The Break Down to Knowing Why Your Website Isn’t Getting Amazing Results
Real estate marketing…. the never-ending battle for a real estate professional to balance their time, money and efforts between marketing their business and working with their clients. With a dilemma of this magnitude, it is important to make sure that your marketing is effective, and that you have systems in place to automate some of the work for you.
There is not just one moving part in this system. In our 15 years plus of building and designing websites in the real estate industry, we have seen what works and what doesn’t. We know that you can’t just build a website, and they will come.
Our system is built on the idea that there are 5 Fundamental components to a successful online marketing system: the Right Website, Targeted Traffic, Lead Generation, Follow Through, Happy Clients!
You probably noticed that going through our Website Performance Checklist, each one of these components is addressed. They all work together harmoniously to help you have an effective winning website and get you the results that you want.
Website and Structure
It is incredibly important today to have a great website to showcase your properties and demonstrate that you can help new homebuyers and new sellers. Becoming the trusted expert authority in real estate online is incredibly simple if you know the right steps to follow.
With more Realtors than ever online today, you need to stand out from the crowd and show that you can actually help your new visitor to navigate the complex landscape that is real estate.
Having your own personal website, designed by a professional, will allow you to have control over your website design, structure and marketing messages. One of the most important structural components of your website is being mobile responsive! If your website does not provide an enjoyable viewing experience for your visitors on EVERY device, then you are at risk of losing a potential client.
Whether your navigation and links are easy to find, your images are appealing or distracting, or you are using blogs or video on your site, all can have a positive or negative affect on converting visitors to leads, leads to clients…nearly in the blink of an eye.
If you are using a company-provided website to market yourself online, you may be sacrificing leads every day. You see, the problem with company websites is simple… they are not built for lead generation optimization. Most of the time, there is a contact form, but otherwise, leads may be searching through the site, and easily navigate away from your Agent-page, and land on someone else’s page who could gain their business instead of you.
It is important to note that having a bad website can cost you thousands of dollars, as it only takes the click of the Back Button for them to leave your website forever.
User Experience and Social Proof
How your website is designed is a huge part of the user experience when they visit your website. How do they feel when they are on your website? Comfortable in knowing that they have found a trusted expert, or dazed and confused because they aren’t sure whether you can actually help them with the largest purchase of their life?
We can’t stress enough that showing reviews and testimonials on your website is the most important content you can have. Let me tell you a little story….
There was once 2 real estate agents, Agent X and Agent Y. Agent X has been in real estate for over 25 years, and has every designation and award, helped hundreds of clients to buy or sell a home, and his website is full of designation and award logos, a 500-word Bio on his About page, and pictures of his family and his 3 dogs.
Agent Y has been a real estate Agent for only 2 years, and has had a few dozen clients. His website tells a little bit about his background, but is focused around Reviews and Testimonials from every single client he has worked with. He has Reviews on Google and Facebook, as well as personalized testimonials on his site from some clients all providing Social Proof that Agent Y is not only a trusted expert authority on real estate, but that he is a darn nice guy and will bend over backwards to help his clients.
Now you tell me…who would you choose?
Lead Generation
A website has one main purpose: to generate leads. Or at least, that is our opinion. Someone in need of real estate assistance may go to your website, and if your website is doing its job, being a 24/7 salesman, then that person should reach out to you and say “Can you help me?”
So what is a call-to-action?
call to ac·tion
noun
noun: call to action; plural noun: calls to action
(in advertising material) a piece of content intended to induce a viewer, reader, or listener to peform a specific act, typically taking the form of an instruction or directive (e.g. buy now or click here ).
People like to be told what to do. By placing call to action buttons and content within your website, you are directing where you want your visitors to go, and this is usually to a page that ends with a sale or conversion.
Examples:
Download this Free Report “How to Stage Your House For Sale”
View the Newest Listings in Denver
Schedule a Showing
Landing pages are the most effective way to make sure you capture that lead after making a call to action. Ask for a name and email, in exchange for exactly what they are requesting from your call to action, and you will generate an abundance of qualified, interested leads.
IDX Utilization
It is widely known that over 80% of people go online when they are shopping for a new home. There are several ways that they can view current listings in their market. Zillow and Realtor.com are most popular, but that does not help the local Agent to generate leads as much as displaying listings on your own personal website.
A good IDX solution will allow your visitors to search listings, filter out results based on their preferences in a home, like square footage or school districts, and then Save their searches in an account that will then send them branded email notifications when new listings go on the market that meet their criteria. It’s like having an assistant send out personalized emails for you!
Social Media
There are many different ways to utilize Social Media in your online marketing plan. You should be using at least one, but marketing with two to three social networks will broaden your reach, and allow you to test and break out different marketing strategies on each platform.
Facebook marketing is the most widely used in Real Estate. Not only can you connect with others and share stories and posts, but Facebook Paid Advertising will help you to drive targeted traffic to your high-performing website and convert more leads. By selecting a specific target audience in Facebook, your ads will only be seen by those who are most interested in your services.
Analytics, Hosting & Security
Unfortunately, most real estate professionals have no idea how many visitors they are losing due to a poor web experience. Everybody has a computer with them at every given moment (their phone) and yes, they do check you out before they decide to do business with you, browsing your website for information. But you will never know if they were there, and what actions they took if you don’t have analytics.
Why is hosting and security important? If your hosting service is slow, inconsistent and lacks the security to make sure that your website does not get hacked, or to prevent a virus that infects every visitor to your website, you are simply throwing that quality user experience out the window. Hosting matters!
Do you want to be a secret agent?
You know…one of those agents that has a website that is never found? Rarely visited? Even by you?
Making just one change to your website can make the difference between generating leads and losing money. Use the results from the Checklist, and implement some changes. You will find that a fine-tuned website with the right power tools can increase leads and increase sales.
Below is an info-graphic to be reminded of the important areas to pay attention to, and always be optimizing!
