Realestateguide is an Australian real estate portal who’s been operating under the radar for some time now. They appear to have found success in their SEO strategy and have in place a formula delivering a high number of property seeker leads to agents. To take this strategy to the next level and launch it nationally to all agents, the portal has been placed on the market for sale or investment funding.
I’ve recently discussed the merits of the portal with Craig Honeyman owner and Managing Director:
Q. Craig, what were your goals in establishing Realestateguide?
A. Our goal very early on was to develop a system that would deliver quality traffic and leads independently of major portal support. We do not upload to REA and never have.
Q. What are the key performance indicators for Realestateguide?
A. Between 2008-2010 we tested with only 1000 listings and received top traffic results
- Close to 1 million visitors total
- 772,000 Totally unique visitors direct from successful organic placements
- Close to 80% Australian traffic
- 4.3 million page views
With close to 1 million visitors in 3 years (on only 1000 listings) you can see how this platform would increase in traffic and leads exponentially if the data was increased dramatically.
Q. Craig, what differentiates the Realestateguide portal model from existing portals in Australia?
A. Our system should be thought of as one that bridges the SEO gap between the user and agent:
(1) User Search- Search Engine > (2) RealEstateGuide > (3) Agent Listings > (4) Leads to Agent
Our system also allows for unique custom keyword entries for each listing. This can be achieved by the agent logging into their account or by our main administration. As listings are upgraded to Feature or Executive placements, their ranking increases meaning more traffic is achieved.
The unique advantage of this platform is that when data increases, so too will the traffic and leads to advertisers. This is because of successful organic search structure. This system ranks the agents listings independently in Google and other engines as well as our main suburb or state directories.
Q. Does your model work and if so do you have solid figures to back it up?
A. This portal has been under slow development since 1999. We have deliberately kept this model back until we knew that it could deliver quality lead generation.
Since 2005 we invested a considerable amount of time, money and focus into back end structure and SEO for this platform. With 3 years of testing we received 89% of all traffic via (not paid) but organic search engine placements. In other words close to 90% of all visitors found us in a successful organic search. Google topped this at 71%.
The majority of agents who have tested receive quality lead generation above the majority of the larger free portals and some paid subscription based platforms.
Q. How much can someone buy Realestateguide for?
A. We are now requesting major industry funding and support to launch this portal to the next level. A total purchase of this portal model would be considered or part therein.
Is this just another portal beating their chest and pretending they do things better than their competitors? My opinion is no, as in relation to delivering property seeker leads I know for a fact they do achieve this. Only a handful of my clients list on Realestateguide but in discussions with 4 of them they’ve indicated that the enquiries they receive from Realestateguide are in most cases more than what they receive from Myhome or Homehound. This is quite an achievement given they only have 1000 listings on the portal.
I’ll let you be the judge for yourself but Craig is happy to answer any questions through the forum or can be contacted on 0457 080 683. Further details in relation to what’s on offer in the sale can be viewed here.