Jul
31
Real Estate Property Options Online
Filed Under Realtor | Leave a Comment
Kristi Ambrose asked:
So you want to buy a home?!? Great! But you don’t want to do all the work it takes to find a place. Well that’s okay too because there are many sites online that offer a service called Real Estate Consulting or Real Estate Agents. Usually the deal here is, you tell the Consulting team what type of property your looking for, as well as the different options you want, and they will search out the home for you.
For example say I want a home in Dallas Texas, that has 5 bedrooms 4 bathrooms, is located off on its own away from all the hustle and bustle, and is around $250k. Well the consulting team searches online and offline to find the right home for you, then they present these homes to you and you can either “OK” them for a viewing or you can “decline” and have them find some other homes for you. It really is that easy. And since you hired them to find your new home, don’t worry about not liking what they found for you. This is what they do for a living so don’t worry about “hurt feelings” or negative feelings of any sort. Just ask them, and they will happily find more homes for you that are more your style.
A Real Estate Consultant is a type of real estate agent. They either directly or indirectly give advice, consultancy or technical assistance. In this case, they would be giving consultancy and advice to you. Some of these consultants are free, and others charge fees. If they have a website be sure to check out the FAQ section or the Terms Of Service (TOS) section. Or just ask them directly. Either way, the fees of a consultant team or firm should be less than that of a Real Estate Agent! If not then you need to look somewhere else. As with Real Estate Agents, you need to find a team or person that you can meld with easily. Someone that is willing to work with you and find you what YOU want, not what they think you want! But you the buyer, also has to be open to “suggestions.” You never know what might happen or what little gem you might find by being a little open to places that you wouldn’t normally look at!
I had this happen a few years ago. I was absolutely set on a certain location and a certain type of home and I didn’t feel the need to be open to anything. I guess I was a little selfish. My Agent kept asking me to check out this one property in particular and I just wouldn’t budge. Finally I said okay fine, show me what you got. Can I say I think it was the most beautiful location I ever thought possible. But by the time I finally stopped being pig headed, someone else had already scooped it up. And that’s about the time my agent gave me the “look.” The “see I know what I’m talking about” look! Put some trust into your agent or consultant, they know what they are doing!Just like you do your job for a living to make money, they do their job for a living to make money. Don’t second guess them!
If your searching for sites that specialize in real estate or properties in Dallas Texas or any other state or city for that matter here are a few places you can look online to find whatever it is your looking for, have it be a new home, undeveloped home, rental home or whatever else:
BuyandSellDallas
Bigdfsbo
InTownDallas
DallasNorthProperties
RealtorsBlvd
HomeGain
You can also search on several other sites that offer options for country wide homes with in any state or any city that you either already live or are thinking about moving to. These websites offer different options so that you can find the exact home your looking for. Things like prices, locales, bedrooms, bathrooms, size of space, etc. Some of the locations offered within these sites for Texas are Dallas, Ft Worth, Gaylord, and much more!
LEVI
So you want to buy a home?!? Great! But you don’t want to do all the work it takes to find a place. Well that’s okay too because there are many sites online that offer a service called Real Estate Consulting or Real Estate Agents. Usually the deal here is, you tell the Consulting team what type of property your looking for, as well as the different options you want, and they will search out the home for you.
For example say I want a home in Dallas Texas, that has 5 bedrooms 4 bathrooms, is located off on its own away from all the hustle and bustle, and is around $250k. Well the consulting team searches online and offline to find the right home for you, then they present these homes to you and you can either “OK” them for a viewing or you can “decline” and have them find some other homes for you. It really is that easy. And since you hired them to find your new home, don’t worry about not liking what they found for you. This is what they do for a living so don’t worry about “hurt feelings” or negative feelings of any sort. Just ask them, and they will happily find more homes for you that are more your style.
A Real Estate Consultant is a type of real estate agent. They either directly or indirectly give advice, consultancy or technical assistance. In this case, they would be giving consultancy and advice to you. Some of these consultants are free, and others charge fees. If they have a website be sure to check out the FAQ section or the Terms Of Service (TOS) section. Or just ask them directly. Either way, the fees of a consultant team or firm should be less than that of a Real Estate Agent! If not then you need to look somewhere else. As with Real Estate Agents, you need to find a team or person that you can meld with easily. Someone that is willing to work with you and find you what YOU want, not what they think you want! But you the buyer, also has to be open to “suggestions.” You never know what might happen or what little gem you might find by being a little open to places that you wouldn’t normally look at!
I had this happen a few years ago. I was absolutely set on a certain location and a certain type of home and I didn’t feel the need to be open to anything. I guess I was a little selfish. My Agent kept asking me to check out this one property in particular and I just wouldn’t budge. Finally I said okay fine, show me what you got. Can I say I think it was the most beautiful location I ever thought possible. But by the time I finally stopped being pig headed, someone else had already scooped it up. And that’s about the time my agent gave me the “look.” The “see I know what I’m talking about” look! Put some trust into your agent or consultant, they know what they are doing!Just like you do your job for a living to make money, they do their job for a living to make money. Don’t second guess them!
