Is Google Adwords really too expensive fo real estate?

As we have been out teaching real estate agents how to market their websites online a common fear has been occuring. It's not one that I originally anticipated a we have been using it for years and found it very economical to use. The fear is:

“I don't want to use Google Adwords because it's too expensive.”

This just blew me away. These were the very same individuals who would spend $500 sending out flyers to their neighborhood and in the same month spend $550 for a full page magazine ad, but they were telling me that Google Adwords was too expensive? I was just blown away at the perception that advertising online would be too expensive. So to help everyone reading to see that it isn't too expensive to advertise online, here are some tips to help break down those fears and get you started with success online.

1. Keyword Research - Most people think it is expensive because they don't do enough research into the words in their area. If you try to advertise in position #1 with "my area real estate" and leave your budget wide open then yes it will be expensive. Take the time to research, using tools like WordTracker, so you can find out as many words as possible so you don't have to bid on the most expensive ones.
2. Set a Budget! - Can't say this one enough. Set a budget that you are comfortable with. Know that you if you put $10/day Google will allow you to spend it! You could start small at just $1/day if you want and it really does work. We started our ads with just $50 a month so we could get the hang of it. That's alot cheaper than a magazine ad :).
3. Don't direct ads to your home page - Your ads should be focused and the page they point to should be focused on what your ad was about. Directing ads to your home page is a waste of money! Take the time to create landing pages for each ad if you can and watch your leads soar.

Taking the time to cover just these 3 tips will help you to see that using Google Adwords for your real estate pay per click can be an extremely cost effective way to generate leads for your business. If you want more help getting started we created a FREE report on how to get going for your Google Adwords for real estate at our website at Online Real Estate Success.