Could really use some encouragement

Hey guys, so I have FINALLY scheduled my first actual consultation with a local real estate broker in my area. Woooooot. I'm excited of course but I just need some reasoning behind WHY this broker would benefit from me. The term "(city) real estate" is searched 3,000 times locally (exact) So lets say I get her sites ranked 6th for that term. That would roughly be 150 people visiting the site each month. And lets say I charge her $300/m for me to keep her at that position. Based on any prior knowledge that you might have in this similar situation, would she truly be benefiting from this? I just feel that I won't close the deal unless I truly believe what I'm doing and charging will end up giving her more business in the long haul.

Your thoughts are always appreciated. I love this forum, but I especially love the Offline Marketing section!

Cheers.

I hope you were just using "position 6" as an example and don't plan on charging $300 per month for that position. Maybe if you added 2 or 3 more 0's to the local monthly searches position 6 would be ok.

Just show her that this service will earn itself back in. You can do that with a powerpoint etc. Show the possible estimated visitors as potential customers. Make her see the $$$ and she will sign your contract.

SEO works, period. How much traffic is she recieving now? Probably none.
You'll be providing her with traffic which can turn into leads depending on the quality and conversion rate of her website, then her ability to sell the client after they inquire. You're doing work for her, she's paying you. What's there to be worried about?

Hope this helps.

2011nfl said:

I hope you were just using "position 6" as an example and don't plan on charging $300 per month for that position. Maybe if you added 2 or 3 more 0's to the local monthly searches position 6 would be ok.

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I can see why your saying this. But what would be a reasonable amount to charge her if I can in fact only get her to position 6? 100 dollars? 50? 25....? I feel that for anything less than $200/m, it would be a waste of my time!

And btw, the city I live in is one of the richest in the world. The average house she would be selling would range anywhere from 1 to 20 million. So I guess that's why I feel like 300 a month would be reasonable. I mean if I get 1800 people to visit her site a month (150 x 12), and .001 percent of those people turn into a client (hopefully it would be higher than this), that would be roughly 1-2 new clients a year. And I would assume she'd made a upwards of ten thousand from each client.

But maybe I'm way off.... What do you think and I hate asking this general effing question but... what would you charge?(top 5 positions have pr 3 and between 400-1200 backlinks to page, with domain age of 3+ years)

SeanAustin said:

I can see why your saying this. But what would be a reasonable amount to charge her if I can in fact only get her to position 6? 100 dollars? 50? 25....? I feel that for anything less than $200/m, it would be a waste of my time!

And btw, the city I live in is one of the richest in the world. The average house she would be selling would range anywhere from 1 to 20 million. So I guess that's why I feel like 300 a month would be reasonable. I mean if I get 1800 people to visit her site a month (150 x 12), and .001 percent of those people turn into a client (hopefully it would be higher than this), that would be roughly 1-2 new clients a year. And I would assume she'd made a upwards of ten thousand from each client.

But maybe I'm way off.... What do you think and I hate asking this general effing question but... what would you charge?(top 5 positions have pr 3 and between 400-1200 backlinks to page, with domain age of 3+ years)

Click to expand...

Well honestly, I know jack about SEO (just the basics). I would say that if the traffic was converting that it may not be that bad, but if she spends $300 each month and all she gets is non-converting traffic, she probably won't use your service for long..... I'm not trying to discourage you though because really it all depends on what your client thinks is fair and how well you can close the deal.

$300 isn't a bad price if you're targeting every keyword that they want to get ranked for. But if you're charging them $300 for just a single keyword and hoping others rank as well, then you might have a 1 time client.

Geo targeted keywords are pretty simple to rank for depending on the company.


Hell, if you can make $300 a month from this company, I may start contacting local businesses and telling them I can rank them for $297 a month

$600 is so dirt cheap that she should have an orgasm when you tell her.

Consider this, if her commission is 6% (in the US this is standard the last time I checked), The agent may get 1.5 % (if the listing belongs to another agency the percentage is split, 3% each way). If she works for a local realtor, instead of having her own shop, she splits her percentage again, so we figure 1.5%.

1.5 percent of 1 million dollars is $15,000. If she has her own shop, she makes $30,000 for a 1 mil sale.

Not every lead will buy of course, but you will be much better off to get a deal where she just pays you 10% or even 5% of the revenue you bring in to her.

If she makes 2 sales a month, she will make between $30,000 and $60,000 and you will make $600.

If one house is a $10 million house, she will make a $150,000, and you will make $600.

You are so seriously under cutting the market that if she is a business professional and is getting multiple quotes, your offer will look ridiculous, You are going to offer to do professional work for 10% if what your market is charging.

