30 Days of Real Estate Website Tips

July 14, 2009
Volume 3 Issue #9

We have been super busy working, trying to enjoy summer, helping our oldest son get ready to teach in Alaska starting in August and helping our youngest launch his career as a stand-up comic. I bet you are busy too, so this month’s newsletter is going to be in a “Do One-a-Day” format.

In no particular order, below you will find 30 ideas that you can apply to your real estate website. If you were to address just one tip a day for the next month you would end up with a pretty good website. If you don’t read the whole letter now, save it and refer to it on a rainy day.

1 Listings- The number one reason people visit a real estate website is to see listings. Make sure you have plenty of listings on your site and that access to them is featured prominently on your home page.

2 Text on home page- Pictures are great but without some relevant text on your home page no one will be able to find you or know what you do; search engines look for text so “they” can tell the world what your site is about.

3 Content beats pretty- The more unique your content, the better your chances of success. A pretty site will make people look at your site but good content will keep people on your site and coming back to it.

4 Have a reason for links- It is great to have links on your site but you should have a reason why they are there. Make sure if someone follows one of your links that they don’t wander off. Your page should remain open even when they click an outside link; the latter should open in a new window. Also, your links should not end up someplace where you don’t want them to go…e.g. a page with a competitor’s ad or link.

5 Check for broken links- Links change all the time for various reasons. Periodically, check your links to make sure they work. Broken links reflect poorly on you.

6 Tighter focus is better than wide- If you try to be all things to all people you end up attracting no one. Internet visitors interested in real estate especially search for specific areas/towns or types of properties like foreclosures.

7 Use a sans serif font- For the main text on your site, most experts suggest it is much easier to read a sans serif (without the curly parts) on a computer screen. This newsletter uses Arial, a sans serif font; Times New Roman is a serif font (pictured here). Serif fonts are often preferred to read in printed form. Some serif print is fine on the web in places like headings or small blocks of print.

8 Promote your site- No matter how well your site is optimized for search engines, if you personally promote your site on all of your materials, in every web presence you have and on your voice mail, you will have much better results.

9 Update your site- Once your site is built, keep adding to it. Search engines like fresh content and visitors will be more likely to visit a site that offers new information.  Blogging, if you are so inclined, is one of the best ways to add new information and be noticed by search engines.

10 Community pages- Have a page for the main communities you serve with listings, points of interests, pictures, videos, reviews and descriptions. We have one site where the subdivision page was the most visited page on the site.

11 Subdivision or building pages- If you specialize in a subdivision or a particular condo or co-op building add a page with floor plans, amenities, listings and neighborhood descriptions.

12 Offer something good- Giveaways or discounts to local businesses or services is a good way to attract people to your site and keep them coming back

13 Website in signature- If you have a website, make sure your website address is part of your email signature

14 Page for groups- If you are a member of a group or organization, offer to set up a page for your group on your website. You can set up a private area on your site for your group. Remember: More visitors mean more people who know about you and your site.

15 Clients critique- Have your clients critique your website. It will bring you traffic, hopefully your clients will tell their friends about your site and you just might get some good suggestions

16 Vendor list- Have a list of your preferred vendors on your site. Ask them to put a link to your site on their site

17 Frequently asked questions- A list of frequently asked questions can give you some fresh content and help your visitors at the same time

18 Short sales- Short sales and foreclosures are today’s hottest topics. If you work with these kinds of properties add a page to your site with listings and tips.

19 Contests- Have contests on your site such as a coloring contest, identifying a place in town, or anything that will have people interact with your site.

20 Client photography- Ask your clients to submit pictures of their favorite places. Get permission to use them on your site and give them credit for the photos if they want it.

21 Key words- Make sure you have words on your pages that people tend to use when they search for the services you offer.

22 Contact information- Make sure there is a way for people to contact you on every page. Ask them to contact you

23 Seek out links to your site- Ask people and businesses to link to your site. Find directories that are relevant to the towns you cover or real estate related directories and get links to your site

24 Show a little personality- Have the colors, style and pictures on your site reflect your personality. You may want to have your company colors as your main colors. If you are Irish, maybe you want green as one of your colors. If you deal with luxury homes have pictures on your site to reflect it.

25 Make sure each page has a unique name- Each page on your site should have a unique and descriptive name as this will give the search engine more information.

26 Announcement box- Use a box on your home page that changes weekly or monthly. Home of the week, open house or community events are some of the things that could change periodically.

27 Don’t copy other sites content word for word- Having the exact same information as another site will do you no good.

28 Nothing more than 2 clicks- Make it easy for people to get around your site. Nothing on your site should be more than two clicks away.

29 If you hire an expert to design/update your site- Have them explain what they did and why. It is your site --you are ultimately responsible for its success

30 Look at your site as if you were a first time visitor- If you don’t like what you see, change it sooner rather than later.

Tech Tip- If you are using Internet Explorer as your web browser, check or have someone check to see how your website looks in Firefox (the second most popular web browser). You might be surprised how different your site looks - often what looks good in one browser will look distorted or just plain wrong in the other browser. A good web designer should design for multiple browsers.