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Did you know that your website can rank number 1 for the phrase "Your City Real Estate", and still be a miserable failure? Read on....

So the telemarketer calls you, and you being the internet expert, the conversation goes something like this:

"SEO" Telemarketer: Do you know that we can get your website onto the top twenty of the search engines?

You: Why not the Top Ten?

"SEO" Telemarketer: OK the top ten.

You: And?..

"SEO" Telemarketer: We will get you in the top ten.

You: Sooo?...

"SEO" Telemarketer: You will get a bunch of traffic.

You: And that means to meeeee??....

"SEO" Telemarketer: You will get leads.

You: Do you even own a website kid? I want sales!

Somehow the SEO industry has done a job of making Realtors start at the beginning instead of having the end in mind.

Of course you are concerned about your bottom line. But since that kid can't control your ability to get leads and convert them to a sale. He has to draw you in on the assumption that traffic equates to leads and sales. That is a big assumption.

The SEO industry has done a great job of proliferating the notion that being number whatever for a few BIG phrases will make your business. In fact, it takes a wide range of keywords to cause you to have traffic.

Here is a little exercise for you to try: Sit down and write all the localities in your marketplace. OK.

Now write down all the real estate words you can think of.

If you carried this exercise out to its fruition, then you would have over a thousand real estate phrases that relate to your marketplace.

This is part one of getting more buyer and seller leads.

So, we want to represent your marketplace (thru keywords) onto WebPages that serve to get your visitor to opt into your listings and/or newsletter.

Thus, part two, is optimizing your pages to cause you to get visitors to convert to registered leads. I have coined this as Lead Optimization.

What is Your Outcome?

More Traffic? More Positions? More Leads? or More Sales?

Depending where you start out in this scenario will leave you with possibly unwanted results. Someone who tells us he wants to be number one for "City Real Estate", will get tremendously different results than the person who tells us to get him more sales.

By at least starting out with your stated goal that you want more leads, it forces an SEO Company like mine to adjust our strategy to make it so that we cause you to get as far as we can take you. That is to get you more leads instead of just more traffic.

In fact, it is rare that I will take on a new client that has not stated his or her goal as more lead generation.

Copyright 2006 Tim O'Keefe