When people ask about getting more traffic to their site, I usually ask, “What’s wrong with the people who are already on your site?” I say this because most of the time the answer to more leads is not more traffic —it’s better conversion.

Imagine, for a moment, a bucket with lots of holes in it. It doesn’t matter how much you pour into the bucket, it’s not going to hold water unless you patch the holes. Your website is the same as that bucket, only instead of leaking water, it is leaking cash. Without the right tools, it's hard to spot the holes so that you can fix them.

Using Analytics to Find the Holes in Your Bucket

Each site visitor leaves a footprint of their visit. This information consists of everything from how they came to your site, how long they stayed on pages, where they left, what town they live in, what type of computer they were using, and even the monitor resolution they have.

Why is this important to you? Because armed with this information you will be able to easily refine your site to correct errors, to make it more user-friendly, and to better customize it to your target market. For example, your stats may tell you that you have a large number of visitors from California using high resolution monitors and the very latest computers. With this in mind, you can create a section on your website geared towards affluent people in California that are planning to relocate to your area. There is even technology available that allows you to dynamically show a separate homepage to these visitors from California. (Stay tuned, that’s a topic for another article….)

Using the Right Tools

While there are many website statistics packages available for purchase, why not save yourself some money? A free product that I use personally, and is one of the most robust packages out there, is Google Analytics. But just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s limited. Quite the opposite is true, you can spend days reviewing the data and still not get though everything! Getting Google Analytics on your site is easy —just sign up, have your web developer add a few lines of code to your site, and you’ll be on your way to finding the "holes".

Now It’s Time to Start Patching

So what happens next? Now that you have all of this data, what do you do with it? First off, you shouldn’t do anything with it. After all, you’re a real estate agent, not a statistical analyst. Sure, it’s okay to keep up with “snapshots” of your site’s performance, but you will find yourself burning up countless hours if you get caught up in all the data. So what’s the solution? I recommend scheduling a quarterly, if not monthly, call with your web marketing company to have them review with you the results of your analytics, and to discuss their recommended action steps based off of the data. This is a key point. Don’t just talk about the stats; make the changes as a result. After all, analytics without action is simply a waste of time and money.

Here are a few key points to cover:

1. Discuss overall “snapshot” of the site - Are things trending up or down? Have there been any major fluctuations? Are these fluctuations related to other forms of marketing?

2. Define trouble spots - What areas of the site need improving? What is the problem? Why is it a problem? What can be done to fix it?

3. What is working? - What seems to be going well? Which of the calls to action are providing the most leads? Can we duplicate this on other areas of the site?

4. Implementation strategy - What changes need to be made based on the analytic data? What strategy is best to correct the trouble spots that were defined? Remember: Being armed with this information does you no good unless you implement the changes!

5. Results from previous changes - Has there been a change in the analytics since previous site corrections? Have those changes had a positive effect? Has it caused other problems in other areas of the site?

An Easy Analytics Solution

If you don’t have an ongoing relationship with someone who has a deep understanding of Web Analytics, consider a product called WebEnsure. This service handles the process of setting up the tracking code (or works with your current Web Developer to do so); gives you quarterly reports of your analytics, including recommended changes to your site; and provides one-on-one calls to keep you up-to-date on your web trends and recommended strategies.

Watch Out for New Leaks

The only constant on the Internet is that it’s always changing. Your site visitors’ habits, markets and web trends are always fluctuating. But analytics with action can keep your lead bucket patched and full!
 

As owner of Dakno Marketing, a real estate web design and marketing firm, Brad Carroll is a noted “young entrepreneur” who partners with many of the most successful Realtors in the US and Canada. Dakno also serves as the Webmaster for RUSSER Communications and numerous other businesses and organizations. As a high honors graduate from Barton College, Brad now coaches other entrepreneurs across a broad spectrum of business sectors. An avid reader and blogger, Brad offers his tips to real estate technology and marketing via his website at www.dakno.com.

EDITORS NOTE: in interest of full disclosure, both the author and the owners of ePOWER NEWS have a financial interest in the WebEnsure service mentioned above.