SEM...what is it?

Gaining leads from search engines is not difficult if you implement the right approach. The challenge most agents and brokerage firms face is properly handling these leads.

After mastering the art of contact database marketing, you're ready to embark on a search engine marketing (SEM) lead generation strategy. These leads usually come from people you've never met, so the conversion rate of leads to deals is typically much lower than that from contact database marketing. Thus, you'll need to have a way to pre-qualify and determine the motivation of these leads, or you'll waste a lot of time chasing poor quality suspects. Nobody does automatic lead pre-qualification better than Snap Design.

Search Engine Optimization
This considered the "Organic Search" method whereby the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN index your site and process the keywords, links popularity, construction and content to match against their secret ranking method to return a ranking result. In order to achieve desired ranking, your website must be created to feed this information to the search engines in the most effective manor. The key to success here is to understand the algorithms by search engine to get the best results from each page on your website. The Snap Design search engine team members are experts in understanding the changing search engine ranking methods. To get a top 10 ranking generally takes 4-6 months to realize desired results when properly executed. In this method there is generally no charge from search engines, however you will want to get a quote to properly code your site and monthly maintenance to stay on top. Overhead varies from site to site, however on average expect to invest $1500-$2500 to set up a new website and between $500-$1500 a month to maintain top placement.

Pay Per Click Campaign Management
This method is what it sounds like, you pay when someone clicks your link from a search engine. The primary benefit of pay per click is the immediate results and complete control it offers the advertiser. You can commit $500 or $50,000 per month to the "click account" and bid for position on a page when a consumer uses that search engine and searches by your keyword. So, you can understand that the more in demand the keyword the higher the cost to be on top. You may target one set of keywords today, and if they don't work out you may target an entirely different set of keywords tomorrow.

For immediate results, pay per click is ideal. The drawback of PPC is the fact that as soon as you stop paying, your placement disappears. A top position for some search terms can cost a bunch. For real estate agents and brokerage firms the demand differs based on how targeted you are narrowing your market. It is recommended to have your pay per click campaigns managed by Snap Design so that you can achieve maximum benefit from your PPC budget to stretch it as far as possible. Your results vary based on financial commitment. To get any noticeable results, agents and brokers are investing $1000-$2000 per month depending on quantity of leads desired.

At Snap Design, we recommend a combination of PPC and SEO to gain maximum web results.