If that sounds like you, you’re not alone: 95% of all agents aren’t happy with the production from their websites, according to the National Association of Realtors. Despite those negative statistics, hundreds of agents sell homes online every day. They are the 5% of people happy with the production of their websites and they know a secret you don’t.

What is the purpose of your website?

Most agents and brokers think that real estate websites are for these purposes:

-They are a place to show buyers your listings;

-They are a billboard that showcases you and your brand;

-They help brokers recruit the next class—94% of whom will fail;

However, successful Internet Realtors know that while these things are partially true, the real purpose of a website is to capture the name and address of someone looking for homes in your neighborhood so that you can develop a relationship with them and sell them a home.

How about you? Do you know that? Chances are, with all these so-called experts opining daily online and in magazines and at trade shows telling you how much you need things you really don’t need, that message is lost in the clutter.

Remember that the purpose of your website is to help you sell and list more homes. It is not to inform the world about everything they might ever want to know; conversely, your website exists to help you sell what you have and to bring you a source of prospects you would otherwise never engage.

Heresy or reality?

It may seem like heresy to tell you that your website is best used for collecting information instead of disseminating it, but after working with thousands of agents and brokers, our cumulative experience has taught us that is indeed the case. In the final analysis, the effectiveness of your site must be measured by the sales it produces for you that you otherwise could never have made. When was the last time you sold a home to someone who found you on the Internet? That has never happened for most agents and it has probably never happened for you.

You see, it’s all about converting anonymous visitors to your site into people who ask you for more information about something they saw there and who leave you their true contact information so that you can give it to them. Online marketing success has little to do with which website you choose, how much information is on it, or how pretty it is. Online success depends on three simple factors:

1. The site must be found often by Internet shoppers under the specialty that YOU practice and the location you practice it in; that means on Google®, Yahoo® and bing®;

2. The site must incent anonymous visitors to sign in so that you can work with them and develop them into a client; that means 5-15% of all visitors to your site sign in and become potential clients;

3. You must follow the proper procedures and timetables for responding to the leads the site generates.

The proof of the pudding

Every successful Internet Realtor follows these criteria. They taught us these standards. Without fail, those who follow these simple precepts succeed; some almost beyond belief (selling 100 homes or more annually to Internet buyers, for example), many to the success of 5-20 homes annually, and just about everyone sells at least one home a year to an Internet buyer. The typical Internet realtor earns over $100,000 in annual commissions, whereas the typical traditional realtor earns less than $40,000 annually. Why?

Simply put, it’s because most Realtors are so inept at selling to Internet buyers that those properly trained and equipped stand out and succeed. That may sound too strong, but it is true. Most agents haven’t a clue how to be found by Internet buyers, don’t know how to convert anonymous visitors to leads, and 50% of all agents never even call such a lead back, if they ever got one. How could they know? No one ever taught them.

We conduct training classes for subscribers that help them finally understand how to make it all work, and it is always stunning to see the light go on when online marketing is finally understood: The entire purpose of your online presence is to help you sell homes by soliciting real leads in the form of your site visitors. Not “hits,” not “clicks,” but real honest-to-goodness leads. A real lead is one that was generated by a real person viewing materials about what you sell who desires more information about ‘something’ they saw on your website and who is seeking more information about that ‘something.’ It’s not about giving information away. It’s about collecting information from real people who want more of it.

All the experts, coaches and columnists who trumpet the gimmicks of technology won’t tell you that. They’ll tell you to add more content, to make your site ‘prettier’, to add more maps, to add more instant everything, video, social networking, whatever the technology-du-jour or flavor of the month is. They’re telling you wrong. Proven success in selling homes to Internet buyers does not come from gizmos or gimmicks; it comes from the three steps enumerated above.

It’s a matter of your choice as to how you attempt to succeed online. But, consider this if the collecting vs. giving statement strikes you as heresy: 95% of agents fail every day at online marketing. Maybe it’s time to examine why you fail. Could it be because all these authority sources are telling you wrong? Maybe it’s time to throw out that bunk that “content is King,” because when it comes to online marketing success, it’s not the site with the most content that makes its owner money; it’s the site that gets the most visitors to sign in and become prospects. Anyone who says anything else is misinformed.

Mike Parker (mparker@theblackwatercg.com ^[2]) specializes in online marketing services for Realtors®. To request a free review of your online marketing and website to determine if it is set up properly to be effective click here ^[3]and it will be evaluated without cost. To obtain the booklet that explains how you can join the ranks of Internet realtors selling homes to online buyers just click here ^[4]and we’ll send you the booklet about the PMLS™–the Professionally Managed Lead Site™.

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