Free Real Estate Leads Every Day
© 2010, Brandon Cornett. All rights reserved.
What could you do with a handful of free real estate leads each and every day? How much would that be worth to your business? It would be priceless, wouldn't it?
Well, in this blog post, I'm going to tell you how you can generate a steady stream of free leads through your real estate website or blog. And I'm going to use a pair of blogs on my home buying website as a real-world example.
A little while back, I converted one of the blogs at the Home Buying Institute into a Q&A tool for consumers. All I really did was add a box to the sidebar that allows people to type their questions directly into the blog. When they click "send," the question gets sent to me by email, and the visitor gets redirected to a thank-you page that tells them their question has been received.
Since I implemented this strategy, I've been flooded with questions about mortgage loans, credit scores, and other home buying topics. Now, I don't ask for people's name or contact info, because I'm using this as a free public service -- not as a lead generator. But you could easily adapt this technique on your own website to generate free real estate leads from buyers and/or sellers in your area. Take the technique I'm using, add a form field for the person's email address, and you have a lead generator for your website or blog.
There's more to this strategy than meets the eye. At first glance, it appears to be a way to produce real estate leads online ... and it is. But it's also a strategy for content development and search engine visibility.
Each time somebody asks a question through my blog, I post my response onto the blog itself. The thank-you page tells the visitor this, so they know to check back in a day or two. So each Q&A session becomes a new page of content, in the form of a blog post. On average, I answer about three questions per day through the main blog and the credit help blog. So in a year's time, that adds up to more than 1,000 pages of keyword-rich content.
You can see the multiple benefits of this strategy. It can help you generate free real estate leads through your site, but it's also a great way to expand your content over time. This in turn will help to increase your website traffic.
Also, because each question is about a specific topic, the entire Q&A article is naturally optimized for good search engine visibility. Here's an example of what I mean:
Let's say you're a real estate agent in Columbia, Maryland, and somebody asks a question about home inspections when buying a house. If you answer that person's question on the blog, you would have some keyword-rich content about home inspections in Columbia, Maryland. So anyone searching that phrase would have a good chance of finding your website, and they would likely be impressed by (A) your real estate expertise and (B) your willingness to help others. Heck, they might even ask a question of their own, which gives you yet another real estate lead through the website ... and more keyword-rich content ... and more search engine visibility ... and more website traffic.
You can see how this would have a snowball effect over time. More activity means more free real estate leads for you. More responses mean better search engine visibility, which brings traffic and leads along with it. You get out of it what you put into it, and if you put a lot into it there's no limit to what you can do.
So the benefits are really three-fold:
If you already have a blog where you could execute a strategy like this, you can put the whole thing in motion for free by following these steps:
You can post responses to the blog and then send the person a courtesy email to let them know it's online ... and to ask if they need help from a skilled agent like you.
Well, in this blog post, I'm going to tell you how you can generate a steady stream of free leads through your real estate website or blog. And I'm going to use a pair of blogs on my home buying website as a real-world example.
A little while back, I converted one of the blogs at the Home Buying Institute into a Q&A tool for consumers. All I really did was add a box to the sidebar that allows people to type their questions directly into the blog. When they click "send," the question gets sent to me by email, and the visitor gets redirected to a thank-you page that tells them their question has been received.
Since I implemented this strategy, I've been flooded with questions about mortgage loans, credit scores, and other home buying topics. Now, I don't ask for people's name or contact info, because I'm using this as a free public service -- not as a lead generator. But you could easily adapt this technique on your own website to generate free real estate leads from buyers and/or sellers in your area. Take the technique I'm using, add a form field for the person's email address, and you have a lead generator for your website or blog.
Free Leads Are Only One of the Benefits
There's more to this strategy than meets the eye. At first glance, it appears to be a way to produce real estate leads online ... and it is. But it's also a strategy for content development and search engine visibility.
Each time somebody asks a question through my blog, I post my response onto the blog itself. The thank-you page tells the visitor this, so they know to check back in a day or two. So each Q&A session becomes a new page of content, in the form of a blog post. On average, I answer about three questions per day through the main blog and the credit help blog. So in a year's time, that adds up to more than 1,000 pages of keyword-rich content.
You can see the multiple benefits of this strategy. It can help you generate free real estate leads through your site, but it's also a great way to expand your content over time. This in turn will help to increase your website traffic.
Also, because each question is about a specific topic, the entire Q&A article is naturally optimized for good search engine visibility. Here's an example of what I mean:
Let's say you're a real estate agent in Columbia, Maryland, and somebody asks a question about home inspections when buying a house. If you answer that person's question on the blog, you would have some keyword-rich content about home inspections in Columbia, Maryland. So anyone searching that phrase would have a good chance of finding your website, and they would likely be impressed by (A) your real estate expertise and (B) your willingness to help others. Heck, they might even ask a question of their own, which gives you yet another real estate lead through the website ... and more keyword-rich content ... and more search engine visibility ... and more website traffic.
You can see how this would have a snowball effect over time. More activity means more free real estate leads for you. More responses mean better search engine visibility, which brings traffic and leads along with it. You get out of it what you put into it, and if you put a lot into it there's no limit to what you can do.
So the benefits are really three-fold:
- You are positioning yourself as an expert in the local real estate scene.
- You are establishing a channel for free real estate leads on a regular basis.
- You are expanding your website with keyword-rich content relevant to your audience.
- You are increasing your search engine visibility and potential for website traffic.
If you already have a blog where you could execute a strategy like this, you can put the whole thing in motion for free by following these steps:
- Customize your blog so it looks and works like a Q&A tool.
- Set up a separate blog for this purpose, if need be.
- Put a form on the sidebar (or top) where people can enter their questions.
- Include form fields for the person's name, email address and question.
- Set up the form so it sends the question / lead to you by email.
You can post responses to the blog and then send the person a courtesy email to let them know it's online ... and to ask if they need help from a skilled agent like you.
Labels: Lead Generation
posted by Brandon at
4:14 PM
