse was on top of the major search engines within one month. It can take more time for that to occur because Internet placement is a dynamic process. To be safe, give yourself reasonable expectations and plan on seeing results within 90 days or so and you will most likely not be disappointed.

About the Author: Mike Parker is a principal at the Blackwater Consulting Group, Inc., and specializes in online marketing for real estate professionals. You can reach him by e-mail at mparker@theblackwatercg.com. Obtain a free copy of his new booklet “REAL SEO Explained” by writing to realseo@compassinternetsystems.com. It will be sent to you free and no one will call you. To request a free review of your website to determine if it can be found by internet buyers and if it is search engine friendly, click here and it will be evaluated free.

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