All Forum Posts by: Peter Kolat

I've heard and read that Google Adwords can get expensive. I'm a new investor. Does it make sense for me, or new investor like myself, to sign up for Adwords?

Hi Jose,

if you are new at Adwords, then I would be very careful on how you use it. Why? Because if you setup an account, create some basic campaigns (without proper optimization) and then don't watch them closely, you can loose a lot of money.

You see, there are a lot of different factors that play a role in Adwords including, relevancy, keywords, landing page optimization, position, timing and so on. I don't want to scare you or anyone else, but you need to watch your campaigns closely if you are going to use them.

SEO is probably better between the two. Again, you need to know what to do. For instance, one of the most important of the good SEO plan is to put together a really good basket of keywords. And I'm not talking about keywords such as: "real estate" because you'll never get on the first page with that keywords. The competition is too big.

So you need to start by targeting long tail keywords such as "sell my house in Los Angeles CA." Now this keywords gets less searches but it is much better than the previous keyword. Why? because it is a lot easier to get on the first page of Google and it is action oriented. What i mean by that is that whoever is searching that keyword, they probably want to sell their house in LA.

Either way, I have achieved many top rankings in Google for my site. For instance, I have position #1, #2, #3, #4, and #6 for one of my keywords. And that's out of almost 900,000 results.

Good luck,

Peter

1 Vote

Originally posted by James M.:

For what it's worth, I also agree with the previous comments; developing a relationship with your clients will definitely boost your probability of success.

I couldn't agree more. I believe that if you can build a relationship with your clients, you position yourself in a much better way than your competition.

Also, don't forget to be transparent with your local market and your clients. They'll appreciate it and bring you more business.

Peter

0 Votes

I think it all depends on who gets your marketing piece. If someone is in desperate position, they'll need help fast. I don't think they'll wait till January.

Think about it this way, if other real estate investors slow down on marketing during holidays, it's your chance to gain some market advantage. You end up with less competition.

Peter

0 Votes

yes, you can outsource website design for a fairly good price. Aside from elance.com, you can try using:

scriptlance.com
guru.com
99designs.com
rent-a-coder.com

As for the emailing them with tidbits of info, you need to have an autoresponder software. I personally use aweber.com and they are great. Some other ones to consider can be:

getresponse.com
icontact.com

There are some software programs out there but I would shy away from those. The reason: if your computer goes down/crashes/dies, your list goes with it (unless you regularly back up to somewhere else).

Also, the deliverability is not as good is because the message comes from your own IP. Aweber and other autoresponder services I listed have already established their IP's, have them whitelisted and their email deliverability is much higher than a software program.

Hope this helps. Pm if you have more questions,

Peter

0 Votes

Originally posted by Jeff Licciardi:

Ryan,

Is there a way to have people sign up for your list directly through iContact or do you gather the info on a form on your site, and then enter the info manually?

Doesn't iContact do this automatically? I've never used them but I know that they are an auto responder so they should automatically add your prospect to your database upon signup on your site.

Peter

0 Votes

I think that marketing your home prior to being finished is ok as long as you don't show them the unfinished product.

You never want to show your retail buyer the unfinished product. Remember, first impressions matter.

I hope this helps,

Peter

0 Votes

Google Adwords is great. I can be expensive but if you do it right, it won't be. let me explain...

One of the main criteria Google is looking for when ranking your in S.E. and in Google Adwords is RELEVANCY.

If your website/landing page is not relevant to what the searcher is looking for, your rankings will fall and PPC costs increase.

Also, Adwords doesn't have to be expansive if you:
1. follow your campaigns
2. optimize them to be relevant
3. optimize your landing pages
4. target the keywords with 'exact terms'
5. figure out your ROI.

These are just a few items you need to watch. Let's look at #5. This is just for the sake of argument but If you end up getting a client at a rate of 1 client per 100 clicks and you make $5,000 on a house (small profit), you can pay $30 per click and still make a profit.

The great thing about real estate is that the profit margin is huge. You can make tens of thousands of dollars one one deal.

Good luck and let me know if you need any help.

Peter

0 Votes

Lani brings up a good point. I didn't mention it in a previous reply but outsourcing your design of your site is a great option. You can find someone for a relatively cheap rate. Here are some sites you can check out for outsourcing:

rent-a-coder.com
scriptlance.com
99designs.com
elance.com
guru.com

Just be careful who you outsource your project to. What I mean by that is you have to do some research:
1. Ask for referrals
2. Check their portfolio.
3. Most sites have a rating system, check it out.
4. Have them do a small project first to see how they work and then you can outsource bigger stuff to them.
4. Cheapest guy is not always the best.

Good luck,

Peter

1 Vote

Joshua,

BP got a vote from me. Good luck!

Peter

0 Votes

All Forum Posts by: Peter Kolat

Peter Kolat has started 3 posts and replied 58 times.

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