I know you are new at this and scared. You have the right attitude, but you do not have the right confidence.

You also need to learn a lot more about this business. <cityname> real estate is probably the worst keyword to try for. It is probably what everyone is targeting.

I bet even <cityname> real estate agent" is easier to rank for, and people who are searching for that term are likely looking for an agent.

<cityname> Real estate is everyone looking into the real estate market in that city. This includes home buyers, but also data researchers, agents looking at their competition, people doing general real estate marketing, people advertising to the market, and so on. It is not an action keyword.

"Real estate agents condos Austin" is much m,ore of an action keyword, the person who makes this search has a high probability of wanting to buy a condo in Austin.

The keyword research you see in Google is just a representation of the actual traffic out there. It is actually the traffic as seen on the ad words network. It simply shows that there is traffic, not the real volume.

Another problem you are going to have to address is that many people search without a city modifier. They will just search for real estate, and the location of their IP address will geo target their search. They know they get local results this way.

This means there is more traffic out there than you think. It also means they search for things you haven't even thought of.

You need to do some serious keyword research, or have someone who knows how to do it for you. You need to find the long tools that are actually being searched for, and bring then up at the meeting. A well known affluent neighborhood may get only a few searches, but those few people are actually looking for homes in that neighborhood, and they are much more likely to become home buyers.

No real estate agent in their right mind will pass up paying a 10% commission on sales you generate, they do not pay for no results, and they may make 2 sales more a month.

Another thing, you are going to need money to rank the site with. Local citations and directory listings are not gong to cut it. You cannot run backlinks at a local realestate company, because an algo change will destroy their business. They will call a Lawyer if that happens.

If you go in for less than $2000 you will probably not be able to do proper marketing they need done, unless you do it yourself.

Techxan said:

$600 is so dirt cheap that she should have an orgasm when you tell her.

Consider this, if her commission is 6% (in the US this is standard the last time I checked), The agent may get 1.5 % (if the listing belongs to another agency the percentage is split, 3% each way). If she works for a local realtor, instead of having her own shop, she splits her percentage again, so we figure 1.5%.

1.5 percent of 1 million dollars is $15,000. If she has her own shop, she makes $30,000 for a 1 mil sale.

Not every lead will buy of course, but you will be much better off to get a deal where she just pays you 10% or even 5% of the revenue you bring in to her.

If she makes 2 sales a month, she will make between $30,000 and $60,000 and you will make $600.

If one house is a $10 million house, she will make a $150,000, and you will make $600.

You are so seriously under cutting the market that if she is a business professional and is getting multiple quotes, your offer will look ridiculous, You are going to offer to do professional work for 10% if what your market is charging.

I know you are new at this and scared. You have the right attitude, but you do not have the right confidence.

You also need to learn a lot more about this business. <cityname> real estate is probably the worst keyword to try for. It is probably what everyone is targeting.

I bet even <cityname> real estate agent" is easier to rank for, and people who are searching for that term are likely looking for an agent.

<cityname> Real estate is everyone looking into the real estate market in that city. This includes home buyers, but also data researchers, agents looking at their competition, people doing general real estate marketing, people advertising to the market, and so on. It is not an action keyword.

"Real estate agents condos Austin" is much m,ore of an action keyword, the person who makes this search has a high probability of wanting to buy a condo in Austin.

The keyword research you see in Google is just a representation of the actual traffic out there. It is actually the traffic as seen on the ad words network. It simply shows that there is traffic, not the real volume.

Another problem you are going to have to address is that many people search without a city modifier. They will just search for real estate, and the location of their IP address will geo target their search. They know they get local results this way.

This means there is more traffic out there than you think. It also means they search for things you haven't even thought of.

You need to do some serious keyword research, or have someone who knows how to do it for you. You need to find the long tools that are actually being searched for, and bring then up at the meeting. A well known affluent neighborhood may get only a few searches, but those few people are actually looking for homes in that neighborhood, and they are much more likely to become home buyers.

No real estate agent in their right mind will pass up paying a 10% commission on sales you generate, they do not pay for no results, and they may make 2 sales more a month.

Another thing, you are going to need money to rank the site with. Local citations and directory listings are not gong to cut it. You cannot run backlinks at a local realestate company, because an algo change will destroy their business. They will call a Lawyer if that happens.

If you go in for less than $2000 you will probably not be able to do proper marketing they need done, unless you do it yourself.

Click to expand...

Your words of wisdom are coming in clutch. I'm a little confused tho...

1: If I am just charging her for revenue I bring into her, how would that work if I'm going to simply rank her own site and not some lead generation site that I actually created? Would this mean I would literally charge her that 10% for every client that found her under the keyword I ranked her for? That seems a little far out but then again I am still very new at this.

