I spent some time today looking at other real estate agent websites and landing pages both of HomeGain clients and in the search engines. I will say that most HomeGain agents are doing it correctly or are close.
However, this email is really for the others who are not doing it right, or if you are marketing on the Internet and still use your home page as your landing page.
It’s amazing to me how many Realtor and Broker websites don’t even try to capture names, emails, and phone numbers. Their [home buyer and seller] visitors come to their websites, use their tools, and then call another agent.
Firstly, do you understand what a landing page is?
I know, some of you might be smirking right now, but there are a lot of people that don’t have any idea what that means. A landing page is the page in which a customer coming to your site lands on.
For instance, if a customer comes to your site from the Internet and when they click on a link they end up on your home page, your home page is your landing page. If a customer clicks on a link that comes to a portion of your site with your search tools, then that is your landing page. I guess it really is what it sounds like.
Your landing page should simply be the page that you want everyone to land on based on what you are marketing. One landing page may be your search page and another might be your featured listings page.
Regardless of which page you use, you should have some form of lead capture on that page. If you don’t, you are throwing your money away.
I use different landing pages for each city that I am marketing. If I am marketing Melbourne Florida, then my landing page will be Melbourne related with my IDX Search with my lead capture tool. If I am marketing Palm Bay, then my landing page will be Palm Bay related. You want your landing page to be related to your search terms. In fact, although I don’t know if this is true, it should get you a little higher in the search engines but don’t quote me on that!
Below are two examples of my landing pages:
As you will see, these pages accomplish two goals for me. They capture the lead of course, but just as important, they give me enough information about what they are searching for to start my lead conversion program.
Capturing a name, email address and phone number are nice, but finding out what they are looking to buy and capturing their name, email and phone number gives you a lot more ammunition on your side when it comes to lead conversion.
Keep in mind, most of your leads are not going to contact you or answer your phone calls. If they don’t, then you will have a hard time staying in front of them with information they want to see. They will most likely delete most of the emails you send their way. However, if you did capture this information, you could immediately set this up in an automatic update system to keep in front of them with new listings a few times per week.
For those of you who do not capture information from your visitors, you are pretty much spending money without having success. Of course you may receive a lead or two here and there and they may be really good but you have to remember that sales is a numbers game.
To be successful you must always be building your pipeline. The bigger the better!
Hopefully this gives you a little insight into landing pages and how they can help you or not help you. The choice is yours! As always, if you would like me to evaluate your landing page please don’t hesitate to call or write me. I’m always here to help!
Mitch Ribak is the Broker/Owner of Tropical Realty of Suntree, Inc in Florida.
I am interested in other examples of landing pages. I have tried a few things and feel I can do better still. My Ann Arbor real estate site is all about content – but when you are paying for leads it is important to capture content information. Here is my Ann Arbor MLS landing page: http://www.piperpartners.com/searchAnnArborMLS.html, any comments off this blog are appreciated. Any good pages you have to share would be appreciated.
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:26 pm
When I was doing PPC, I had an IDX landing page which worked well. Now that I get good organic results, I have my homepage set-up to lead them directly to IDX and it works just as well — same number of leads.
June 4th, 2008 at 7:41 am
There is more then one way to skin a cat. Mike and many others that get natural/organic rankings have to direct the visitors once they hit the site to pages that capture the information. The key is just understanding that you need to get your visitors info to have a chance of getting the business.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I think it is important to realize that once your site starts ranking in the serps EVERY page is a landing page. You may not even intend it to be, but people find your site in all sorts of crazy ways.
I think we need to acknowledge that at least 90% of the people who find your site are looking for listings. If you provide an easy way for them to access that, then you can capture their information once you provide them with the valuable content they are looking for.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Mitch,
I’m struggling with a way to do this for my business. I believe that rates are to mortgage shoppers what listings are to home shoppers (the attraction).
Do you have any thoughts on how I might apply this advice to my business?
June 5th, 2008 at 7:07 am
thanks mitch, you bring up a good discussion here.
given that the major goal of a landing page is to convert a visitor into a prospect then approach your page with these 3 questions in mind:
1) who is this page for?
2) what do i want them to do when they get here?
3) why would they want to do it?
know who you’re writing the page for – your target market. speak to them in their terms and their language. for example: happyhomes.com/home-buying-tips-for-engineers and happyhomes.com/home-buying-tips-for-families may have the same info but you’re going to write them very differently.
also, know what you want to have happen when the visitor arrives. you need to use images and copy (probably the most neglected elements on real estate sites) that lead the visitor towards that action… and of course, provide a compelling call to action.
finally, you need to communicate to the visitor why taking the action is to their benefit. No one takes action without a reason and, more often than not, then need you to tell them what that benefit is.
going back to the engineer/family example… the benefits that motivate each group are very different.
also, sure you can use home info or rates as an incentive to sign up but in a recent split-test we found that folks were highly incentivized by a local guide PDF. this is always worth testing and you may be surprised at what your visitors are really motivated by…
June 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Some great stuff here. I love when I can spark the world to speak. For those of you who are interested in my looking at your sites, please email me at mitch@mitchrealty.com. I’m swamped the next couple of days but I will gladly take a look as soon as possible and give you my feedback. My only goal of my landing page is to give access to our countywide listings and capture a name, phone number and email address along with thier search criteria. I also brand each landing page based on the city they are looking to search. For an example of one of my landing pages go to: http://www.melbournehomesearch.com/index.cfm/suntreeviera This will give you an idea of what I talk about. Thanks for all the comments.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Brian,
I have your homepage up while writing these comments. I think you are correct with the idea that rates are what consumers will be looking for.
Along with programs. (What’s in it for them?)
The first thing I would do would be to install Google Analytics on your site. You can do that here: http://www.google.com/analytics/
From this, you will be able to see where consumers are landing on your website. I think the pages that they are landing on and especially the homepage, you need to have very strong calls to action. For example, something like:
Types of loans offered
No closing cost loans
A contact method at each of these types of items that they would contact you about…
you can also email me at ryan (at) ryanwardrealestate.com and I will be happy to help.
Mike,
For me here in Atlanta, it’s more than 90% buyers (97% or so)
June 6th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Yes Mike, we all have to remember to keep packing the pipeline full of leads or we may starve at some point. just cannot count on any one or two of them.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
James – Thats all it’s about. If you don’t continue to fill the pipeline at some point the pipe is empty. Even when our business is extremely busy…which is a lot, we don’t ever cut back on our marketing. I do know that if I stopped marketing today, with over 20,000 buyers in our database, we would stay busy for at least 2 years. The bigger the database, the more sustainable your business.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:00 pm