Are you in the construction field? Are you a trades person, a general contractor, an architect, an engineer, a carpenter, a surveyor, an electrician, a landscaper, or even a construction equipment sales rep? Have you ever purchased construction leads from internet sales lead generation websites?

If you have ever purchased construction sales leads from such websites, I'm here to tell you that you are paying too much and you can "do-it-yourself" cheaper. Here is how these sales lead generation websites normally operate:

• A customer is searching for a trades person online to complete a project, be it a home-improvement project or a commercial project.
• He finds a website that deals with construction trades and ends up filling out a form detailing what type of project he needs completed.
• That information is worth money. The website packages that information as a construction sales lead and sells it to a trades person; sometimes the same construction lead is sold to multiple trades people. The sales lead is worth money and normally is sold for between $5 and $50. So, these sales lead generation websites could potentially make up to $150 from just a single internet searcher, if that info is old to three people, that completes their online form.

Now, this sales lead may be worth buying if it can generate new business. But, you can generate these leads on your own much cheaper. To do that you must first understand how these lead generation sites generate the visitors to their site in the first place. Most of the visitors to their sites get there via paid ads on internet search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN. They purchase "keywords" that show in "sponsored results" section of internet searches. For example, they may purchase the keyword "Houston general contractor," and a link to their site is shown every time someone searches for a Houston general contractor. They pay only when someone clicks on their ad. Do you want to know how much they pay? It costs just pennies per click. The person visits their site and it costs them just a few pennies. The person completes their form and that information is re-packaged and re-sold to construction trades people for $5 to $50 each.

Now this sounds like a rip-off, doesn't it? It's a system that I like to call "sales lead arbitrage." They purchase the original lead for pennies, then re-package and resell it for multiple times the original cost.

The good news is that you don't have to purchase leads at this marked-up price. You can purchase keywords on internet search engines yourself and pay just pennies for construction leads. The most popular tool for placing search engine ads is Google's Adwords program. The only requirement is that you must have a website to forward the search engine ad clickers to. If you don't have a website for your construction business it would be well worth the investment to create one. These days, you can hire a website designer to create a professional looking site for under $100.