If your searching for sites that specialize in real estate or properties in Dallas Texas or any other state or city for that matter here are a few places you can look online to find whatever it is your looking for, have it be a new home, undeveloped home, rental home or whatever else:
BuyandSellDallas
Bigdfsbo
InTownDallas
DallasNorthProperties
RealtorsBlvd
HomeGain
You can also search on several other sites that offer options for country wide homes with in any state or any city that you either already live or are thinking about moving to. These websites offer different options so that you can find the exact home your looking for. Things like prices, locales, bedrooms, bathrooms, size of space, etc. Some of the locations offered within these sites for Texas are Dallas, Ft Worth, Gaylord, and much more!
LEVI
Jul
30
FAQ about the credit score, balance transfer (whats my credit score)
Filed Under Credit | Leave a Comment
Shane Lee asked:
This article is about questons like: the credit score and mortgage, credit score and loan, whats my credit score, credit score and balance transfer, etc.
1. Is it good for my credit score if I pay minimum (for the statements of your credit cards) every month?
The “balance/credit limit” rate of your credit cards’ statements will have some influence on your credit score. If you don’t pay off in full on purpose, this may have a positive impact on your credit score. But you will have to pay for the interests if you do so. I will do this to improve my credit score if my credit cards are still in the 0% APR period.
2. Does the credit cards’ balance transfer(BT) hurt my credit score?
The “use of credit” will impact your credit score. If you do lots of balance transfer and make your “use of credit” rate too high, this will have a negative impact on your credit score. But this is just a short-term impact and it will disappear after you pay off your balance transfer debt. The good thing about the balance transfer is that you can ask for an increase on your credit limit when you pay off a BT debt. The BT will be helpful for you to get a better credit limit.
3. Does it hurt my credit score if I don’t use a credit card for a long time?
No, this will not affect your credit report or credit score. But your credit card company will not be happy about this.
4. Does it hurt my credit score if I have too many bank accounts?
No, there is no info about the savings, checking, money market or CD accounts in your credit report.
5. Can I do a shop around for my housing loan and car loan?
Yes, if you have the same type of inquiries in 14 days. You will only see one inquiry in your credit report. Your credit score will not be affected when applying for a housing loan or car loan if your inquiries are done within 14 days.
6. Does the subsidiary card (credit card) help to build the credit history too?
Yes, the subsidiary card’s authorized user can build his/her credit history by using this subsidiary card, even you didn’t provide the authorized user’s SSN or ITIN number to the credit card company. ( He/she needs to have the SSN or ITIN for sure in order to build his/her credit history. )
7. My credit card’s credit limit is too low, how can I raise it?
Your annual salary / income will impact the credit limit you can get from the credit card companies. This is why the students can not get a very good credit limit from them. Some tips here: You can ask to do a big balance transfer when applying for a new credit card. This will help you to get a better credit limit of your new credit card. You can also call your credit card companies to ask for a credit limit increase. But they will refuse to give you an increase if you just use this credit card for 2 or 3 months.
8. Do the merchant credit cards help to improve my credit score too?
Sure, you can get a good credit score if there are plenty of info in your credit report (general credit cards from the banks, merchant credit cards, housing loan, car loan, etc).
9. My credit score and credit report are ruined by the collection company, what can I do to fix it?
There are some methods to fix your credit report and credit score. You can see: www dot artofcredit dot com
By Shane Lee. Date: 05/28/2009.
Copyright belongs to Whats My Credit Score Dot Travel2ChinaInfo Dot COM . You can find more information about whats my credit score, loan credit score, credit score mortgage from our web site.
NOTE: Permission is granted by the copyright owner to disseminate this article in whole or in part provided credit is given to the author ( with a link to the article’s source URL Whats My Credit Score Dot Travel2ChinaInfo Dot COM ) and this NOTE is not removed.
BILL
This article is about questons like: the credit score and mortgage, credit score and loan, whats my credit score, credit score and balance transfer, etc.
1. Is it good for my credit score if I pay minimum (for the statements of your credit cards) every month?
The “balance/credit limit” rate of your credit cards’ statements will have some influence on your credit score. If you don’t pay off in full on purpose, this may have a positive impact on your credit score. But you will have to pay for the interests if you do so. I will do this to improve my credit score if my credit cards are still in the 0% APR period.
2. Does the credit cards’ balance transfer(BT) hurt my credit score?
The “use of credit” will impact your credit score. If you do lots of balance transfer and make your “use of credit” rate too high, this will have a negative impact on your credit score. But this is just a short-term impact and it will disappear after you pay off your balance transfer debt. The good thing about the balance transfer is that you can ask for an increase on your credit limit when you pay off a BT debt. The BT will be helpful for you to get a better credit limit.
3. Does it hurt my credit score if I don’t use a credit card for a long time?
No, this will not affect your credit report or credit score. But your credit card company will not be happy about this.
