4realz Roundtable today: Tracking and analytics for agents

NOTE:  You can listen to the podcast and read a brief summary of the show at the bottom of the post!

As I mentioned last week, I’m putting together a list of resources for agents for a presentation at RE Connect…  and at the end of the process, I’ll end up with a list of the top 50 marketing tools for agents.   However, over the next month or so, I’m hoping to really dive into some specific areas and so I thought I’d start with tracking and analytical tools for agents by bringing the conversation to the 4realz Roundtable.

Today’s Roundtable will be at 4PM PST! And, as always, we’d love to have you take part!

If you’re an agent who’s eye’s glace over at this subject, I’m hoping you’ll try to stick with it a bit because I think there is no better way to find value in your internet marketing then measuring, tracking and adjusting your online marketing and I hope to get into some strategies with the participants of the roundtable today!

With that in mind, here’s a great list of tools from an email that was sent to me last week by Gahlord Dewald of Union Street Media last week (and reprinted with his permission!):

Survive the downturn by using analytics to listen to and observe your customers
  • Google Analytics. Survive the downturn by knowing more about your customers. More reports than you’ll ever have time to read. Free.
  • SiteScan GA. To save a few bucks you installed Google Analytics yourself. Did you install it correctly? Use SiteScan to find out. Free
  • CrazyEgg. Know exactly where on a page people are clicking and how soon after arriving they click. Ruthlessly prune links that don’t improve your conversions. Free.
  • 4q. Listening to your customers is important no matter if the market is good or bad. 4Q mashes analytics expert Avinash Kaushik’s brain with qualitative experts iPerceptions into a simple, easy to use 4 question survey to capture the voice of the customer. Free (this is the absolute best free “qualitative analytics” tool on the market).
  • FeedBurner. Sure it’s also great for simplifying your blog’s RSS feed. But it also lets you know what content your audience is reading and clicking on. Use this to help you write stuff your audience wants. Free
  • ClickTale. Ever want to observe exactly how visitors browse through your site including cursor placement, clicks and time? Clicktale is the next best thing to looking over their shoulder while they browse your site. WARNING: Time consuming and addictive. Free
  • GetClicky.  Where your visitors come from, what content they view, what links they followed, how they got there and more: in Real Time. Free
Survive the downturn by dominating your competition
  • Keyword Envy. You’re good enough to know which specific keywords matter to you. You can track your site’s performance over time at Keyword Envy. Free
  • Compete.com.  Competitive research on the web is notoriously fuzzy. But people still want it. If you want to do competitive research, use Compete.com for its combination of data sources. Free
  • SEOQuake. What is so great about the sites ahead of yours in the Search Engine Results Page? Install SEOQuake on your browser and find out things like latest cachedate, google page rank, number of backlinks, did they submit a sitemap and more right at the SERP. Free.
Survive the downturn by getting smarter
  • Web Analytics Wednesday. Once a week, in your town (or one near you) web analysts get together to drink beer, give a short presentation and talk shop. They love talking to real people with real business problems. Attend a Web Analytics Wednesday.
I found this list from Gahlord to be extremely helpful… and a GREAT jumping point into the world of analytics.  With today’s participants, I hope to get people talking about the tools they use and/or recommend… and why!

Are you an analytically-minded agent or someone who wants to get more technical in your online marketing? Join us at 4pm to let us know what tools you’re using and get some feedback from others from the roundtable on what you could do better in the future!

Note about the Roundtable

I’ve had more than a few questions about what it takes to get involved… Essentially, the answer is not much.   If you want to listen into the conversation, then you need only log in from the talk shoe site.   If you want to ask questions live (as oppose to the chat), then you’ll need to call in using any phone.   ALL the information needed to get involved is on the TalkShoe site!

UPDATE:

What an awesome show!

There was a great group of people on the call including Andy Kaufman, Kevin Tomlinson, Mark Eckenrode, Grant Freer, Jeff Turner, Todd Carpenter, Gabe Hoggarth, and Jim Marks.

We covered all kinds of topics including a few websites not mentioned above like Have a Mint and Woopra.  However, I think the real value for most agents will come from our discussion on how much agents should know (and need to know) about SEO.

If you’re an agent interested in understanding what you need to know about SEO, tracking and analytics in order to improve your business, I can only imagine that you’ll find this roundtable discussion very enlightening:

9 responses

  1. Dustin,

    I hope everyone implements Google Analytics. My brother and I are constantly recommending it because it is free and you really can’t beat the price for what it gives you.

    Crazy egg is fantastic and a serious tool for those who want to see what is really happening on one’s website and another great mention.

    It is truly amazing how many great tools are available for free.

  2. One site that wasn’t mentioned is StatCounter – I’ve been using it for years and its simplicity is brilliant. In near real-time I can see what keywords are bringing visitors and what sites are referring to my site. It’s not robust, but it does what I want – for the deep stats, I use Google Analytics.

  3. Joseph: No doubt the abundance of free tools is amazing… and somewhat shocking…

    And Jim: I remember using StatCounter at some point, but they pretty much fell off my radar. Thanks!

  4. Thanks for the shoutout, Dustin. So sorry I couldn’t make the call!

    Good catches on the minty goodness and woopra (I declined to add Woopra to my original list because it’s addictive to watch stats in real time and getting to action can take sometimes take second seat to voyeurism).

    Another good keyword reporting tool is Google Webmaster Tools’ keyword stats. It only reports on Google though so that’s a limitation.

    Also, a correction on WAW. Brainshortout, my fault: WAW is once a month, not once a week.

  5. I’ve kept StatCounter for its basic-ness. I have Woopra, but it is much too addictive. And Googley Analytics are sooooo deep as to be overwhelming unless I’m looking to do some serious analysis.

  6. Hey Jim,

    Try setting up the GA Dashboard to just have the four or so reports you use and then have it email you every week. Then you don’t get tempted by the depth but you still get info on which you can act. 🙂

  7. Great call… I listened to it and learned a lot of additional sites I was unaware of… Interesting how the subject swung back to SEO… That’s of course what everyone is ultimately trying to figure out when they use Analytics.

    Glenn

  8. […] marketing tools for agents, I’d love to take on a relevant topic similar to how we took on tracking and analytics for agents last […]

  9. Interesting read!!!

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