2:I am deffinatly going to look for more action keywords because you make a great point. Problem around 40-60% of people searching (city) real estate are not actually looking to buy a house but 70-90% of people searching for (city) real estate condos indeed are.

3: And thirdly, I got a little blindsided when I read "You cannot run backlinks at a local realestate company, because an algo change will destroy their business. They will call a lawyer if that happens."
So if I am creating tier1 backlinks on relevant sites through UD, that will not help? I doubt that! (just my opinion). And good point on the lawyer being called, I will make sure to add something in the contract for my protection.

You need to stop right now.

What you think is local SEO isn't.

You dont create tiers, you don't create back links, you dont do normal IM on a local site, and you certainly do not run automated tools and spun content for a business site.

There are different rules for local businesses, and real estate is very competitive.


[QOUTE]1: If I am just charging her for revenue I bring into her, how would that work if I'm going to simply rank her own site and not some lead generation site that I actually created? Would this mean I would literally charge her that 10% for every client that found her under the keyword I ranked her for? That seems a little far out but then again I am still very new at this.[?QUOTE}

Look at her traffic for the last few months. You will be able to use her traffic and its typical increase each month. If she is not getting an mew customers thru the site, then all you bring her will be yours.

She has an average number oif sales for the number of customers the site brings her. if she sells one house for each 10 customers, and you send her 50 customers she should make 5 sales. If she typically makes 2 sales per month from the site, and she starts making 5, you can rightfully claim that you caused three of them.

If the site has produced no traffic and no sales, all the leads that are coming from the siite will be yours.

Really it evens out. Not everyone who sees the site will make the contact through the site, many will pick up the phone and call, and you will lose those commissions. It is fair to say if you are doing the SEO, all the traffic from the site is due to your efforts, what she loses in web traffic will be made up for in phone traffic. In fact, you re getting screwed because a lot of people do not like filling out forms.

SeanAustin said:

Your words of wisdom are coming in clutch. I'm a little confused tho...

1: If I am just charging her for revenue I bring into her, how would that work if I'm going to simply rank her own site and not some lead generation site that I actually created? Would this mean I would literally charge her that 10% for every client that found her under the keyword I ranked her for? That seems a little far out but then again I am still very new at this.

2:I am deffinatly going to look for more action keywords because you make a great point. Problem around 40-60% of people searching (city) real estate are not actually looking to buy a house but 70-90% of people searching for (city) real estate condos indeed are.

3: And thirdly, I got a little blindsided when I read "You cannot run backlinks at a local realestate company, because an algo change will destroy their business. They will call a lawyer if that happens."
So if I am creating tier1 backlinks on relevant sites through UD, that will not help? I doubt that! (just my opinion). And good point on the lawyer being called, I will make sure to add something in the contract for my protection.

Click to expand...

Techxan said:

You need to stop right now.

What you think is local SEO isn't.

You dont create tiers, you don't create back links, you dont do normal IM on a local site, and you certainly do not run automated tools and spun content for a business site.

There are different rules for local businesses,

Click to expand...

Can you please advise on how local SEO should be built then? I'm really confused now...

Techxan said:

You need to stop right now.

What you think is local SEO isn't.

You dont create tiers, you don't create back links, you dont do normal IM on a local site, and you certainly do not run automated tools and spun content for a business site.

There are different rules for local businesses, and real estate is very competitive.

Click to expand...

Hmm well I can understand your point here but I would have to somewhat disagree. I am ranking number 3 for "(city) lawyers" and this is off a site that I created just 3 weeks ago. The competition was decently stiff and all I did was create about 200 tier 1 links with tier 2 and 3 connected to them (and acquired some social media likes, shares, etc). Yes I agree that a business can be destroyed by spammy spun content, but if done correctly, this should never be the case. But who knows where my rankings will be in another 3 weeks. I guess experience truly is the best type of practice with seo.

Here is a primer I wrote during a rant:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...ard-work-destroyed-day-idiot.html#post5489068

There is a LOT more, but that will get you started.

SeanAustin said:

Hmm well I can understand your point here but I would have to somewhat disagree. I am ranking number 3 for "(city) lawyers" and this is off a site that I created just 3 weeks ago. The competition was decently stiff and all I did was create about 200 tier 1 links with tier 2 and 3 connected to them (and acquired some social media likes, shares, etc). Yes I agree that a business can be destroyed by spammy spun content, but if done correctly, this should never be the case. But who knows where my rankings will be in another 3 weeks. I guess experience truly is the best type of practice with seo.

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You don't get it. You think SEO is backllinks.

This is precisely how to destroy someone's business., and opens you up to a lawsuit. You have a fiduciary responsibility to use accepted business practices in the pursuit of business.

