The ARE-TEC Blog: All Things IDX, Website, and Techno-geek

I firmly believe that if you show your web visitors the right information at the right time, they'll love you for it. But in order to do that, you need to understand a little bit about how people behave online, what they see and do.

There was a study done a while back, the Lincoln Study, by Jared Spool, where they gaged user's confidence and success in finding something online, to try to figure out why some sites consistently are good at helping people find their target content and some just aren't. Among other interesting discoveries, they found that when users were successful in finding the target content, the description words of that content appeared on the page 72% of the time. And when users were unsuccessful in finding the target content, the descriptive words only appeared an average of 6% of the time on the page.

Which means...

Users like to see words describing their goal on a site, it helps them have more confidence that the thing they're looking for is indeed there to be found. It's called a scent trail.

In practice, that goes like this: If someone is looking for townhomes in Tucson, and they search Google for "townhomes in Tucson" and just happen to click on that page in my site from the search engine results page, then that page needs to - very prominently - repeat the words "Townhomes in Tucson." We're not trying to be subtle or fancy here. We're trying to be clear and clean and highly usable.

Which means that if I create a page on my site just for people looking at townhomes, then I need to very carefully optimize for those kinds of words, and then I need to restate those words plainly on the page.

Remember - a web page should do one of two things: it either provides the content that someone is looking for, or it provides links to that content. Otherwise, users stop looking and click away.

Last week at this time, I was still at NARlando, packing up the Expo and getting ready to head home. The opportunity to talk with hundreds of folks about their business and their ideas was incredible.

However. It wasn’t completely without frustration.

I am still completely flummoxed by the number of people who have an MLS search on their site and yet don’t generate business from it. There were people who stopped by the booth who were paying astronomical amounts of money per month for an IDX, that couldn’t trace a single piece of business back to it. Why would you ever pay for something that never gets you business? As a working agent, this makes no sense to me.

I had a long discussion with a gentleman from Denver, and we agreed on a basic premise. People on our websites want one of two things: information or listings. The vast majority aren’t looking for an agent, they’re looking to consume our knowledge and they’re looking for the local inventory.

So if I can make that user happy by blending those two things well, in a manner that makes sense, by showing them the right information and the right opportunities at the right time, then the chances of that person becoming my client just got better. I’ll be exploring that idea a bit further here, I think. It’s not difficult if you have the right tools.

I know there’s a lot of stuff to catch you attention at the NAR Expo this year – some of the exhibitors have mind blowing displays – Lowes built an entire kitchen in there, it’s crazy.  But over at humble booth #2157 sits ARE-TEC.  Right now, it looks like this, but we’ll add the computers and monitors and displays and whatnot tomorrow before the floor opens at 4pm.

Yes, we have schwag.  Yes, we have a drawing for an Amazon gift certificate. Yes, we’ll show you our IDX solution, the listing galleries, the automatic graph stuff, the quick search, all of it.

But beyond that, while we’re on the Expo floor, our time is yours.  There’s a combined 20 years of software and web development experience at this booth.  There’s a pretty successful real estate blogger willing to discuss your web presence and blog, your strategy, your challenges and questions, and to revel in your successes and plans for the future.  There’s an awesome software guy who knows websites and databases and web hosting like no one’s business.

We’re yours.  Pick our brains.  For free.  Head to #2157 on the Expo floor and say hello!

Oh – we’ve also got a few spots left for agents in markets that we’re not yet in, a special pricing package for a very limited few who want a spectacular IDX at an insane price, in return for helping us into your marketplace.  It’s a sweet deal.

See you there!

Something that caught my eye when Listing Router was introduced, a comment by ActiveBob in his whiteboard explanation:

There are thousands and thousands of searchers every day that come to ActiveRain and leave after viewing one page.

This is typical for search engine traffic.  That’s called a ‘bounce,’ in internet lingo: a short, one-page-no-click visit.  Part of the point of Listing Router (in my humble opinion) is to try and capitalize on those bounces – to take those visitors who would have clicked away and give them the opportunity to go to a site that might interest them – to send them to your site with listings.

So now you’ve got to deal with the same problem.  Bouncing users.  Especially as you’re paying for those visitors – a bouncing user is wasted money.  So how do you measure bouncing users on your site? 

How do you know if Listing Router is working?

You need a system to measure and monitor the traffic sent to your IDX site from ActiveRain.  Because if you’re going to spend the money, you better know if it is working for you or not.

Depending on your IDX site, that may or may not be difficult.  Some sites only give very basic user analytics, if any, and then you’ve got to decide if you’ll continue to use that site or not.

One of the best free ways to better understand the users at your site, if they bounce or not, and how they found you is to create an account at Google Analytics and install a snippet of code on your site.  That will tell you exactly how much traffic you’re getting from ActiveRain, how often those users click away immediately, and how many spend some time clicking around on your site.

Another simpler, but still good and free solution, is to use GetClicky, which will also help you learn where the traffic to your IDX is coming from and how long they stay on your site.

And then, once you know what the users who clicked over from ActiveRain are doing, you can try to improve those visits by improving your site.  Maybe you send those users to a different page, or configure the existing search differently.  Maybe you start using a different IDX, or maybe you send people to a list of search results instead of to the page where they enter their criteria.  And now you can measure the results of those changes, using your web analytics.

Measure the traffic and behavior of the users who click over from Listing Router, so you’ll know if the money you’re spending is worthwhile. 

In case you missed them:

• Part 1: Consider the user first
• Part 2: Picking a strategy
• Part 3: You've Got Visitors! Now what?

Good news! You’re getting some hits from the Listing Router! So… now what?

You’re paying for those hits, you do have a plan, right?

What are you going to do with those visitors that will make the money you just spent worthwhile?

Let me ask it this way: what do you have on the site that you’re sending your Listing Router clicks to that will benefit your business? Is there anything there that will either make a user love you and return, encourage a user to contact you, or provides something that would make a user not only want to do business with you, but they’ll pick up the phone immediately and ask to be a client?

And if not – why not? Why spend the money to get people there if the site doesn’t do anything for your business?

What’s your plan?

Will you make people register to search for homes, and collect information that way? There are lots of folks who have great success with that method. But even there, you better have a plan for how and when and how often you’ll contact those people, how you’ll keep track and manage them, so that they don’t slip through your fingers.

Will you make some other special value-added offer? A downloadable e-book about your city? A subscription to your home buyer articles from your blog? Links to popular neighborhoods? School district reports?

Decide what you want the user to do that would make the money you spent worthwhile, something that the user would see immediate value in and will want to do on your site, and then make that prominent.

Next time – Measuring and Improving your Results

And if you missed them:

• Part 1: Consider the user first
• Part 2: Picking a strategy