Website Optimization Strategy – Project Report

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Realtor.com

Company Background

Realtor.com is the flagship site of Move, Inc., and the official site of the National Association of Realtors. It is the No. 1 consumer destination for real estate related information with more than 6.3 million monthly unique users and over 3 million listings.

As a leader in online real estate, it is considered the essential resource for consumers seeking information and connections they need before, during and after a housing move. The company has been providing information and decision support tools for consumers looking for home information on the Internet through Realtor.com and Move.com for the last ten years.

Industry

Realtor.com offers a product customers typically don’t buy online. The company needs to entice a visitor to contact a realtor and arrange for a face-to-face visit to close the sale.

It’s important for this company to track online leads and understand how those leads ultimately convert to offline sales. The average lead value can be defined based on the average close rate and the value of the properties purchased. Understanding the value of these leads drives the need to better understand site behaviour and identify ways to optimize the conversion.

The key drivers of Realtor.com are Find a Home and Rentals categories on which the revenue model of this website depends. The more visitors this website would be able to draw and entice them into becoming “successful” leads, the more business it would be able to generate by way of realty commissions and advertising revenues.

The home buying and renting decisions are not impulse based and require lot of planning and decision making. As the process requires significant amount of time and commitment from the buyer before he could buy, a typical buyer starts with looking around for houses in his neighbourhood, and around the city for prices and affordability. Finance is the leading factor in the home buying decision making process besides suitability and issues like maintenance etc.

Website’s Functionality and Deliverability

From analytics point of view, it is relatively easier at Realtor.com to implement analytics tools, and collect & report appropriate metrics. The site is made using standard html language and does not use AJAX or Flash technologies which often make the process of data gathering a complex process.

While the important links of the site are placed on top and above the fold, the current design has a lot of clutter and unimportant links which distract visitors’ attention and affects his scent trail. The new beta version with slicker design, less clutter, more visuals, and easy to use interface, addresses this problem and is currently available for trial.

Goal #1: Maximising Lead Generation

The success of Realtor.com depends upon its ability to increase visitors to the site, successfully assisting them in home buying and renting decision making, and leading them to the conversion path with the right scent trails – to fill registration and realty contact forms.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

• Lead Generation Conversion Rate = (# visits resulting in desired action) / (# visits)

This measures how compelling our offerings are to the audience, and how well we are marketing to them. Regardless of how we collect leads, we should be keeping track of our lead generation conversion rate. So while our emphasis would be in finding the total leads generated through online realty contact forms and site registration process, we should also find leads coming from email addresses and phone numbers.

By testing different locations for site registration, link titles, traffic generating ideas, advertising copy and placement, paid search links, pay-per-click ads and so forth, we can optimize Realtor.com site for better conversion.

• Average Cost per Conversion (Lead Generated) = (sum of acquisition marketing costs) / (total conversion events)

Conversion is one of the most important visitors activities we need to track. By calculating the average cost per conversion we can ensure that we’re not paying too much to acquire visitors. A sudden increase in conversion cost could be directly related to an expensive marketing campaign which has failed to deliver. We must monitor this.

• Average Time to Respond to Email Inquiries = (sum of response times in [time unit]) / (total number of email inquries)

Keeping track of how long it takes for the staff to follow-up on leads from tradeshows, inbound telephone calls, submitted forms and emails, we can increase the conversion ratio and enhance customers experience at Realtor.com site. Any delays longer than a few working hours should be investigated and corrected.

Goal #2: Increasing Brokerage and Realty Commissions

The revenue model of Realtor.com is of significant importance to check company’s health. Every effort must be made to entice brokers and realtors into listing their properties on this site, thereby increasing site’s revenue. 

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

• Average Revenue per Visitor = (sum of revenue generated) / (visitors)

This metric helps understand the marketing efforts by estimating value based on conversion events. Realtor.com would like to see this rate increase over time. Any sudden drop should immediately be investigated. The drop could result from unqualified visitors reaching the site, the shopping cart may be broken, or the site is loading slowly reducing the number of advertising impressions it serves, thereby directly affecting revenues.

• Average Page Views per Visit = (page views) / (visits)

This is an indicator of how compelling and usable visitors find this website. By improving navigation, content, search technology, and marketing efforts, we can improve this average. The realtors posting content on this site would be interested in learning this average. The better this figure, the more chances would be of their listings getting enhanced exposure.

• Visitor Engagement Index = (# of visits) / (# of unique visitors)

This metric gives a feel for the “intensity” of repeating behaviour. If you have a much targeted audience of the same people who come back over an over again, the index will be much higher than 1. If you have no repeat visitors, it will be very close to 1, meaning almost every visitor has one session. We want to see multiple sessions’ visits for Realtor.com.

Goal #3: Promote the Brand

Building trust in Realtor.com brand and making it the primary source of information gathering in the home-buying process is an important goal of this website. This website provides industry-leading advanced features like list views, map views, various housing choices, photos, prices, featured tour etc.; it returns the results in easy to use format at a snap. These experiences entice visitors to come back and would be difficult for competitors to emulate.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

• New Vs. Returning Visitors = (total new visitors) / (all visitors)

An important marketing indicator it provides overall health of the business. This metric is directly related to any ongoing marketing strategy. An increase in marketing activity would lead to a sudden increase in new visitors as compared to the returning visitors. It could also result from favourable media publicity, or the search engine placement result.

• Repeat Visitor Share = (# of repeat visitors/ # of unique visitors)

Since home buying and renting is a high consideration decision, a successful conversion would involve a visitor coming several times on the site. This analyst would like to know about the website’s ability to draw repeat visitors and the efficiency of the marketing efforts in the selling process. Any drop in repeat visitors would mean the site is just attracting first time visitors who drop on the site as curious passers-by and leave it not to come back.

• Average Visit per Visitor = (total visits) / (total visitors)

Defined over a select time frame, this figure will let us know about the momentum the “average” visitor has. A higher rate of this metric would indicate strong loyalty and visitor interest. We would like to build a brand following for Realtor.com. For any shortcomings, we can undertake appropriate retention marketing strategy. Bookmarked links or a new competitor may be few of the factors that may affect any downtrends.    

Quality Visit Metrics

A successful visit on this site would be visitor reaching the landing page, browsing for properties in their desired locations, and filling the realty contact or site registration form.

KPIs for Senior Strategists

CEO responsible for Realtor.com should be provided with lead generation conversion rate, average time to respond to email inquiries, average revenue per visitor, and average cost per conversion. The data should help him provide an overall feel of the trend without much effort and assist in taking corrective measures for any shortfalls.

KPIs for Mid-tier Strategists

In addition to the above KPIs, the Vice President and Marketing Director responsible for the overall marketing strategy of Realtor.com should keep track of average visits per visitor, average page views per visit, and the ratio of new vs. returning visitors. 

KPIs for Tectical Resources

These people are responsible for managing things at the ground level. They should be provided data on visitor engagement index, and repeat visitor share in addition to the above.

The above metrics will be presented in the format as shown in the image (in an excel file with notes, annotations and comparisons between selected time periods) set against website goals to promote action.

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Ashish Kothari is the owner-operator of SEONITI.com, a Search Engine Optimization & Web Analytics Consultancy firm in Kitchener (near Toronto), Canada. He has a decade long experience in online marketing, website & content management, search engine optimization, web analytics, pay per click (PPC) marketing and email marketing. He can be reached at ashukothari@gmail.com.

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