Real Estate Forums

LVH

The whole purpose of learning Seo is first and foremost, is to make sure that you dont get taken advantage of if you hire an Seo. Seo's charge a fortune for their services. By me using that money to spend on other marketing other than Seo for real estate and me handling the Seo, I double my business. Yes I work harder but I get paid for it. I make more than $100 per hour.

You have mentioned Tony the money you spend for your Seo, I think you said over 100k. What percentage is that of your total income? What would half of that done for you business wise, spending it in other marketing areas, how much more money could you have made?

I can tell you I am making more money now than when I had an Seo, a top ranking website and placing those monies I spent on Seo's and putting it into other marketing avenues. The internet is the wave of future business, but it is not the only wave of business to acquire.

Once I hit the tops of the search engine and start to see that extra business come in from the internet, I will make even more and be able to place that money I would be spending on one facet of my business to a Seo and put it into other marketing that will produce other areas of business for me.

The internet is a great resource for business but placing your eggs in one basket, is dangerous, I know I have been there.

Of course she wants to be a Realtor, but Realtors must be able to multi task. If I am working with clients during the day, after I get home I spend 3 or 4 hours on the site ( I am a night owl though ). You cant expect to make great income and not work hard for it or you can pay someone high fees, make less and work less.

Lets say 55 hours per month we can use your high figures. That works out to be 1.83 hours per day. If a Realtor can not spare that amount of time after their day is done with clients on average, working to improve their income by about 30 or more percent, then IMHO they have organization problems.

We as Realtors dont work 14 hours a day with clients. Most Realtors are in the office by 9am and home by 7 or 8pm. Sellers do not want people roaming through their homes after 8pm, notice I said most. So why should I give $5000 per month to someone for doing work I could do once I get home or during free time I have.

Why not take that $5000 and spend it on postcards, magazines and other marketing material, something that will produce you business beyond the internet.

Lets also not forget about lets say you spend 60k a year for your site, you have great rankings, you are making good money and in that 3rd year your site loses its rankings, now you have placed all your focus on the internet, placed all your eggs in one basket, you are in trouble my friend. Your business is gone. Thats $180,000 dollars spent on other types of marketing that would have double what you were making and kept you from putting your eggs in one basket.

Now looking at it another way, you do your own Seo, it takes you a little longer to get ranked but you do. You spend that extra money in other marketing for something other than a Seo and now you have income coming from the internet and other marketing areas.

The problem is that most Seo's, again notice I said most dont tell you. It takes on average 12 months to get solid rankings for very competitive key phrases, unless the Seo is using techniques that are against search engine guidelines. This would be $60,000, now what will 60k do for you in other marketing areas for that year, how much income will it produce for you...LOTS


If you make 400k a year and spend 250k you ROI is very poor. Hell take the # 1 site for Las Vegas Real Estate, she hasnt had Seo done to her site in 3 years or more, she is still # 1 but she is not paying some Seo 5k a month. Boy did that pain me to say..LOL.

Point is you dont need an Seo to be successful on the internet, all it takes is time, patience and a little hard work. If this industry was easy to make money in, everybody would be making a killing. Work hard, organize your time and the income will follow.

__________________
Looking For A Glass Of Kool Aid. Check out our Las Vegas Real Estate Portal. Find Las Vegas Homes or get info for Las Vegas Investment Real Estate.

HHI Golf Guy

Thanks for the kind words.

Yes, agents can do their own SEO if they have the patience, time, and desire. Some are very successful at this, while others may not have the patience to learn or comprehend some of the technical aspects of what needs to be done.

There is also tremendous risk doing it yourself. For example, depending upon the age of your site, your own skills and learning curve, the level of competition for your KW's, and the amount of time that you can dedicate to SEO it might take 4-14 months for your site to climb in the rankings. What happens if you get it wrong or can't dedicate the proper time to achieve results? You may have wasted a year with nothing to show for it. You're time may have been better spent networking in your market or with your family.

On the flip side, there are plenty of SEO's out there that are more than willing to take your money and give you very little in return. Your best bet BEFORE speaking with any SEO company is to do some reading on the subject, and then obtain multiple bids. After you read the proposals, call the companies back and ask every question that comes to mind - no matter how big or small. Listen, then evaluate each company.

One of the reasons that my company is successful in closing business is that we provide very detailed proposals to potential clients, and we tell them our planned course of action and the timeframes that they can expect for each step of the way. If all that an SEO company tells you they will do is charge you $X for Y keywords, run for the hills.

You also need to remember that SEO is only part of successful web marketing. What good is a top ranked web site if it does not drive quality leads (as opposed to quantity web site traffic)? You need to make sure that the ad copy on your web site is well written and appeals to your target client demographic. You also need to make sure that your site is properly designed to funnel and capture prospective buyer clients.

