{"id":4116,"date":"2008-08-27T08:18:39","date_gmt":"2008-08-27T15:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=4116"},"modified":"2009-05-28T13:48:13","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T20:48:13","slug":"project-bloodhound-if-your-web-site-sucks-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4116\/project-bloodhound-if-your-web-site-sucks-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Bloodhound: If your web site sucks &#8212; fix it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;ve mentioned, I&#8217;m building a dedicated direct-response web site devoted to pre-selling listing clients. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Our main Phoenix real estate weblog<\/a> does a good job selling to buyers, sellers, investors and relocators, the four markets we target there, but it is my belief that I can build a sales engine that can pre-sell and pre-condition homeowners in such a way that, by the time they contact us, we will be completely Beyond Competition.<\/p>\n<p>I talked about a number of these ideas at Unchained in Phoenix, and we&#8217;ll be doing quite a bit more on this topic in Orlando.<\/p>\n<p>Consider this:<\/p>\n<pre>21:28:40 http:\/\/distinctivephoenix.com\/\r\n21:29:43 http:\/\/abetterlisting.com\/\r\n21:32:18 http:\/\/abetterlisting.com\/Presentation\/\r\n21:46:29 http:\/\/distinctivephoenix.com\/\r\n21:50:33 http:\/\/abetterlisting.com\/<\/pre>\n<p>That&#8217;s a set of visits from one unique IP address. I built minimal session tracking into the site, but I have Cameron working on a much more robust solution. But what you&#8217;re seeing is at least 22 minutes of someone&#8217;s life. Not counting search engine spiders, this site draws fewer than six unique visitors a day &#8212; but they&#8217;re <em>all<\/em> like this. Twenty-two minutes is a <em>short<\/em> visit. People have stayed for over an hour. Others have come back for three or four days in succession. The site is not converting as well as I want it to &#8212; yet &#8212; but I&#8217;m seeing exactly the kind of user behavior I want.<\/p>\n<p>There are points I want to make, but I&#8217;ll have to be brief. This site and our others are converting well enough that I&#8217;m short on time all the time.<\/p>\n<p>But let&#8217;s hit this much, at least:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your web site or weblog is a <em>perfectible<\/em> selling tool. If it sucks now &#8212; and sucks only means something with respect to a commercial metric, not because of some emotional aversion &#8212; fix it. Good marketing is targeted at specific prospects, presents them with a unique selling proposition and rewards the desired behavior. It ain&#8217;t rocket science. It just takes effort and testing.\n<\/li>\n<li>Your web site is potentially the most efficient sales tool you have in your sales toolbox. It might not convert at the same rate as other tools, but its cost per conversion is incredibly low, and it sells for you <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4116\/project-bloodhound-if-your-web-site-sucks-fix-it\/#more-4116\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;ve mentioned, I&#8217;m building a dedicated direct-response web site devoted to pre-selling listing clients. Our main Phoenix real estate weblog does a good job selling to buyers, sellers, investors and relocators, the four markets we target there, but it is my belief that I can build a sales engine that can pre-sell and pre-condition [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,175,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-project-blooodhound","9":"category-real-estate","10":"category-technology","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4785,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4785\/making-the-riccelli-bet-to-take-away-the-fear-of-trying-something-new\/","url_meta":{"origin":4116,"position":0},"title":"Making the Riccelli bet to take away the fear of trying something new","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Richard Riccelli doesn't write here very much, but, when he does, it's pure gold. I've been writing in BloodhoundBlog about Richard since the blog was young, as have others, and Richard has been writing with us for as long as we've been a group blog. I can't sing his praises\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Marketing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15991,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15991\/internet-savvy-phoenix-real-estate-broker-needs-a-buyer-a-partner-an-investor-or-a-job\/","url_meta":{"origin":4116,"position":1},"title":"Internet savvy Phoenix real estate broker seeks a buyer, a partner, an investor or a job.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A note to the Bloodhounds: I want to come in from the cold. If you know of a biggish Phoenix brokerage that could use my skills and assets, I'd appreciate the referral. --GSS I own a very small boutique real estate brokerage -- good reputation, strong good will, clean books,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Innovation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Innovation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/innovation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4358,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4358\/listing-real-estate-the-bloodhound-way-how-we-do-open-houses\/","url_meta":{"origin":4116,"position":2},"title":"Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: How we do open houses","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Alas, not every visitor to BloodhoundBlog has the sublime gifts to preen at length about the salutary benefits of a carefully-cultivated humility. Some people, oddly enough, come here to learn about real estate. From my email:I've been looking at your listing\/marketing process, and am curious about your open house strategy.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Marketing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":121,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/121\/show-us-your-house\/","url_meta":{"origin":4116,"position":3},"title":"Show us your house!","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We have another web site in the works, DistinctivePhoenix.com. It's hugely alpha right now, partly because of philosophy issues and partly because we haven't been able to make the time to do the things that need to be done to get it ready to go live. But: I am putting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1761,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1761\/greg-plays-php-games-with-zeemaps-the-story-for-july-in-the-fq-story-historic-district-of-phoenix\/","url_meta":{"origin":4116,"position":4},"title":"Greg plays PHP games with ZeeMaps: The story for July in the F.Q. Story Historic District of Phoenix","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Kris Berg and Jonathan Dalton have been making good use of ZeeMaps to show sales activity in their local market areas. I've been digging this, but at StarPower, I discovered that I am smart and lazy -- good at figuring out how to avoid hard work. So: I built a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2015,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2015\/announcing-the-phoenix-real-estate-technology-exchange-putting-flexmlss-feet-to-the-fire-so-you-dont-have-to\/","url_meta":{"origin":4116,"position":5},"title":"Announcing The Phoenix Real Estate Technology Exchange: Putting flexmls&#8217;s feet to the fire so you don&#8217;t have to&#8230;","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As promised, this morning a cadre of Phoenix-area webloggers are launching The Phoenix Real Estate Technology Exchange. From the brand new weblog's About page:The Phoenix Real Estate Technology Exchange is a group weblog created by the Phoenix real estate weblogging community, by members of the Arizona Regional Multiple Listings Service\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8650,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions\/8650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}