Running your Real Estate IDX Website Like Obama

How’s your website converting?

A common mistake with Real Estate IDX websites is poor calls to action and poor optimization of signup forms. What this means is you get less leads period.

In this post we are going to be showing you how you can improve your IDX registration form quickly to keep seeing improved results forever, talk about leverage.

First up let’s see how the POTUS does it, click the image to enlarge.

He’s definitely got pro’s on the job:

1. Collecting email address – check
2. Segmenting list (so can send them targeted emails) – check
3. Easy to see call to action button – check
4. Addressing his audience – check
5. Body facing form – checkmate

Note, these aren’t the 5 tactics we’re going to show you keep reading.

Opt in to his list, his email subject lines are even better than his landing pages.

Here’s a taste:

1. Their night
2. Hey
3. So…
4. Dan, you’re amazing

That’s right Michelle Obama sent me an email saying I’m Amazing. If your scared to opt in to an email list…well good luck learning email marketing, everyone is marketing themselves especially presidents up for re-election.

Sidenote another good list to get on is http://productivityjunkies.com.

…Back to real estate and your IDX Website

The key thing with IDX websites is you are offering consumers the chance to view housing information, which is exactly what they want to see.

IDX websites require the consumer to register after viewing a certain amount of houses to see more homes, where a lot of IDX websites are under optimized though is making a good offer for the consumer to give up their contact information.

The offer is make or break time, either they opt in or they don’t.

I asked for volunteers to have their IDX offer critiqued. Brian of http://finddallashomesforsale.com was kind enough to volunteer.

I looked at his website yesterday and the IDX opt in was similar to this.

What I like is it shows up as a popup over the housing information the consumer wants to see, very nice.

There was a lot of room for optimization though as a consumer seeing that might not be clear on what they are getting or why they should enter their details. I see these kind of IDX signup forms all day long.

“create an account” and “signup” are not things people like doing unless they get something valuable.

Remember the consumer has no idea about optins or IDX websites or MLS’s or any of that jazz, so things need to be explained simply.

I logged back into his site today and was impressed to see an entirely more valuable proposition.

Improved:

1. Clear offer to the consumer “Email Updates”
2. Social proof “1,785 people got updates”
3. Urgency reason to sign up now

There are still a few areas I would like to see tested to increase conversions:

1. Signup button that stands out.
2. Test different signup button text such as “Get Access Now”, “Create Free Account”.
3. Remove clicking x option, gives people an easy out.
4. Privacy policy, “100% secure we protect your personal details”
5. An image of what they get by giving up their details.

I like what’s going on here, I haven’t seen it before, looks like they can keep browsing but the offer is to receive the valuable email updates, clever. The same offer would work well in the sidebar, it doesn’t have to only be a popup.

Here’s how it might look with my ideas being tested. Note I say tested because best practices usually improve results, but you need to test to be sure.

“It’s all BS until you test”

Remember increasing your the conversion on your signup form can make a big difference to the amount of leads you generate because it’s a multiplier, another big multiplier is your conversion process for following up those leads once you get them.

Think about just how much multipliers affect your bottom line

4000 visitors to website – Traffic Generation

3% conversion rate to leads – Website Conversion

1% conversion rate to closed deals – Follow Up Process

That’s one commission check every month from your website.

But with half the amount of traffic

If you convert more website visitors and increase your conversion rate to customers by just 3% and 1% respectively.

2000 visitors to website – Traffic Generation

6% conversion rate to leads – Website Conversion

2% conversion rate to closed deals – Follow Up Process

That’s 2.4 deals every month from half the traffic! Handy especially if your paying for Google Adwords or another paid traffic source. If your traffic stays the same that’s nearly 5 deals!

Remember to focus on the leverage points in your business.

Next week I’m going to cover the website of a bad ass lead generator, he’s been generating close to 3000 leads per month.

I’ll show you 5 things he’s implemented that you can change on your website easily, that will improve the amount of leads you get, they are so obvious and powerful you will kick yourself when you see them.

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