Agents and Developers both seek to maximize the effectiveness of their websites in capturing buyer leads. Some are much better at this than others. How effective is your website? What tools are you using to analyze it?

Website hosting companies usually offer simple tools to tell you how many visits you have had, where your visitors are coming from, what search terms they are using, and so on. Did you know that there is a free tool available that can help you do much more? If you are serious about making your website work for you, I suggest you give Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics) a try.

Internet marketing is a specialty unto itself and most agents do not have the time to master all the skills involved. There are companies out there which take advantage of this situation and that is frustrating. When we operated our first real estate website several years ago, we engaged a local company to run a pay-per-click campaign for us. It turned out to be an expensive waste of money and I later found they charged us three or four times what the service actually cost. We hope this has not happened to you.

If you expect the Internet to be an important part of your lead generation activity, you must learn some of the concepts involved if you are not already familiar with them.

Here are a couple simple definitions to help you get started:

Funnel - The funnel is the process by which you gradually convert a visitor into a lead, prospect and finally hopefully a sale. All agents have funnels and your offline marketing activities are all part of your funnel. On your website however, the funnel is usually the sequence of pages (it may be just one or two) by which the visitor offers up their contact information or picks up the phone to give you a call.

Goal - A goal is an end to the funnel. It is a page which says something like "Thank you for requesting more information. We will contact you shortly." This page appears only after successful completion of whatever you want that visitor to do. It is important to define a goal page so that Google Analytics can tell you exactly how well you are converting your visitors into leads.

Most Agents who have had a website for a while or have attended training classes know the difference between pay-per-click and natural search traffic. Google Analytics can help you ascertain the effectiveness of your pay per click campaigns as well as your link strategies. Without powerful analytics, it is hard to know if you are spending money effectively.

Try adding Google Analytics to your site. It is pretty simple and free. We will continue with more helpful tips like this in the coming weeks.