Why Does Smith Have The Best Agents, Properties, And Websites?

A major coastal Realtor® Association executive asked today, “What do you attribute to The Smith Group’s overwhelming success in every market you’ve gone into?”   The answer was almost too simple.  “It’s because we keep it simple…”

“First, Smith sites have very low bounce rates because they’re better looking [Averaging across our client population in the mid-high 20s].  Many sites on the first pages of search engines are text heavy, not particularly good looking, or hurt the eyes with tacky flash inserts – which explains why most of these agents and/or brokers are not the top producers.  Low bounce rates mean high website return on investment [ROI].   When ROI is high, you have flexibility with respect to expanding marketing budgets, whether it be pay-per-click, print mail, organic ranking SEO programs, etc.  For example, we have one Smith client who uses our email systems to send out hundreds of thousands newsletters per month — their site bounce rates are low, their ROI is high, and their sales are fabulous.  Low ROIs, however, mean death [Anything above a 50% bounce rate].  Until you have a healthy site ROI it makes no sense to worry about Google, or any other search engine ranking.  Period.  Bounce rates need to be below 30%.

Second, Smith sites get viewers to properties quickly, without long forms, questions, email requests.  Show them lots of large format photographs of your properties.  After all, this is why visitors are visiting real estate websites.  They don’t care what you look like, where you went to school, the kind of dog you own — people don’t go to Amazon.com to read about Amazon.com, but to look for BOOKS!  SHOW THEM PROPERTIES!  EASILY!  AND QUICKLY!

Third, just because technology can do cool things doesn’t mean you should use it.  Too many sites are so busy with the sizzle, they forget their mission and confuse their viewers.  What’s the mission?  SHOW THEM PROPERTIES!  EASILY!  AND QUICKLY!

Forth, create back-end administration functions — such as email campaigns, XML feeds to major portal sites, add, edit, and delete site pages quickly, and other functions — that don’t let good business practices ‘fall through the cracks.’  Additionally, upgrade your client sites periodically without charging them.  Support your clients and really help them sell properties and be successful.”

The Smith Group has kept it this simple.  If you like simple, give us a call.