4. Does it hurt my credit score if I have too many bank accounts?
No, there is no info about the savings, checking, money market or CD accounts in your credit report.
5. Can I do a shop around for my housing loan and car loan?
Yes, if you have the same type of inquiries in 14 days. You will only see one inquiry in your credit report. Your credit score will not be affected when applying for a housing loan or car loan if your inquiries are done within 14 days.
6. Does the subsidiary card (credit card) help to build the credit history too?
Yes, the subsidiary card’s authorized user can build his/her credit history by using this subsidiary card, even you didn’t provide the authorized user’s SSN or ITIN number to the credit card company. ( He/she needs to have the SSN or ITIN for sure in order to build his/her credit history. )
7. My credit card’s credit limit is too low, how can I raise it?
Your annual salary / income will impact the credit limit you can get from the credit card companies. This is why the students can not get a very good credit limit from them. Some tips here: You can ask to do a big balance transfer when applying for a new credit card. This will help you to get a better credit limit of your new credit card. You can also call your credit card companies to ask for a credit limit increase. But they will refuse to give you an increase if you just use this credit card for 2 or 3 months.
8. Do the merchant credit cards help to improve my credit score too?
Sure, you can get a good credit score if there are plenty of info in your credit report (general credit cards from the banks, merchant credit cards, housing loan, car loan, etc).
9. My credit score and credit report are ruined by the collection company, what can I do to fix it?
There are some methods to fix your credit report and credit score. You can see: www dot artofcredit dot com
By Shane Lee. Date: 05/28/2009.
Copyright belongs to Whats My Credit Score Dot Travel2ChinaInfo Dot COM . You can find more information about whats my credit score, loan credit score, credit score mortgage from our web site.
NOTE: Permission is granted by the copyright owner to disseminate this article in whole or in part provided credit is given to the author ( with a link to the article’s source URL Whats My Credit Score Dot Travel2ChinaInfo Dot COM ) and this NOTE is not removed.
BILL
Jul
28
Google paid advertising review part 2
Filed Under Seo | Leave a Comment
Vikas Malhotra asked:
In this, the second part of the article on Google Adwords, let us discuss some basic ideas about bidding and keyword selection to help you run a smart PPC campaign.. Though for explaining the concepts in this section we will be utilizing some of the tools of Googles archrival Overture also.
For running an effective Adwords campaign there are two components or areas that one has to focus on.
Target Keyword selection
Optimizing Bidding strategies
Target Keyword selection
Lets begin with a note on proper keyword selection & organizing. First of all, there are a few basic characteristics of search queries/keywords that are important to note. The first is that only the most popular search queries are alike. For many sites, the targeted search keyword mix on a particular page will be quite broad. This is important as those pages will serve as the landing pages.
The second most important point is that studies suggest that between 40% and 55% of all search queries are three terms or longer. This indicates that people are starting to use the power of search to better target their requests.
Hence keeping these factors in mind it is incumbent upon the site owner or agency to develop a comprehensive keyword list that fits their site and marketing objectives. These lists can be generated using any of the search term sugestion tool like Wordtracker or Overture inventory search term tool.
However, the Google has minimum CTR threshold that must be met for keyword listings. Pending that Google automatically penalizes for poor click through. So it has to be made sure that sure that the keyword selections meets that minimum requirement of click thorough.
Some general keyword selection & organizing tips are:
Target Keyword selection
Avoid single-word keywords (or at least be suspicious of them, as they aren’t usually very successful). Instead, start out with 2 or 3 word keyword phrases.
Use keywords that precisely describe the products and/or services that you actually have to offer. Collect all keywords that are highly related to a particular product or service into a single Ad Group, and then show an ad about that exact product or service. Use the 2500 Ad Groups available to you in your account to your advantage – to advertise each product or service that you offer in a very targeted way.
Avoid ‘what if’ keywords. An example of a ‘what if’ keyword: an advertiser selling greeting cards running on the keyword ‘Christmas gifts’. Well the logic is, because cards normally go with gifts, ‘what if’ someone searching on ‘gifts’ might also need cards? Better to run on the keyword ‘Christmas cards’.
Thoroughly understand how each of the keyword matching options functions. Then make an informed decision, and don’t hesitate to experiment. Full details on the matching options are available in the AdWords FAQ.
If you are using broad or phrase matching, then use negative keywords to your advantage. Info on this is also in the FAQ.
Bidding Strategy
For arriving at a optimum bidding strategy the first important step is to calculate the value of every visitor on your site. This is necessary so that you are able to calculate the bid amount or the amount you are rationally willing to pay to get each customer.
The unique value of each visitor can be calculated in a three step process.
Step 1
A) Conversion Rate: Figure out how many unique visitors you need, to close one sale.
Unique Visitors / Total Number of Sales = Conversion Rate
Example: If over the month of November, you calculate that your web site received 10,000 unique visitors, and you sold 200 footballs, your equation would look like this: 10,000 Unique Visitors / 200 Sales = 50 Unique Visitors Per Sale. So in this case, your conversion rate would be equal to 50, which means that you typically close 1 sale for every 50 visitors to your site.
