I have done some research on internet lead generation websites. This is a little long but good info. Yes I am a little bias but the info is all fact. I hope it helps.
Fully Customized but No Traffic Lead Broker Websites:
These websites charge a large sign up fee (some as much as $4,500).
You then have to pay a minimal monthly fee to keep the site operational (usually around $65 each month).
The companies offer a fancy website that is customized for each individual real estate investor. They allow you to choose your own domain name, company name, phone number …the list goes on. The major problem with these websites is their inability to generate web traffic. Web traffic directly relates to the amount of leads you will receive.
There are a couple reasons you never see these websites at the top of the search engines in the organic search results and they are as follows,
There are hundreds of other websites with the same back end programming all competing for the same search terms. When the website is purchased and customized for a particular real estate investor, none of the back end programming or major website content is changed.
You are essentially purchasing a website that has been sold to hundreds of other real estate investors. Search engines like relevant new content, not duplicate old content.
The new domain has no website history or inbound links. There are many different things search engines rank website on, but one of the major things is a websites quantity and quality of inbound links.
In order for your website to show up at the top of the search engines you need a high number of quality links from other websites. It takes months, some times years to create a large quantity of high quality links.
If you purchase one of these websites your only way to generate web traffic, which in turn generates real estate leads, is to pay for it.
That means you have to set up and manage a “pay per click” marketing campaign with Google, Yahoo, etc…
That means you have to pay between $3 to $9 (depending on your target location) every time someone clicks on your website.
Not to mention they may just leave your site without leaving their information.
Minimal Traffic but Pay the Price Lead Broker Websites:
These website charge a modest sign up fee (the average is around $250).
You then have to pay a large monthly fee to keep the site operational. This cost is directly related to the population in your target area and ranges between $200 for a small populated area and $5,000 for a highly populated area.
With subscriptions to these websites you have no control over your marketing budget. You have to keep paying the large monthly fee each and every month or they will cancel your membership.
The large monthly membership can be frustrating to pay if you are waiting for a closing or if you are headed out of town for a month or two.
Many of these large monthly fee websites get you to look past the size of the monthly fee by telling you they spend most of your monthly fee on marketing for you. Many of these companies do nothing but national “pay per click” advertising.
The Best Lead Broker Website
My advice is to find a lead broker company that is already on the 1st page of Google for search terms motivated sellers will search for, sign up with a company that does not have a sign-up fee, sign up with a company that does not charge you a large monthly fee so you can manage your own marketing money, sign up with a compnay that will show you how to generate your own leads.