What was once a crowded competitive field of real estate Web site vendors has been reduced to a few remaining players. Just as the investment climate has changed in the stock market, your investment strategy should change as you choose which Web site vendor to work with. So here are a few criteria you can use to judge whether or not a vendor and its products are right for you and your Internet marketing strategy.

Web sites are passive lead generation tools.

How much time, money and effort to you plan to spend on the Web? Do you prefer to sit back and take the calls, or to actively pursue leads on your own? Your prospecting style determines how you should view lead generation tools such as Web sites.

Web sites are passive. Like classified ads, newspaper block ads, Yellow Pages listings, online directories, and billboards, Web sites deliver strangers to your door. Passive means that customers use the tool to find you, instead of your going out to meet them. Another way of looking at passive tools is that the customer does the work. Yet another way to describe them is that passive tools are advertising.

Web sites have to be found through search engines or through partner sites and that is why they are passive. When you take the initiative, that's called prospecting -- it's active marketing. An example of an active lead generation tool would be a newsletter or an e-card, which you send out to your prospects as a contact and/or nurturing tool. Active marketing means you are doing the work to stay in touch. Active tools are most effective with people with whom you have already made contact -- a Web visitor who e-mailed you, a person you met at an open house, etc. Many active lead generation tools are also Web sites -- they just aren't marketed as such, and they can be as effective or more so than passive online brochures to convert leads into clients.

Many agents choose Web sites in the belief that they are going to be more active than they are actually capable of being. They are lead generation tools, but they aren't contact or nurturing tools. If you are buying a Web site thinking it will help you contact or keep customers in your farm or that they will deliver large numbers of leads, you will be disappointed. Passive tools are always a numbers game, and if you are expecting the customer to do the work, you can count on far less return than from active tools. However, the passive Web site is a great way to capture those customers who would not have found you any other way than online. Web sites make great additional information when linked to a listing, for example.

You can make a passive Web site more active by actively promoting it yourself. Put it on your business card, and include your Web site in your personal marketing and advertising.

Choose a provider by how it delivers leads to you

Keeping in mind that the more you expect the Web site to deliver leads to you, the more you will benefit from having multiple sites that incorporate more than one Web strategy. Think of it as building a Web investment portfolio of leads.

Like any other application service providers, Web site companies produce creative Web sites according to a business plan, and not all business plans are alike. Business plans are developed and modified based on how the company controls or is controlled by cash flow, market presence, local or national focus, investor support, number of customers and a lot of other variables. So to put your choice of Web site vendor into perspective, it is good to know how the company views itself in the competitive environment.

The more advantages a company has to offer such as high traffic volume or the more it spends on your behalf to get you leads, the more its lead generation tools will cost. Companies that actively promote lead capture as one of their benefits will charge more for their Web sites than companies who don't. Why? Getting you leads raises your expectations of what you are going to get for your money and puts pressure on the company to deliver. That's why some companies specialize in design and content, while others specialize in the lead dirty work. Some specialize in both.

Realtor.com, for example can charge more for its lead generation packages than some competitors because they generate more traffic. But that doesn't necessarily mean that other Web sites won't also be effective in leading buyers to you. Realtor.com spends money on strategic partnerships and advertising to get people to come to them, and they do their best to keep buyers on their pages as long as possible by providing home buying tools to play with. When you buy a Realtor.com Web site, you and your site will be seen either in the Find An Agent directory (passive) or as an attachment to your listings (passive). Realtor.com does not submit your site to search engine directories, but consumers can find it very easily in all the search engines and directories.

Sometimes consumers hunt for real estate information by city and that's where you can be found when you have a Web site by a provider such as HomeSeekers. Companies such as Best Image Marketing rely heavily on their advertising dollars to lead consumers to top agents. This is effective because only people who are interested in talking to real estate agents will click on the numerous banner ads that the company purchases in key locations across the Net.

To interview a vendor, ask the following:

1. What is the cost of building the site, and what, if any, are the monthly hosting fees?
2. Will I be listed as the registrant (owner) of my domain name?
3. Will you promote my site? If so, how?
4. Tell me what the lead capture tools are that you offer? Do you e-mail me or call me when I have leads?
5. Do you offer other lead generation tools besides my Web site?
6. Tell me about your customer support, when is it available and is there any charge?

A Web site is your online business brochure and information delivery service, but it can be so much more than that. It can also be the lazy way to capture leads, but remember, whenever you rely on something else to do the work, be prepared to cast a wider net to get results.