When we take over the SEO for an agent that wants to keep their current web design we usually spend the first 30-45 days changing the navigation structure of the web site, page hiearchy, and re-writing the ad copy on the site. Only then can we delve into the meat of the SEO process.

One of the long term benefits of hiring a quality SEO firm is that their work is usually less susceptible to algorithm changes. Heck, every time G, Y, or MSN makes an algo change the do-it-yourself crowd usually gets hammered. That's because they usually SEO their sites without a forward looking strategy on SEO.

My suggestion? Take a few months and do a lot of reading on SEO and web marketing in general. Read the techie stuff and the puff pieces. Read all about the pitfalls and the benefits of a web marketing campaign. Read about pay per click.

Not only do you need to learn about how web marketing works, but you also need to learn what your responsibilities are in marketing your web site beyond SEO and PPC. In fact, this is where most agents have a failing grade. Getting contact leads and information is only the tip of the iceburg. Most internet home buyers are not looking to make a purchase for 6-8 months. Do you have an action plan to keep them active and engaged until they are ready to buy?

After your learning phase, decide if SEO is right for you. Then shop around and ask a ton of questions based upon what you have learned. It may take some time, but ebenytually you will find someone that you are comfortable working with on your web marketing project.

__________________
Real Estate SEO | Orlando Real Estate | Hilton Head Real Estate | Hilton Head Vacation Rentals

webmaster

Wayne,
I dont think any one of us is suggesting putting all of ones eggs in the SEO basket, in fact putting all of your eggs in ANY basket is a bad idea. We are simply looking at pros and cons of hiring an SEO vs doing it yourself.

The figures I used were for example's sake only, I dont think there are many SEO's that could get away with charging that much $5000 per month for an extended period of time unless they were full service agencies, not just SEO's as we all know, a lot of the grunt work is done within the first 3-6 months (Keyword research, header SEO, copywriting (For users first, SE's second) working out the site architecture etc. A good SEO will get your site setup right the first time, and then their only real problem will be fighting the link battle (Certainly not worth 5k per month) - granted there can also be some ongoing maintenance to the site, small changes to copy, adding new copy, adjusting things slightly to better appease algo changes but yeah its not 5k work.

So realistically lets ballpark it at an average of $1000 per month of the course of a year. In low median price markets thats 2-3 deals you need to close to pay for your campaign, in high dollar markets, one deal and you can pay for a few years SEO.

You have to remember, you have the ability to understand SEO and web marketing, this is not a luxury all realtors have. Although it is not rocket science, it also isnt grade 4 mathematics either. Also some realtors are great salespeople but terrible writers, the list of reasons why a realtor might not be equipped to manage their own SEO goes on and on, but once again, we are not saying that for some realtors your 1.5 hours a day example doesnt apply.

So how long does it take you to close your deal and participate in your SEO campaign (20 hours per year maybe?) Your cost now is 10k for the year + 20 hours of your time vs over 500 hours per year on the DIY plan. If that SEO campaign over the course of a year allows you to close an extra 10 deals, is there a positive ROI? Darn rights! Did it break the bank and stop you from doing other advertising that has positive ROI (Traditional advertising, PPC, radio whatever) probably not. So looking at SEO (Which we all agree is only part of a successful real estate marketing campaign) does it justify itself, I think so.

Whatever road you choose, I dont think its right to say good SEO at reasonable cost is a waste of time or money, its not.

SEOWolf

Heatherstanton,

HHI Golf Guy, Webmaster (Morgan), Tony and LVH (Wayne) have all made some great points and hopefully given you some insight into SEO.

Although I was a licensed REALTOR® in 2 states, I had to make a decision as to where my time was best spent so I stopped selling real estate and devoted my time to our websites. Prior to losing almost half of 2005 do to health related issues; our sites were doing extremely well in the search engines. After basic neglect for almost 6 months our rankings went in the gutter.

By the grace of God, my rankings are climbing again, but it is taking every waking hour to accomplish.

Search Engines constantly evolve and your site must change accordingly. This takes a lot of time as HHI Golf Guy and Morgan have pointed out. Time to achieve rankings and time to maintain those rankings. You need to determine if you have the time and skills it takes.

I believe LVH made valid points about learning as much about the SEO process as possible. I took the time to learn all I could about open heart surgery before I had it to make informed decisions about my health care, but I don’t think I want to operate on a patient any time soon.

As for the cost to achieve top rankings in a competitive market such as Atlanta, it won’t be cheap. However, the rewards (resulting sales) are worth the investment IMHO.

If you don’t have the time required to get your site ranking, contact HHI Golf Guy or Morgan and get some idea of what is available with your budget. Both are highly qualified and successful.

I hope we have all been of some assistance.

~VegasMack

__________________
In God I Trust.... It's you I'm worried about!
Providing IDX Solutions for; San Diego real estate, and others in the Columbia Missouri real estate market and Las Vegas real estate websites too.