First, a success explanation: A successful website should make more money by helping you get more listings and attracting buyers.
In order for your website to help you get more listings and / or buyers, the following three basics need to be in place.
1. The first step is obvious: have a website. Why?
Answer: In addition to attracting buyers and sellers, a real estate website will function as your online office or meeting place. For example, a potential customer can go to your site to see the latest listings, get more information about the area, and so on. Regardless of where your client is geographically or at what stage of selling or buying a property, your website should help your clients make informative decisions.
This brings me to a very important concept of how to think about a website and the role it plays in your business.
Answer: A website is (your) online sales presentation.
And like all sales presentations, there is a limited time frame to establish that you are the agent that your potential customer should be dealing with. Therefore, your website must quickly demonstrate the real benefits to your customer. (Customers really just want to know what’s in it for them)
Conclusion: a website will be an integral part of your business.
Although there is much more to think about in terms of website design etc, the important thing for now is that you can understand some of the ways a website will help your business.
2. The second concept of a successful website is that people should be able to find it, by going to a search engine (preferably Google) and searching for relevant search phrases or keywords.
Explanation: Let’s say you are an agent in Cocoa Beach Florida, which is located in Brevard County, Florida. Some examples of relevant search terms or phrases that potential customers might use would be:
Properties for sale in A-Cocoa Beach
B-Cocoa Beach Real Estate Agents
C-Brevard County Real Estate
Beachfront properties in D-Cocoa Beach
E-Cocoa Beach Shorts Sale
For those of you who already have websites, if they do comparable Google searches based on your area, does your site show up? If so, what page of the results? (The first page is obviously where you want to be, but the top three pages are the ones you need to point to)
So the big question is how do we get our site to appear on Google’s main pages?
Answer: Search engine optimization, which involves many factors. Google look-
The time period of your site / domain name has expired. The quality of your site’s content (what it offers to the user) Links to your site from other relevant sites. Page titles, descriptions, and keywords, both in page content and in background encoding. Also, search engines want to see that a site is maintained and not static (meaning new content is regularly edited / changed) Simply put, if you have a content-rich site that other sites want to link to and your site It’s an ongoing project – over time, you’ll be rewarded with page position.
So for now, the second important concept to having a successful website is having one that can be found.
3. The third step or concept of having a successful website is what I call the factor and what.
Let’s say you have a website and it can be found by doing a relevant search term. Okay, now the customer sees it in the search engine results and clicks on it. The site opens and the customer is now looking at your online sales presentation. Based on what you see, you will either click off the site or spend time looking at what it has to offer. If the customer likes it, they will drill down to the site, which means they will search for other pages.
A quick explanation: in the past, most sites primarily offered access to MLS listings and agent BIOS. All sites offer the same thing, so for a customer to dig deep into the site, they have to offer more. So the question is, what do you have to offer that the other agent websites don’t? It certainly won’t just be MLS searches. In short, in the past, websites were about the agents, today they have to be about the customer!
That is not to say that you do not need MLS searches. Try to think beyond a direct search. Possibly offering specialized breakout searches, such as all coastline or property from x dollars to x dollars or all commercial land, vacant land or all short sales, etc. So yes, you must have MLS listings, but get creative. Do some of the work for your client.
What are other ways to have a profitable site?
Have good information about the area, such as the cost of living compared to other cities, both state and national. What about health facilities, arts and culture, transportation, recreation, etc.?
One way to think about this is to imagine that a good friend asks you what it’s like to live in the city of or what neighborhoods have the closest golf courses, etc. Your site should cover as many of these bases as possible. The questions will depend on your interests.
Conclusion:
1. Have a website.
2. Have a website that people can find.
3. Have a website that, once found, delivers the products helping your customer.
