Hello everyone-
I put aside about $5K for marketing and just wanted to hear your feedback on what is the best way to advertise yourself on the internet.

I really want to do the Google AdWords, but are there other good ways to advertise yourself online?

I will be upgrading my web site soon and adding MLS to it, so if I can make my site "sticky" and attract a large amount of traffic to my site, this might be a great alternative to print advertisement.

Looking forward to your advice.

PPC is a start. Just be careful before you not your budget could be all spent. While you are driving traffic to your site with PPC, don't forget about building links to your site, optimizing it for the search engines, and adding frest content.

Another tip is to start blogging and placing links to your website with the blog.

I would agree with Tsena.

But why in the hell do you have 5k saved for internet marketing and no IDX yet?

I'm working on getting the IDX installed now.

My plan is to upgrade my web site to Professional on P2A and integrate the IDX module. Once that's done, I'd like to start advertising on the Internet more and start receiving more traffic. I have a way to capture visitors, now all I need is the traffic.

I've been in RE field for only 2 months now and just joined the local association of Realtors. Once my admission is approved, I'll join the local MLS and get the IDX setup on my site.

I'm taking it one day at a time and just wanted to know what is the best way to increase the traffic to my site.

I've been reading a lot about SEO and link exchanges, but that can take a long time, so while optimizing my site, I also wanted to have high traffic at the same time.

Thanks

Well atleast you understand the size of your project at hand. SEO WILL take a long time...and it will take constant tweaking. Just continue to move forward with good content and make people want to be at your site. Actually be a good source of information...it's an amazingly simple concept but it's missed so many times.

The one area that you are unrealistic is that you will have "high traffic" until your site is listed high in the SERP's...Google adwords will send SOME clicks your way...but for the price it will likely not be worth it an not be many. DO NOT expect your Google adwords to actually end up in many conversions or leads. DO NOT activate clicks from ANY other sources than google itself. You don't want other sites sending you fake clicks. Not that fake clicks don't exist within Google's traffic...but it will lessen this.

Optimize your site for those VERY specific keywords to your area...and if you are going to go the PPC route don't strive to be numbers one to three on the paid list...those guys just get in retarded bidding wars and it will eat your budget in a month. Top 11 is what you are looking for. I wouldn't search for high traffic so much as I would quality traffic. I'd use some of that budget on a good SEO optimization firm that will build you high quality links and make sure your HTML is all kosher. Wait for the traffic to build for the long term and use the rest on offline ads.

Also, make sure your website has sufficiant methods of lead capture without upsetting your potential clients. People hate it when they have to navigate a sea of BS info boxes and "register" before even looking at a house on your site. Give them lots of options for contact and give them a reason to want to contact you. Prove that you are actually a thought leader in your arena. Don't trick them into becoming just "leads", they are real people.

Russell:

It's nice to see someone with a realistic budget and who knows the value of upgrading to Pro level on P2A site. The new blog module alone as well as the drip email will be worth their weight in gold in your first year.

I'm a Certified Google Adwords Professional (not taking clients). For specific information on getting your website off to a running start and profitable, I have multiple articles at About.com. I also have PPC information at Technology for Real Estate.

Thank you all for the advice and suggestions.

Jim-
I've been reading a lot of your articles, but never realized that it was you. Great job, very informative and helpful. Well done.

I also understand that Google has an aging process. Basically, if the site is less than 6 months old, no matter what you do, the Google will not even consider it. My site is about 3 months old, so I thought that by using AdWords, that's how people would find me.

My budget is about $300 a month for AdWords and at about $.10 per click, it comes out to be about 3,000 unique visitors a month. Right now my site gets less than a 800 unique visitors a month and I don't believe they're all looking either for real estate or an agent.

Once I upgrade to Professional version on P2A, add MLS to my site, dynamic content, start blogging and advertise using AdWords, that should make my site more useful, popular and sticky. Am I wrong?

Jim-
here's another question that you can probably answer. I went to Point2Homes.com and looked up all the agents who are in my county. I went through every single web site and checked the Links page. You know, the link that's at the bottom of the page inside the footer. They all have links to other P2A members. When I would click on one of those links and go to another agent's site and click on the Links section, I could not find the previous agent on that list. It seems like they're all one way links. How is it done? How does it work?

Again, thanks for all the help and info.

Russell:

Thanks for the comments. As far as PPC, I've used it for 6+ years extremely effectively. The amount has gradually decreased as my sites got better free positioning.

I started a Point2 site about a year ago and I'm working on getting it ready to retire the other site and point the url. The blog function I think will make a huge difference. My Typepad real estate blog got a PR5 in under a year, which took my original site more than six years. If you do the blogging effectively, I think it's the best thing P2A has done, as it will move your site up quickly. I just moved posts from the Typepad blog to the P2A blog and I'm shutting down the other one with the PR5, so I'm committed. I would also suggest working on getting rid of the content that came with the site, as it's duplicated on literally thousands of P2 sites.

