Many Realtors spend hundreds of dollars each month on pay-per-click advertising such as Google Adwords and even Homegain’s BuyerLink product to generate traffic to their website. I have a bunch of existing well-ranked Realtor websites currently without Realtors – why not use those websites to direct traffic to the IDX Search and lead generating pages of your existing websites that perhaps are languishing in the search engine results?

I have some existing clients that have been doing this successfully for quite a while already – one has been doing it for over 4 years. The idea of redirecting traffic to the IDX search and lead pages of the website a Realtor has elsewhere – that is not one of ours – is not something that I ever offered before but was willing to do if asked.

The Realtor website landscape has changed a lot in the last couple of years however and I realize that often agents are spending many thousands of dollars on customized IDX searches and websites – which is not something that we offer. Agents can always use a little help in directing traffic to those high priced websites and IDX search services – and perhaps that is where our system can be of help.

The traffic that comes to our websites is high quality traffic that arrives by searching the big 3 search engines  for “city real estate” and other popular real estate keywords. It is not traffic that comes from deceptive advertising and popups etc. It is the same traffic you strive for when you work to have your current website ranking well in search engines. When visitors to sites we provide click on links to the search forms and listing searches on our sites – they can be directed to the IDX search and forms on your current site. The websites we provide would be personalized with your information – just as if you were not redirecting the traffic – so visitors would know right from the start that you are the Realtor providing the information to them. It would not be like Homegain’s BuyerLink service where visitors are redirected to a totally different Realtor (surprise!).

If this is an idea that holds some interest for you, check out our website for more information on our Realtor Websites.

Ever since the inception of the web, there have been many opportunities to participate in activities that are a waste of time. I first wrote about this long before there was such a thing as blogs – but the issues were the same. Back in September 1999 I wrote an article titled “Get off the computer and back to work!” in my newsletter that was subscribed to by thousands of Realtors at the time – the forerunner of this blog.

Spending your time maintaining a real estate blog at one of the many blog communities may just be a colossal waste of time. Yes, I know that statement is politically incorrect but I did not say blogging was necessarily a waste of time – just the reasons most agents give for frequently writing blog posts at blogging communities may no longer be valid.

If you check, you will find that I have been writing this blog since 2004 – so I am not anti-blogging!

If you are spending your time blogging at real estate blog communities because you enjoy the socialization – rock on! However, Realtors often give other reasons for their time there and those reasons need to be looked at a bit more closely.

One of the main reasons given for maintaining blogs at blogging communities is for the “link juice” – one can always find ways of getting links back to your main website within your posts.

Recently however Google has lumped blog posts at blogging communities in the same category as link exchange directories and article sites, and has awarded them all the “grey bar” on the Google Toolbar. This greyed out Page Rank indicator is used by Google to show that no Page Rank has been awarded to the page being viewed.

It seems that Google has abandoned their campaign to have us all use “no follow” to render links valueless and has instead decided to make the pages themselves valueless – making the links on the pages of little or no value whether they use “no follow” or not. Blogs maintained independent of blogging communities often fare better – the posts in blogs on your own website for example are more likely to have Page Rank .

If you are maintaining a blog at a real estate blogging community for link juice purposes – there would be better ways to spend your time.

Another reason often given for blogging is because blog posts often show up in Google quickly for what is called “long tail” search terms. – i.e. search terms that are rather obscure and seldom searched for. That may not really be a valid reason for spending time in blogging communities either as such terms are generally only searched for once in a blue moon and each term usually would bring just one or two visitors a month. Those one or two visitors could be directed to your site using pay-per-click for mere pennies instead.

If you spend a half an hour writing a blog post that will generate the same traffic to your site as a few pennies will – I would argue that your time is better spent elsewhere.

Another reason given for frequenting blogging communities is the opportunity to network with other agents and perhaps pick up a buyer or seller referral. I was an active participant in one of the first networks of Realtors on the internet a decade ago ( the E-Team Referral Network) and I did receive a referral or two in the process. In order for this to happen though I had to spend a hour a day at least working on the network and participating in the community.

When you take all this time into account – I probably would have been better off and made more money just spending that time marketing the old fashioned way – calling past clients for example. It seems that the other members came to the same conclusion as the network did eventually die.

Within the real estate bloging communities only a miniscule number of agents in a very few select cities will ever have clients moving to your area. You would be better of spending the time zeroing in on the cities that produce the most newcomers to your area and “farming” a large number of agents that work those cities.

With the spring market approaching it may be a good time to evaluate your use of time. The reasons why you spend time in real estate blogging communities should be one of the things considered during this process.

Today’s leads are already up so check it out !

Today’s Seller Leads…. Houston TX, Calgary AB

Today’s Buyer Leads…. Ocala FL, Fort Lauderdale FL, Savannah GA, Vernon BC, Windsor ON, Langley BC, Nanaimo BC, Peterborough ON, Surrey BC, Prince George BC, Yorkton SK, Pembroke ON, Thunder Bay ON

Buyer Leads….Buffalo NY, Macon GA, Vernon BC, Grande Prairie AB, Pembroke ON, Langley BC, Nanaimo BC, Moose Jaw SK, Lloydminster AB, Niagara-On-The-Lake ON, Port Coquitlam BC

Information about these leads and how to contact me to obtain the lead for your area can be found in a previous post – Free No Fee, No Referral Real Estate Leads

Orlando FL, St. Catharines ON, Lloydminster SK, Regina SK

Information about these leads and how to contact me to obtain the lead for your area can be found in a previous post – Free No Fee, No Referral Real Estate Leads

Buyer Leads – Wasaga Beach ON, Surrey BC, Peterborough ON, Thunder Bay ON, Lloydminster AB

Seller Leads – Niagara Falls ON

Buyer Leads – Toledo OH, Regina SK, Leduc AB, North Bay ON, Thunder Bay ON, Pembroke ON, Lloydminster AB

Seller Leads – Merced CA

Instead of letting these leads “fall on the floor” as I have been doing up until now, I have decided to make them available to local agents at no cost, no referral and no strings attached! I will be posting fresh (from within the last 24 hours) leads – usually daily – here on this blog. The leads include the prospects needs and their email address and phone number to make it easy to contact them.

If you are a Realtor who works in one of the areas posted and are interested in working one of the leads – simply email me letting me know of your interest and which market area and I will forward the lead to you.

Most of the buyer leads will be from Canada as the buyer traffic from US websites is being directed to local Realtors already. There will still be some US seller leads though so keep checking back to see if there is one in your area.

**I will be limiting the number of leads sent to any one agent to six – but you can always have all of the leads by simply taking our website package for the available area. We only produce one website package in each market area – so areas are exclusive.

To get started, below are todays leads…

Seller Leads – Fort Worth TX

Buyer Leads – Regina SK, Windsor ON, North Bay ON, Thunder Bay ON, Orillia ON, St. Catharines ON, Pembroke ON, Medicine Hat AB