Step2
B) Net Profit Per Sale: Figure out how much profit you earn on a single sale.
Gross Revenue – Total Expenses / Total Number of Sales = Net Profit Per Sale
Example: If over the month of November, you sold 200 footballs for $100 each, your gross revenue would be $20,000 (200 X $100). And if you calculated your total expenses (production, packaging, shipping, admin etc…) for the month of November to be $15,000.
This means that: $20,000 Gross Revenue – $15,000 Total Expenses / 200 Sales = $25 Net Profit Per Sale
In this example, your Net Profit Per Sale would be $25. This is “in your pocket, after expenses, you can bank it” profits.
Step3
C) Visitor Worth: Figure out how much a single visitor is worth to you.
Net Profit Per Sale / Conversion Rate = Visitor Worth
Example: This is the easy part. Just take the Net Profit Per Sale that we calculated in part b ($25) and divide it by the Conversion Rate that we calculated in part a.
$25 Net Profit Per Sale / 50 Conversion Rate = $0.50
So in this example, each visitor to your web site is worth $0.50. (Not to be confused with the value of a customer, which is $25!) This means that you can afford to pay as much as $0.50 to attract one new visitor to your web site without losing money.
However you would obviously want to pay less so that you can take home a profit as well.
To better manage this math it should be done at a level of Adwords groups for some keywords can be more valuable than other in driving visitors to your site. However as long as you know unique value of each visitor to your site, you can not go too haywire with your bidding. Now once this exercise is over,lets look to optimize the Adwords campaign by trying to find the best prices & best keywords to bid on.
Place strategic bids for cheap but popular keywords
Once you’ve done the preliminary homework, you’re ready to start combing through your list of keywords one by one, looking for those that are frequently searched by your target market, but that aren’t highly competitive (i.e. expensive!).
A really useful tool at this stage in your research is CompareYourClicks.com, a free site that will take any keyword or phrase you type in and produce a comparison chart of the top bids in 9 of the PPC search engines including Overture, FindWhat, Sprinks, Bay9, and more.
Overture offers a similar Get Current Bid Tool, though it obviously doesn’t offer bidding comparisons for the other PPC search engines. (I guess we can forgive them… it’s their competition after all.)
Simply type your keyword into either of these tools, and you’ll be presented with a list of the top bids for that particular search term. For example, when I type “mortgage home loans” into the Overture Bid Tool, here’s the list (out of 40 total) I am presented with:
Oak Street – Home Mortgage Loans Online www.oakstreetmortgage.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $8.50)
Home Mortgage Loan www.werloans.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $8.49)
Home Mortgage Refinancing Loans www.fullspectrumlending.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $5.51)
Compare Home Mortgage Loans homeloansearch.securesites.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $5.50)
Homelink Mortgages – Wholesale Lender homelinkmortgages.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $5.01)
The mortgage industry is very competitive, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that bids for visitors are heading up towards $8 per click. However, let me draw your attention to a couple of missed opportunities in bidding strategies that exist here.
Opportunity #1 – Save Money By Closing The Gaps!
First of all, remember that we’re looking at bids in Overture ( for trends to bid at Google) but also cant overlook the fact that Overture is a giant of the PPC search engines, where ranking among the top three bids means that you also get exposure under your particular keyword or phrase in Yahoo!, AOL, Lycos, AltaVista, Netscape, Hotbot, and Cnet.
So it obviously makes sense to try and rank among the top three listings in Overture whenever you can afford it.
However, do you notice a problem with #2 – werloans.com? They’re bidding 2.98 USD more than necessary to keep their ranking in the top three! They could easily save themselves money by dropping their bid to $5.52! & still ranking at 2.
What’s more, if #4 – homeloansearch.securesites.com can’t afford to compete with the top 3 bidders, then they should drop their bid by a whopping 48 cents to $5.02. They’d keep their #4 ranking, but avoid wasting an unnecessary 48 cents per visitor!
When you’re looking to place your bids, watch for gaps like these and take advantage of them! Never bid more than necessary… and monitor your bids once you’ve placed them to remove any gaps like these that may appear. You’ll save yourself a lot of money in the long run – money that you can use to bid on more keywords to drive even more traffic to your site!
Opportunity #2 – Go For The Traffic Your Competitors Are Neglecting!
Grab the low-hanging fruit first. Why get sucked into an expensive bidding war for one common search term when you can bid pennies for multiple keywords and phrases to generate similar volumes of traffic for a lot less cost!
Just to give you a simple example, I searched the keyword ” mortgage home loans ” in Overture’s Search Term Suggestion Tool and was provided with a list of approximately 100 related keywords that included ” home mortgage loan rate,” “second mortgage home loan,” and “home loan mortgage company.”