As far as the links thing.....I have no clue what they're doing. I think the links change periodically also. They're not local either. I quit worrying about reciprocal linking on my non P2 site when I dropped in the ranks with more than 300. I got rid of all of them and went to PR5 in about six months with none. Go figure.

Thanks Jim.

Seems like blogging is the latest trend and it really works. I'm looking forward to upgrading my site and taking advantage of the blogging system.

Thanks again.

I am not a big fan of template websites. I would suggest spending a little more money and have a custom website created. I know that some experts say that tmeplate sites can rank just as well as custom sites, but I know in my market, the top 10 sites on goolge are all custom.

Jim is also right about template websites from companies like Point2A, they place duplicate content on all their sites, which isn't good.

Jim, you are my hero! Here's some feedback, though and it could be on my end. IE keeps crashing when I click on the link you provided and the docs don't print well (about logo appears over text) in Netscape. Thanks for your insights.

Solomon:

There is small print link at the bottom of each about page that helps. They just make it hard to find.

Sorry about the browser crash but links work in both my IE and Firefox.

Thanks for the nice comment.

Hello,

I am doing IM for some time now.
NO. You will not spend a penny in adwords.
Not a penny before you read untill your eyes drop from reading adwords methods.
Then you will take your eyes again put them in place and read some more.
One help i can give you is a gift in your reading
go to: http://www.adwordsmadeasy.info-doctor.com
and download Brad Callen's adwords book.(it is free)
There are coupons running right now for 50$ free Google adwords and yahoo YPN. Read the book and when you finish with it, PM and i will send you the procedure for the free coupons of free 100$.

One other litle jem for you.
Spend a measly 10$ in USfreeads.com you will take them back tenfold.

Finally dont be ashamed to add any lead generation methods in my mini site.
I will add the best ones.

Thank you

Alexander

Wow, you got a lot of great feedback here Russell. I agree with a good balance of SEO and pay-per-click. PPC can get you on Page 1 of Google tomorrow, but obviously you'll pay for it. A good long-term goal would be to rank organically (SEO) beside your paid ad (PPC). I recently had the luxury of telling a client they could turn off their AdWords if they wanted, because their organic rankings were side-by-side with their AdWords. It takes a while, but it's something to strive for.

Good luck.

-Brandon

Do ppc for now maybe a month or 2 just to drive traffic a bit but use most of your money on SEO, build links, build content, and have good anchor texts. Write articles post on forums like mine etc. That stuff will help you out more then ppc.

hope this helps.

Thanks for the link to the adwords book. I was looking for a PDF adwords book some what had posted on this forum but lost it during some routine PC house cleaning. Not sure if this was the same one.

Please share any other adword tips, methods, etc besides these if there are others.

Thanks!!

Look into hiring a SEO company to make sure you're on top of results. You can also check out Trulia Ad Platform which allows you to purchase advertisements on a variety of real estate websites all from one place. You can also try AdReady.com to create your own ads.

Agreed with Mystic, about what he said and almost all above members.

I agree with Jim and Mystic, great advice for you. The plan I have always used with my clients is simple, if you have a budget then you should do PPC ads (very targeted though, no wide terms like California Real Estate, but more on the line of "Cupertino Real Estate" or "Cupertino Homes For Sale" as an example).

What you will learn are the keywords and phrases that convert best. This will give you insight into where your SEO efforts need to be focused. Then you can build out pages for those specific terms and you already know they draw in the most interested buyers.

One tip though, in PPC (and I have managed $500K monthly PPC budgets) it is extremely important that you have continuity in your ads. So if you bid on the term "Cupertino Homes For Sale" then you will want the display URL to be something like: www.myrealtorsite.com/cupertino_homes (not real used only to illustrate), and when they get to the page, the main headline says "Cupertino Homes For Sale" and then the content on the page are your Cupertino listings.

I too often see clients sending clicks to "silver bullet" landing pages that only increase the likelihood that they will leave the party and you will not have even gotten so much as a handshake. Be aware also, that doing this sort of "deep linking" will also raise your relevancy scores which will in turn lower your average bid cost. Initially you will pay higher per click costs because Google needs to get comfortable with you and charging you more at first is their way of checking to make sure you are serious and that you will provide good relevant content once the user clicks on your ads.

Last thing to keep in mind, all traffic to your site has a cost. Make sure that you do not waste your money, get their email address by offering more than anyone else (like a free report on Cupertino Real Estate Trends for 2008 and 2009). Make it personal and engage the potential client with reasons to buy from you as opposed to someone else (i.e. testimonials, both written and video, logos from your various organizations and the BBB, as well as resources that they can use to make better decisions).

Hope this helps in shaping your marketing plan.

Cheers,

Jim Lillig

I agree, definitely start spending money on SEO right away. Hire someone if you must. This way you're investing in long term positioning as opposed to paying per visitor, fine in the beginning, but you need your website in search results.