If I tell you I will knock back the weeds in your yard, then go in there and spray toxic waste on the yard or use a flame thrower, you can sue me because that is not they accepted way to deal with weeds.

If I use a lawnmower and do it, even if you are unhappy, you cannot sue me.

Google has created a specific formula to level the playing field to allow local businesses to compete with all you spammers and the big boys.

They do this by establishing standard procedures to get a site accepted as a local business.

The way you are doing it is not the industry standard way of doing Local SEO.

You are not ranking a local site, you are ranking an IM site in a specific geographical area. Any local lawyer that comes along and does it right will toss you aside, and any algo change from G will gut your rankings.

Carve this into your brain.

Google has always, and always will, devalue any SEO method that attempts to gain an advantage by gaming the algo.

I submit the following:

When the web as young, you simply put your keywords into the keyword tag, and google knew what your site was about. You could get insane traffic by simply placing "naked girls" in your keyword tag. It worked so good, that everyone started spamming the fuck out of it.

So google decided to ignore it.

Next was link farms. These were sites full of links. Seriously, just page after page of links. But links was what was ranking so everyone jumped on board,and now link farms are considered bad neighborhoods and actually hurt you.

Want more?

Article directories used to be ALL IMers talked about, until all of the article directories except 4 or 5 had all their links devalued.

Forum profile links, next to useless even if they are related, useless and potentially harmful in not related today..

Press releases used to all be the rage, but now link from a press release website is of no value.

Blog posts, used to be any link was a good link, and a blog comment was gold, now they are zinc and the golds is contextual links in content. For now. As soon as that starts to tilt the rankings, it will get fixed.

Now, tell me where tiered link-building is right now. Is it affecting the rankings? If you believe it is, how log do you think before it gets hit?

The description used to be used to rank websites, it isn't anymore it just simply counts as content, when it used to be granted extra weight. Why?? Spammers started to game the system with it.

Already junk tiers are being devalued, and you even said to use quality. A year ago everyone said spin and spam was all you needed to do, quality was a joke. I actually got laughed at on this forum for suggesting that tier one sites be quality..

What happens when Google devalues all tiered links? What happens when someone runs a neg SEO campaign and you suddenly have thousands of more links?

Of course there must be something to use for ranking, so what could be begining to have influence now that did not traditionally help?
'
Social signals,perhaps? Google authorship? What happens when Google gets the algo adjusted to the point that it does not have to rely as heavily on links as it does now?

Will they continue to allow the quality of their SERPs to affected by this small corner of web users, or will they fix it like they historically have done?

You are not ranking your local site like google has said to do it.

To google, your site will look like an IM site, not a local business.

Local businesses behave like local businesses, not make money online sites.
They join associations related to their business and location. The advertise locally. They appear in local papers, they join the BBB, they sponsor little leagues and bowling leagues.

If you are a local business, all you have to do is act like one instead of acting like a spammer or scammer, and give the search engines what they want, not what you think they want.

This is why I stress that you need someone who understands LOCAL SEO. Almost no one does.

Is the reason you are saying that you will rank it 6, because there are 5 solid real estate sites at the top 5 positions, that have hundreds if not thousands of listings on them? Because if that is the reason than I think 300$ a month might be overcharing, because let's face it I doubt that she will make any sales from her site. The site itself will just be there for "presitge" so to say and chances are that most of the traffic will be from clients she sends there by herself.
With just 3000 searches my guess is that it's relatively small town and all the estate that is being sold, you can already find on the first 5 sites displayed, so chances are that people won't check that low in the ranking, not to mention that even if they check the moment they see the same listings they will probably leave.

Note: Everything I'm saying is based on the idea that there are already 5 solid sites ranking at the top, however if that is not the case, then you can ignore completey my post

Sean, the thing to keep in mind is it's not your job to sell the real estate for her. That's her job. It is your job to produce traffic for her. Be able to show her an increase in traffic to her site. To show the people visiting her site are qualified prospects.

Don't sell seo to her. Sell her results. Sell her a solution to her problem. Ask her what her expectations are. Don't promise her anything or suggest anything. You may be thinking you have to provide her with 100 new prospects a month, she's thinking she'd be happy with ten new ones a month. You're thinking you would offer her this service for $300/mo. She's thinking she would pay at least $800/mo for this service.

Don't cheat yourself. Let her tell you what the value of your solution to her problem is. Let her tell you her expectations. She'll often be more realistic than you are. Just one new buyer means a nice commission of at least $5000 to her.

One thing you can do to seal the deal is have a way for you to prove to her the new prospects are coming from your efforts not hers. That will lock her in to you. Use a "key" system.

Good luck!