When you’re dealing with high priced items like real estate, quality leads are tough to come by. Since we work with so many real estate firms as clients, I have a good grasp on their lead generation process. They generally stick to the following sources:
- Networking
- Email list blasts
- Networking
- Buying zip code blocks on websites like Zillow
- Networking
We all know the #1 way to make sales is through good old fashioned networking – this is a necessary evil of the business and will always remain the number one way to generate real estate leads.
However, aside from that the real estate industry has yet to fully adopt online marketing techniques that can auto generate quality leads. But before I get into that process, let me just make one thing clear: NEVER BUY LEADS!
I understand that Zillow is a reputable site and you have made a couple of sales off of those email blasts, but for the most part they are a waste of your money and you don’t really know the quality of their lead generation process.
I can make this statement because I have succumb to purchasing leads and there is nothing more awkward then a sales call like this:
You: “Hello, Business X, I received your information from an online submission…”
Business X: “Where did you get my information? I don’t remember doing that. Stop spamming me!” Hangs up.
While Zillow does generate thousands of quality leads a day, those are their leads. A real estate sale is extremely personal – your leads need to come from your website, with your picture and with your listings – anything else is a waste of time.
So how does a website like Zillow get so many leads? Simply because when you search for ‘real estate listings’ their website pops up first. Real estate related searches registers tens of millions of searches each month – and with 94% of searchers only clicking on first page results, it’s really no secret how they generate so many opt ins.
Your business can have the same effect as Zillow simply by being present when people are searching for you. Unless you want to spend $1M a month on SEO, you’ll never outrank a giant like Zillow. However, what you can do is target specific niches in the market and dominates each of those.
Here is a list of potential keywords to optimize for your real estate business:
- [your city] ocean view condos
- [your city] ocean view homes
- ocean view condos [your city]
- ocean view homes [your city]
- [your zip] ocean view condos
- [your zip] ocean view homes
The list goes on, but I think you get the picture. The key is to pick extremely targeted keywords related to the types of real estate you’re selling. This does 2 things for you:
- The more targeted the keyword, the easier it is to rank your website
- The more targeted the keyword, the more likely that searcher is to be a buyer
Point number 2 is crucial – when it comes to real estate you have to target keywords from the perspective of a buyer. For example, some people type ‘mansions’ into Google just to look at pictures. You don’t want to spend thousands of dollars ranking for a high search volume keyword that delivers only window shoppers to your website. You want to make sure you are targeting keywords that will drive buyers to your website.
