Nov
30
Sticky Websites Create Good Leads
Filed Under (Real Estate Website Conversion Strategies) by Lou Lynch on 30-11-2009
If you are reading this blog, you are more than likely one of the more tech savvy real estate agents in your market. Being a tech savvy agent, you undoubtedly know that in order to attract and convert real estate website visitors, your website needs to be STICKY. A “sticky website” refers to how well a website retains visitors after they first enter the website.
How do I know if my website is sticky?
The very first step to making your website sticky is to determine where you are now in terms of stickiness. I found the following ways to be helpful:
- Install Google Analytics. I am sure most of you are already using it. If not, I highly recommend that you install it or some other type of web stats program as soon as you can.In Google analytics, the three most important stat categories (to determine stickiness) are Bounce Rate, Pages per Visit, Average Time on Site and Site Overlay.
- Bounce Rate refers to the percentage of visitors that left your site after viewing the page they came in on from the referring source (search engine, referring link, etc.). As a rule of thumb, you’ll want to keep this number under 40%. This doesn’t apply across the board as there are certain circumstances that allow for higher bounce rates.
- Pages Per Visit is great metric to help you understand if visitors are viewing enough pages to completely make it through your conversion process (entry page, listing results page, registration page). My site has three pages in its conversion process therefore I would like my “Pages per Visit” to be no less than 3 pages (4 if using a search tool).
- Average Time on Site is just what it sounds like. It is the average time a visitor spends clicking through your website. This category of stats can be drilled down to determine how much time is spent on individual pages to help you understand if your content is being digested by the visitor.
- Site Overlay is a visual tool that appears directly over your website. It shows you exactly where users are clicking which helps you understand which buttons, navigation and call-outs are being used by your visitors (and which ones are not).
- Human testing and feedback. Munching through visitor data is good, but human feedback is king. While human feedback can usually be slanted in one way or another, good feedback used in conjunction with your web stat analytics is invaluable. The best way to gather this feedback is observe a focus group done with complete strangers. Another way is to simply use some family or friends and have them click through your website, just be prepared to take the criticism.
- Conversion numbers tell the story. At the end of the day, your conversion rate is the best way to determine how sticky your site is or if the stickiness is doing its job and effectively pushing the visitors through the conversion process. While it is important that your website be a helpful resource, don’t forget the objective is to get them to register or interact with you in a sales capacity.
Bookmark and Share:
Lou,
Thank you for sharing this important information. I have been working hard on SEO lately, so this blog was very timely.
.-= Ben Shor´s last blog ..Extended Tax Credit for Homebuyers =-.
Ben, did you actually read the blog? It is not about SEO.
Good post Lou. One thing that always comes to mind when talking about a “sticky site” is call to action. Is there something on each page encouraging a visitor to do something? “contact us”, or “view listings”, or “register here”. A good call to action is sure to make pages even stickier. A lot of graphics and pics help as well
Hey Lou,
Good post on Sticky Websites and how to gauge that…I have used Google Analytics for some time now and find it invaluable as to what is happening with the inner workings of my sites. Unfortunately, time is always the critical mass for me as I dont have enough time in the day to do all I need to do to stay on top…now if I just had another 10 hours/day…that would do it. Great Post!
Hey Rob! Great to hear from ya. Time is always a problem for most real estate professionals that do most of their own work (like you).
Great post! Learning SEO might really be tricky and time consuming to real estate professionals. Having visitors in your website is not enough if you can’t convert them into possible buyers. you just have to keep your visitors coming back for more and eventually turn them into buyers. Sticky websites might really a good idea. Thanks for sharing this.:)
I’ve been looking at the google analytics site overlay recently for my Davis site as I’ve made some changes to the navigation. Hoping those changes will increase time on site and also help with stickyness and conversion.
Hey Carolyn, thanks for stopping by. I love the site overlay too. One of the cooler features of GA.
I love my Google Analytics, it’s very fun to find out why people are coming to my site, what they are doing, and why they left. I feel like it’s spying, and I like it! lol~
Great information. I already use Google analytics and find it really very useful to know the traffic details for my site. The conversion numbers are new information to me.
I really loved the post.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the post. I have GA, but Site overlay, I haven’t seen that, where do I find that?
.-= Charlotte Real Estate´s last blog ..avenue condominium uptown charlotte =-.
Sticky websites might be a good thing and it really helps a lot because of the many visitors that came into my site. SEO has contributed much to our real estate business. As real estate professionals, we had a hard time doing this kind of thing but because of you LOU we made it through the rain! Keep up the good work! Nice post! Hope you could share a lot of ideas!
Great post, I would also like to add that good content does wonders.
I have not used the site overlay feature of GA. Will I need to install something to utilize the feature or is this info already in GA? Good info Lou….
By the way this is a very clean, simple, well done site. I think most of us complicate our sites toooooo much. Very nice!!
.-= Wayne@Homes in Auburn AL´s last blog ..New Homes for Sale in Opelika AL =-.
Lou how do you categorizes return visitors vs new in evaluating the stickiness of a site? My bounce rate is 50% have to work on that, I notice that organic traffic is around 30% which is a good thing.
I used to categorize leads based on their level of readiness (not whether they were returning or not). Several aspects of the lead/s activity and submitted contact info help me to determine when the lead is ready.