What You Should Consider: Realtor Websites
When building realtor websites, you need to consider certain fundamental factors so that you have the right foundation that will enable the website to reap maximum benefits. A real estate website is essentially a niche website hence you don’t want to build it generically and have the same as everyone else unless you want the same results, it must be better. Here are a few things to have in mind to help you build your real estate website the right way.
Select a unique but easy to remember domain name
The process of building a successful real estate website begins with the proper choice of the domain name. The domain name will be like the home of your website in the internet. The name should not be generic, but it should be personalized and if possible, be very relevant to the real estate industry although going with your name is a perfectly acceptable practice. It should also be unique so that it can be easily remembered. Such a name will be engraved in the minds of your potential clients and it will ultimately work wonders when it is time to brand your business.
Mobile friendly
With the immense amount of mobile traffic, you will miss a great opportunity for getting leads and sales in your real estate website if it is not mobile responsive (made to work on mobile devices). Since the number of people accessing the internet with mobile devices increases significantly year over year you must make the website mobile friendly so that potential leads can access your website using their mobile devices. Additionally a mobile friendly website will be ranked higher in the search engines as Google now penalizes sites that aren’t mobile friendly.
Website User Experience
For great results realtor websites it should be interactive and easy to use. Ideally you need to provide a section of the website where you can interact with the site visitors, this is typically done by having MLS search available on your site, which is the minimum industry standard now. You can also implement a blog covering the frequently asked questions of home buyers where readers can ask questions and you can give them responses in dialog boxes located beneath the blog. This will create a placebo effect among your site visitors and as a result they are more likely to visit your website regularly, thus giving you time to convert them into real estate leads. This kind of interactivity is also beneficial for search engine purposes since the site will be deemed to be of good value and you will be rewarded with higher rankings.
Visual Appeal
Aesthetics are vital when it comes to building a real estate website. Whenever someone visits your website their decision to contact and make an inquiry on the properties you have listed will depend on whether or not they like what they are seeing and find your site to be of a reputable quality. That fact is that you must have a beautifully designed website with studies reporting that 78% of visitors will leave a poorly designed site because it ‘lacks credibility’. This in addition to good content will make the site and blog attract regular readers and or subscribers and yes there are seemingly endless factors that come into play with realtor websites to do them RIGHT.
Search Engine Optimization
Even if you have a budget for marketing your real estate website online, it is imperative to thoroughly optimize the website for the search engines. This will make the site rank high in the search engines, where you will get lots of free and quality traffic. Remember, you can use SEO to complement your other marketing efforts, but it is a long term process. Most realtors don’t realize that in addition to a site being SEO optimized it must have a content consistently added and a proper digital marketing plan in place to achieve great results, Google has over 250 ranking factors and they all must be continually addressed with optimization.
