Three KPIs for Real Estate Websites

By G. Dewald · March 26, 2008 · 9 Comments 

This article is going to be about web data analysis. If those three little words send you running in terror then now might be a good time to close the browser and slowly back away from your computer. If you’re interested in seeing what you can do with some of those web charts and numbers that you’ve set up to auto-email to yourself, then read on. I promise to make it fun and exciting.

Is a KPI like CSI?

I should probably start with something about web metrics. Web metrics are those bits of data like “pageviews” or “unique visitors” or “bounce rate.” Most analytics packages, like Google Analytics, VisiStat and so on have hundreds of these little data chunks.

We don’t all have time to look at all the reports. And many of the reports don’t contain information on which we can act. So one strategy of getting value from the analytics package without spending our day gazing fondly over medium/source performance charts, is to identify a handful of really important metrics.

And that’s pretty much what a KPI is: a really important metric. More completely, a KPI (just an acronym for “key performance indicator”), is a metric that is directly relevant to Read more

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8 ways analytics software will help build a broader audience

By Reggie · January 13, 2008 · 5 Comments 

1. Unique Visitor Tracking: Visitors are a good way of tracking your website or blog traffic. So Unique Visitors are a great way of monitoring new traffic. You will be looking for your monthly number of unique visitors to trend upwards month after month.

 

2. Referring URL’s: I absolutely love this feature of analytics software. In my opinion Clicky is the best at giving me complete URL’s for referring pages. This data is extremely useful when tracking marketing campaigns for your listings, blog interviews, carnivals and lots more. You can see a specific number of unique visitors that came from a particular page or domain.

 

3. Searches & Keywords: Knowing what your website / blog visitors are searching to find you is very useful. Think of viewing your visitors search terms as understanding their goal in coming to your website. Gold mine! You’ll understand the content that is working so you can write more in that area.Also use the searched terms provided by your analytics software to track the effectiveness of your optimization strategies. Say your primary search term is “Dublin Ca Real Estate.” Analytics software will help you identify whether or not any searchers are finding you with those search terms. If you see they are not, you can increase your keyword density around those words.

 

4. Outgoing Clicks or Exit: Understanding where your visitors are leaving your site is important. Did they leave because they were uninterested, confused, or just because they didn’t want to proceed the way you were offering? Based off your exit page stats you can make adjustments to slow abandonment rates. For example you may learn that users are getting to your IDX MLS search but you require sign-in. The website visitors are leaving your search tool, looking for another site without registration. A simple fix may be to move the registration, and give more information upfront.

 

5. Screen Resolution, Browser etc: When first developing your website / blog you probably didn’t know a lot about your potential readers screen resolution. So you had to build your layout based on what little information you had available. However with analytics software you can track your visitors screen resolution. How many visitors have resolution lower than your site width can fit? If it’s a big segment you may want to redesign to stop unneeded scrolling.

 

6. Filter Viewers: As you take a closer look at particular characteristics of your visitors, you may have the need to segment your results. This is where Filters come in. Filter only users of a particular Web browser, Country, or even referrer domain. Maybe you want to filter out a specific IP address of your work? By eliminating those visits you gain a deeper understanding of your true visitor count.

 

7. Bounce Rate: If the bounce rate is high, you may need to tailor that page better…maybe redisplay the content. You may also look at the referrer URL and compare bounce rates. Are some traffic sources higher quality? If so, you can focus on gaining more traffic from those referrers.

 

8. Site Overlay: Google, CrazyEgg and a few others provide the ability to overlay your metrics on your website / blog to see exactly where users are clicking. Wouldn’t it be powerful to understand how Digg users are interacting with your site compared to StumbleUpon users? How about Google search traffic, how do they interact with your site compared to Yahoo search traffic?

 

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YouTube for Real Estate Marketing

By Reggie · December 24, 2006 · Leave a Comment 

YouTube is turning out to be a noteworthy tool for Real Estate. I’m not just saying that because they’ll host your video for free. Let’s face it; YouTube has become an online destination. And not just for teenagers. In November, iMedia Connection covered an eMarketer report dispelling myths about the average YouTube visitor. eMarketer said, ages 35 to 64 make up the largest audience, with ages 25 to 34 coming in second. I was surprised to learn this; it’s contrary to what the mainstream media leads us to believe. eMarketer also stated ages 35 to 64 were the largest share of unique visitors. As if that isn’t enough, according to Nielsen NetRatings, YouTube was the fastest growing Web brand the first half of this year. Compile that with ComScore Media reporting over 60% of YouTubes visitors earn 60k or over annually. Now what do you think of YouTube and its benefit to Real Estate Marketing? (Read my entire post over at Ubertor Real Estate Blog.)

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