Then I did a traffic and bid comparison on the keywords I randomly selected from this list using information from both Overture’s Search Term Suggestion Tool and Current Bid Tool, and here’s what I discovered…
Keyword: Traffic #1 Spot #2 Spot #3 Spot #4 Spot
home mortgage 16,289 $8.51 $8.49 $5.51 $5.49 loan
home loan 5,328 $6.12 $5.00 $4.88 $4.87 mortgage company
second mortgage 3,974 $7.01 $4.47 $4.47 $4.47 home loan
home mortgage 6,258 $3.31 $3.30 $3.21 $2.52 loan rate
Similarly google works on the popularity analysis of the pages. This idea must have occurred to its makers by examining the way in which citations happen in technical papers. Good & genuine papers are cited more often by others.
Obviously, “home mortgage loan” is the phrase more frequently searched – that’s why it’s sooooo competitive at $8.51 per visitor for the #1 spot.
However, who says you have to bid on the most frequently searched term when you can go after smaller traffic streams… like the bargain find “home mortgage loan rate” at just $3.32 cents per visitor for the #1 spot.. It attracts decent amount of searches & will get you the maximum exposure at half the price of the home mortgage loan searches.
Of course all this research can be carried over to Google for normally this kind of gaps exist there as well. To validate these at google one can compare the Bid prices that googles system automatically suggests for different terms. This will give you a fair amount of idea of the competitive positions at google.
The PPC search engines are one of the few low-risk paid advertising opportunities that allow you a LOT of control over your success. If you follow these few simple rules that I’ve laid out here, keep your bids lower than your maximum bid at all times, and choose keywords targeted to your market, it’s actually quite easy to funnel targeted traffic into your web site.
Plus, you can really give yourself an extra edge by looking for keywords that your competitors are neglecting and scooping up these untouched traffic streams, while taking advantage of bidding gaps. In fact many businesses also use a software package like Bid Rank or GoToast to manage their listings. These software packages track your listings, and can adjust your bid if you drop in the rankings. Now of course you can use Googles Ad word tracking to monitor your conversions as well. Many companies also outsource the management of their PPC campaigns. Most SEOs now offer PPC management services. These options cost money, but they usually pay for themselves by running your campaigns more efficiently.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to use a software package or a consultant to start your PPC campaign. But you do need to know what sort of cost per click you can afford. If you decide that $2.00 per click is your maximum bid, then stick with it. Don’t get into an emotional bidding war if you lose a top ranking. It’s much smarter to look for new and cheaper keywords.
Remember any marketing campaigns’ final benchmark is a good ROI & at the end of the day…….money in your pocket.
NIGEL
In this, the second part of the article on Google Adwords, let us discuss some basic ideas about bidding and keyword selection to help you run a smart PPC campaign.. Though for explaining the concepts in this section we will be utilizing some of the tools of Googles archrival Overture also.
For running an effective Adwords campaign there are two components or areas that one has to focus on.
Target Keyword selection
Optimizing Bidding strategies
Target Keyword selection
Lets begin with a note on proper keyword selection & organizing. First of all, there are a few basic characteristics of search queries/keywords that are important to note. The first is that only the most popular search queries are alike. For many sites, the targeted search keyword mix on a particular page will be quite broad. This is important as those pages will serve as the landing pages.
The second most important point is that studies suggest that between 40% and 55% of all search queries are three terms or longer. This indicates that people are starting to use the power of search to better target their requests.
Hence keeping these factors in mind it is incumbent upon the site owner or agency to develop a comprehensive keyword list that fits their site and marketing objectives. These lists can be generated using any of the search term sugestion tool like Wordtracker or Overture inventory search term tool.
However, the Google has minimum CTR threshold that must be met for keyword listings. Pending that Google automatically penalizes for poor click through. So it has to be made sure that sure that the keyword selections meets that minimum requirement of click thorough.
Some general keyword selection & organizing tips are:
Target Keyword selection
Avoid single-word keywords (or at least be suspicious of them, as they aren’t usually very successful). Instead, start out with 2 or 3 word keyword phrases.
Use keywords that precisely describe the products and/or services that you actually have to offer. Collect all keywords that are highly related to a particular product or service into a single Ad Group, and then show an ad about that exact product or service. Use the 2500 Ad Groups available to you in your account to your advantage – to advertise each product or service that you offer in a very targeted way.
Avoid ‘what if’ keywords. An example of a ‘what if’ keyword: an advertiser selling greeting cards running on the keyword ‘Christmas gifts’. Well the logic is, because cards normally go with gifts, ‘what if’ someone searching on ‘gifts’ might also need cards? Better to run on the keyword ‘Christmas cards’.
Thoroughly understand how each of the keyword matching options functions. Then make an informed decision, and don’t hesitate to experiment. Full details on the matching options are available in the AdWords FAQ.
If you are using broad or phrase matching, then use negative keywords to your advantage. Info on this is also in the FAQ.
Bidding Strategy
For arriving at a optimum bidding strategy the first important step is to calculate the value of every visitor on your site. This is necessary so that you are able to calculate the bid amount or the amount you are rationally willing to pay to get each customer.
