A former Homes.com employee is capitalizing on what he sees as a weakness at the website provider -- a chance to upsell search engine optimization (SEO) to real estate agent customers before the website provider does so.
Sean Callahan of Real Estate Marketing Nerds says that real estate agent customers don't know how many leads they need to put a deal in escrow and that the basic Homes.com website with free search engine placement (not pay-per-click) takes 3-6 months to show an agent results. Providing search engine optimization services with pay-per-click services from Google and Yahoo to Homes.com customers, Callahan says he can speed up the response time significantly and bring more leads, which is causing a lot of teeth-nashing at Homes.com.
Why? Homes.com has recently started an SEO upsell of its own, but not in time to stop Callahan from raiding its customer base for almost 18 months.
Basically, according to Callahan's version of events, Homes.com is a good company, but that his business model is "fixing websites and putting them into the Google and Yahoo pay-per-click programs" so that the agents will be able to capture more contact information than they could with a plain Homes.com website.
"Agents aren't making money," says Callahan, "because the websites are doing a poor job of capturing contact information. Most require 100 to 150 visitors to go through before one person leaves a number. Agents need 25 leads to put a deal in escrow, and we fixing the webpage so the capture rate is much higher."
Why is Callahan targeting Homes.com websites? He admits he used to work for the company. "My capture rate is one in five and I tell agents you don't need a lot of traffic to make money. Homes.com doesn't market their own product, they don't tell the agent what is required to make it work. Agents don't know how much traffic they need to get, and they are buying SEO packages. They are needing so much traffic, it isn't cost effective."
Without contact information, that's 2500 and 3000 visitors to get a deal into escrow, he continues. "The average agent is selling about two deals a year, the website isn't capturing people, I fix up the website to get a 1 in 5 capture rate.
Can't agents do this themselves? "Yes of course they can," says Callahan. "It's like playing chess and you might have an advantage with experience. We put in about 300 real estate keywords."
Do you change the website? "We change the website."
How does Homes.com feel about that, and how does Callahan contact Homes.com customers? "We have fixed 1500 websites in their database," answers Callahan, "and they are nice enough to let us sell their websites. Finding names is just like any other business, we go to agent directories -- we have a call center in San Diego with 6 salespeople. We sell the websites -- we fix them, and when the site comes out of the block it only captures one out of 100 people. The problem is that when they (agents) ask for additional work on their websites, it's done on esthetics and not for capture rate, so it's still one percent."
Homes.com General Manager Jamie Clymer begs to differ, telling Realty Times that Callahan is absolutely not an authorized reseller for Homes.com.
"No, we have products and services of course attached to our website," says Clymer, "but the issue has nothing to do with his product line he's representing. When sales reps from his business make phone calls they are appearing to represent Homes.com when they are making the sale. They do not represent Homes.com. We have talked to Sean about this in the past and issued him legal letters, I've talked to Sean and he at one point communicated to me that he has stopped that. We continue to have agents tell us that they have been contacted and that they are presenting themselves as Homes.com."
What does Callahan charge to get agents' websites into pay-per-click programs? "We fix up their home page and charge a one-time fix up for $300 and put in keyword searches, and then we put them into the Google and Yahoo programs, so the total cost is $950. If they don't have a website, they (Homes.com) give me a site for $100."
That total would be $1050. "Homes.com websites normally sell for $99 to $299 up to $499. When they sell the site they like to bundle it with other upsells, so we are sending them business," says Callahan. "My background was in sales and running sales rooms. We want people to know that they are getting what they are paying for. Homes.com -- it's hard to see where that will go, they have not addressed the problem and that is that a large number of people are not getting the results. Send a customer survey and see if they are happy."
Does Callahan have an agreement to resell Homes.com websites for $100 each, as he told Realty Times? "He is 100 percent not a reseller," says Callahan. "We have issued a letter to that effect. Sean used to work for Homes.com so he is able to target our customer base and get in and tweak our sites; that's why it's an effective customer base for him."
In a carefully worded letter to the Homes.com database of customers, Clymer and Patty McNease, director Client Services & General Manager wrote:
"We are writing to you to pass along concerns that have been recently reported to us by several Homes.com web site owners about Sean Callahan and his company Pacific Beach Online. We understand that Mr. Callahan and/or his company may have been in contact with a number of you or may attempt to do so at some point in the future. Mr. Callahan and his company claim to offer a number of "enhancements" to owners of Homes.com websites that they claim will, among other things, result in your obtaining additional "leads."Several Homes.com website owners have reported disastrous results in dealing with Mr. Callahan and his company including having website content erased or altered to include inappropriate content. Those who have accepted a trial of Pacific Beach Online's services report that their requests for changes or cancellation are met with belligerence, rudeness and high pressure sales tactics.
Please be advised that Mr. Callahan and his company are NOT AUTHORIZED by Homes.com to provide any services to Homes.com website owners. In view of the numerous complaints that have been reported to us about the work Mr. Callahan and his company have performed for certain Homes.com website owners, we strongly recommend that you not engage their services.
(Editor's note: Pacific Beach Online is actually a different business that caters to travelers. Realestatemarketingnerds.com is the company that sells SEO services to Realtors.
Callahan denies using high-pressure tactics. "We want them (agents) to get results before they pay for the service," explains Callahan. "They have a 7-10 day trial, and the quickest way to separate yourself is to tell them -- let me get leads to you first and you get people in the door and once you have leads you know you are getting a return."
And how are agents treated who don't want to use the service? Are they bullied or pressured? "We just yank it down. We take it down with no problem," says Callahan. "We've had some complaints, but against the number of people who are happy with their results the difference is nominal."
Rejoins Clymer, "We don't feel it's in our best interests to use boiler room tactics to make sales. We want Homes.com to separate ourselves from his (Callahan's) business as much as possible. When they call our customer base, and communicate that they represent Homes.com, they do not. We continue to get feedback."