The unique value of each visitor can be calculated in a three step process.
Step 1
A) Conversion Rate: Figure out how many unique visitors you need, to close one sale.
Unique Visitors / Total Number of Sales = Conversion Rate
Example: If over the month of November, you calculate that your web site received 10,000 unique visitors, and you sold 200 footballs, your equation would look like this: 10,000 Unique Visitors / 200 Sales = 50 Unique Visitors Per Sale. So in this case, your conversion rate would be equal to 50, which means that you typically close 1 sale for every 50 visitors to your site.
Step2
B) Net Profit Per Sale: Figure out how much profit you earn on a single sale.
Gross Revenue – Total Expenses / Total Number of Sales = Net Profit Per Sale
Example: If over the month of November, you sold 200 footballs for $100 each, your gross revenue would be $20,000 (200 X $100). And if you calculated your total expenses (production, packaging, shipping, admin etc…) for the month of November to be $15,000.
This means that: $20,000 Gross Revenue – $15,000 Total Expenses / 200 Sales = $25 Net Profit Per Sale
In this example, your Net Profit Per Sale would be $25. This is “in your pocket, after expenses, you can bank it” profits.
Step3
C) Visitor Worth: Figure out how much a single visitor is worth to you.
Net Profit Per Sale / Conversion Rate = Visitor Worth
Example: This is the easy part. Just take the Net Profit Per Sale that we calculated in part b ($25) and divide it by the Conversion Rate that we calculated in part a.
$25 Net Profit Per Sale / 50 Conversion Rate = $0.50
So in this example, each visitor to your web site is worth $0.50. (Not to be confused with the value of a customer, which is $25!) This means that you can afford to pay as much as $0.50 to attract one new visitor to your web site without losing money.
However you would obviously want to pay less so that you can take home a profit as well.
To better manage this math it should be done at a level of Adwords groups for some keywords can be more valuable than other in driving visitors to your site. However as long as you know unique value of each visitor to your site, you can not go too haywire with your bidding. Now once this exercise is over,lets look to optimize the Adwords campaign by trying to find the best prices & best keywords to bid on.
Place strategic bids for cheap but popular keywords
Once you’ve done the preliminary homework, you’re ready to start combing through your list of keywords one by one, looking for those that are frequently searched by your target market, but that aren’t highly competitive (i.e. expensive!).
A really useful tool at this stage in your research is CompareYourClicks.com, a free site that will take any keyword or phrase you type in and produce a comparison chart of the top bids in 9 of the PPC search engines including Overture, FindWhat, Sprinks, Bay9, and more.
Overture offers a similar Get Current Bid Tool, though it obviously doesn’t offer bidding comparisons for the other PPC search engines. (I guess we can forgive them… it’s their competition after all.)
Simply type your keyword into either of these tools, and you’ll be presented with a list of the top bids for that particular search term. For example, when I type “mortgage home loans” into the Overture Bid Tool, here’s the list (out of 40 total) I am presented with:
Oak Street – Home Mortgage Loans Online www.oakstreetmortgage.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $8.50)
Home Mortgage Loan www.werloans.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $8.49)
Home Mortgage Refinancing Loans www.fullspectrumlending.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $5.51)
Compare Home Mortgage Loans homeloansearch.securesites.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $5.50)
Homelink Mortgages – Wholesale Lender homelinkmortgages.com (Advertiser’s Max Bid: $5.01)
The mortgage industry is very competitive, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that bids for visitors are heading up towards $8 per click. However, let me draw your attention to a couple of missed opportunities in bidding strategies that exist here.
Opportunity #1 – Save Money By Closing The Gaps!
First of all, remember that we’re looking at bids in Overture ( for trends to bid at Google) but also cant overlook the fact that Overture is a giant of the PPC search engines, where ranking among the top three bids means that you also get exposure under your particular keyword or phrase in Yahoo!, AOL, Lycos, AltaVista, Netscape, Hotbot, and Cnet.
So it obviously makes sense to try and rank among the top three listings in Overture whenever you can afford it.
However, do you notice a problem with #2 – werloans.com? They’re bidding 2.98 USD more than necessary to keep their ranking in the top three! They could easily save themselves money by dropping their bid to $5.52! & still ranking at 2.
What’s more, if #4 – homeloansearch.securesites.com can’t afford to compete with the top 3 bidders, then they should drop their bid by a whopping 48 cents to $5.02. They’d keep their #4 ranking, but avoid wasting an unnecessary 48 cents per visitor!
When you’re looking to place your bids, watch for gaps like these and take advantage of them! Never bid more than necessary… and monitor your bids once you’ve placed them to remove any gaps like these that may appear. You’ll save yourself a lot of money in the long run – money that you can use to bid on more keywords to drive even more traffic to your site!
Opportunity #2 – Go For The Traffic Your Competitors Are Neglecting!
Grab the low-hanging fruit first. Why get sucked into an expensive bidding war for one common search term when you can bid pennies for multiple keywords and phrases to generate similar volumes of traffic for a lot less cost!
Just to give you a simple example, I searched the keyword ” mortgage home loans ” in Overture’s Search Term Suggestion Tool and was provided with a list of approximately 100 related keywords that included ” home mortgage loan rate,” “second mortgage home loan,” and “home loan mortgage company.”
Then I did a traffic and bid comparison on the keywords I randomly selected from this list using information from both Overture’s Search Term Suggestion Tool and Current Bid Tool, and here’s what I discovered…
Keyword: Traffic #1 Spot #2 Spot #3 Spot #4 Spot
home mortgage 16,289 $8.51 $8.49 $5.51 $5.49 loan
home loan 5,328 $6.12 $5.00 $4.88 $4.87 mortgage company
second mortgage 3,974 $7.01 $4.47 $4.47 $4.47 home loan
home mortgage 6,258 $3.31 $3.30 $3.21 $2.52 loan rate
Similarly google works on the popularity analysis of the pages. This idea must have occurred to its makers by examining the way in which citations happen in technical papers. Good & genuine papers are cited more often by others.
Obviously, “home mortgage loan” is the phrase more frequently searched – that’s why it’s sooooo competitive at $8.51 per visitor for the #1 spot.
However, who says you have to bid on the most frequently searched term when you can go after smaller traffic streams… like the bargain find “home mortgage loan rate” at just $3.32 cents per visitor for the #1 spot.. It attracts decent amount of searches & will get you the maximum exposure at half the price of the home mortgage loan searches.
Of course all this research can be carried over to Google for normally this kind of gaps exist there as well. To validate these at google one can compare the Bid prices that googles system automatically suggests for different terms. This will give you a fair amount of idea of the competitive positions at google.
The PPC search engines are one of the few low-risk paid advertising opportunities that allow you a LOT of control over your success. If you follow these few simple rules that I’ve laid out here, keep your bids lower than your maximum bid at all times, and choose keywords targeted to your market, it’s actually quite easy to funnel targeted traffic into your web site.
Plus, you can really give yourself an extra edge by looking for keywords that your competitors are neglecting and scooping up these untouched traffic streams, while taking advantage of bidding gaps. In fact many businesses also use a software package like Bid Rank or GoToast to manage their listings. These software packages track your listings, and can adjust your bid if you drop in the rankings. Now of course you can use Googles Ad word tracking to monitor your conversions as well. Many companies also outsource the management of their PPC campaigns. Most SEOs now offer PPC management services. These options cost money, but they usually pay for themselves by running your campaigns more efficiently.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to use a software package or a consultant to start your PPC campaign. But you do need to know what sort of cost per click you can afford. If you decide that $2.00 per click is your maximum bid, then stick with it. Don’t get into an emotional bidding war if you lose a top ranking. It’s much smarter to look for new and cheaper keywords.
Remember any marketing campaigns’ final benchmark is a good ROI & at the end of the day…….money in your pocket.
NIGEL
Jul
27
What is the difference between a mortgage APR and Interest Rate?
Filed Under Renting & Real Estate | Leave a Comment
Olivia asked:
My mortgage interest rate is 6.875% and the APR is 7.504% Does the APR of 7.504% sound right if the interest rate is 6.875% ? My mom said that the 2 numbers should be closer together than that. Also, my mortgage banker never even mentioned an APR, and since we are 1st time home buyer’s, we were unaware of it. We only knew about the Interest Rate. Thanks for the help.
JOEL
My mortgage interest rate is 6.875% and the APR is 7.504% Does the APR of 7.504% sound right if the interest rate is 6.875% ? My mom said that the 2 numbers should be closer together than that. Also, my mortgage banker never even mentioned an APR, and since we are 1st time home buyer’s, we were unaware of it. We only knew about the Interest Rate. Thanks for the help.
JOEL
Jul
26
FAQs For People Considering Whether To Sell A Private Mortgage Or Not
Filed Under Multimedia | Leave a Comment
Ron Stone asked:
gage note or trust deed holders don’t realize the options they have with their Mortgage Note or Deed of Trust. First of all, you can sell it for all cash. Secondly, you can sell part of the note or trust deed structuring the sale in a manner that accomplishes their specific goals. As I get a lot of questions about the process of selling a mortgage note or selling a trust deed, I have put together a list of Frequently Asked Questions that may help. Some answers may surprise you. (Please note that my answers are for our company and may not be true for some note buyers.) The FAQs and answers are as follows:
1. What are the advantages of selling an owner financed mortgage? – The two biggest advantages are a) Accessing the cash now for critical investments or expenses and b) Eliminating the hassles of managing the borrower\’s payments and reporting.
2. What are the criteria for how much I will receive for my private mortgage? There are 5 main factors. They are: Equity in the property, seasoning on the note, the interest rate on the note, the time left on the note and lastly the credit of the borrower.
3. Will an appraisal be necessary for me to sell my private note? Yes to determine the value of the security.
4. Will you need to check the buyer’s credit? Yes, it is a very important factor in determining the lump sum payment for your private mortgage.
5. How long does it typically take to receive my lump sum payment for my owner financed mortgage note? Typically 1 to 2 weeks for our company. I can’t speak for others.
6. Do I have to tell the buyer I’m selling the note? Yes. That’s the law.
7. How can I be sure the mortgage note has a clause allowing me to sell it? Just look at the original note or we could look at it for you but every note I’ve seen allows for the sale of the note. It’s standard in most mortgage agreements.
8. Can I sell my private mobile home mortgage? Yes, if it includes the land.
9. Can I sell private mortgage on raw land? Yes, with or without improvements.
10. Can I sell a mortgage on a piece of commercial property? Yes.
11. What if I don\’t know the credit of the borrower that I gave an owner financed mortgage? You can ask for a quote based on your best estimate and adjust (up or down) the final payment after credit is pulled.
12. Can I sell a Land Contract? Yes
13. Can I sell a Deed of Trust? Yes.
14. I would like to sell my mortgage note payments for some extra cash but I am afraid of loosing all the monthly income? Not to worry. Some note buyers (including us) can make a partial purchase of your private note for just the amount you need.
15. Is there a minimum mortgage size for home note buyers? Ours is $30,000.
16. Can I sell a condo mortgage? Yes.
17. Will a note buyer buy my note is it\’s unseasoned? Although many note buyers want 6 to 12 months of seasoning, a few will buy a note shortly after the transaction closes.
18. Can I sell a non-performing note? Yes, but price will be much lower due to the significant risk associated with the situation.
Finally, don’t assume you can’t get the cash you want from the sale of your mortgage note or trust deed. There are a number of ways to structure a note sale so as to accomplish your goals. Quotes are free from most legitimate note buyers.
ANDERSON
gage note or trust deed holders don’t realize the options they have with their Mortgage Note or Deed of Trust. First of all, you can sell it for all cash. Secondly, you can sell part of the note or trust deed structuring the sale in a manner that accomplishes their specific goals. As I get a lot of questions about the process of selling a mortgage note or selling a trust deed, I have put together a list of Frequently Asked Questions that may help. Some answers may surprise you. (Please note that my answers are for our company and may not be true for some note buyers.) The FAQs and answers are as follows:
1. What are the advantages of selling an owner financed mortgage? – The two biggest advantages are a) Accessing the cash now for critical investments or expenses and b) Eliminating the hassles of managing the borrower\’s payments and reporting.
2. What are the criteria for how much I will receive for my private mortgage? There are 5 main factors. They are: Equity in the property, seasoning on the note, the interest rate on the note, the time left on the note and lastly the credit of the borrower.
3. Will an appraisal be necessary for me to sell my private note? Yes to determine the value of the security.
4. Will you need to check the buyer’s credit? Yes, it is a very important factor in determining the lump sum payment for your private mortgage.
5. How long does it typically take to receive my lump sum payment for my owner financed mortgage note? Typically 1 to 2 weeks for our company. I can’t speak for others.
6. Do I have to tell the buyer I’m selling the note? Yes. That’s the law.
7. How can I be sure the mortgage note has a clause allowing me to sell it? Just look at the original note or we could look at it for you but every note I’ve seen allows for the sale of the note. It’s standard in most mortgage agreements.
8. Can I sell my private mobile home mortgage? Yes, if it includes the land.
9. Can I sell private mortgage on raw land? Yes, with or without improvements.
10. Can I sell a mortgage on a piece of commercial property? Yes.
11. What if I don\’t know the credit of the borrower that I gave an owner financed mortgage? You can ask for a quote based on your best estimate and adjust (up or down) the final payment after credit is pulled.
12. Can I sell a Land Contract? Yes
13. Can I sell a Deed of Trust? Yes.
14. I would like to sell my mortgage note payments for some extra cash but I am afraid of loosing all the monthly income? Not to worry. Some note buyers (including us) can make a partial purchase of your private note for just the amount you need.
15. Is there a minimum mortgage size for home note buyers? Ours is $30,000.
16. Can I sell a condo mortgage? Yes.
17. Will a note buyer buy my note is it\’s unseasoned? Although many note buyers want 6 to 12 months of seasoning, a few will buy a note shortly after the transaction closes.
18. Can I sell a non-performing note? Yes, but price will be much lower due to the significant risk associated with the situation.
Finally, don’t assume you can’t get the cash you want from the sale of your mortgage note or trust deed. There are a number of ways to structure a note sale so as to accomplish your goals. Quotes are free from most legitimate note buyers.
ANDERSON
Jul
24
Melissa T asked:
With the three credit scores being different, which do they use to determine you qualification for a mortgage? Or do they simply average all three scores. My husband has two scores at around 540 and his transunion is at 605. What are his chances?
LYNN
With the three credit scores being different, which do they use to determine you qualification for a mortgage? Or do they simply average all three scores. My husband has two scores at around 540 and his transunion is at 605. What are his chances?
LYNN