Creating a real estate website can be challenging, especially if you’re skilled at selling homes but not as great at internet marketing.
As a real estate professional, your job requires you to wear many hats — and sometimes one of those can be web designer. There are so many challenges to creating a website that converts clients — there’s the design to think of, SEO best practices, and, nowadays, how the site will look on mobile. Developing a plan of attack can be overwhelming.
We’ve put together a list of nine ways you can make sure your website will be optimized to convert clients.
Key elements of your real estate website
Use these simple hacks to create a successful website for your real estate business.
1. Use transparency to earn trust
Your prospective clients care about your integrity — they’re going to be trusting you with one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. So it’s important to be open and honest about your specific skills and what they can expect in their journey. Here are some ways you can develop trust through your website:
- Have a well-developed “About Us” page with photos, your mission, your backstory and what you’re passionate about now. Not to toot our own horn, but we’re proud of our “About Us” page, if you want an example.
- Provide a bulleted list of the steps they can expect from start to finish when it comes to buying or selling a house with you.
- Create a website that looks current and professional.
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2. Pay attention to the user experience
In the early days of the internet it was common to come across broken links and missing pages, but that is definitely a no-go today. People want websites that load fast and are intuitive to use. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to do this. Create a professional looking website for free using a service like WordPress or Wix.
3. Focus on the SEO basics
Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a full-time job — it’s something dedicated professionals spend their careers understanding. You might not be able to master SEO, but you can learn a lot about it for free on the internet. You can definitely learn enough to lay a good foundation so that, if you ever decide to hire someone to help you take it to the next level, they’ll have something to work with.
This guide to SEO for new real estate agents has some helpful advice to get you started, plus we recommend paying attention to Neil Patel’s SEO advice — he’s a major thought leader in this space.
4. Measure everything with analytics
You’ll have no idea whether your digital marketing strategies are worth your time and money unless you measure everything you do. This is a very important element of your online marketing strategy. Familiarize yourself with Google Analytics and set up goals to measure your progress. Did we lose you at Google Analytics? Here’s a helpful podcast that can bring you up to speed on the features of this data tool.
5. Always be testing your website
You want to make sure your real estate website is working. Always. Check the links, pages, videos — everything on your website. Make sure you’re checking it from the most popular browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Safari as well as from mobile since a majority of online traffic has switched to mobile in recent years.
Focus on providing value
No matter what elements you have in place to create a beautiful and functional website, the most important aspect of all is the value you’ll provide to your readers. This will keep them coming back for more and will create top of mind brand awareness when they’re ready to buy or sell real estate. Every real estate professional does this differently depending on their own personal style and skills. Some opt to become a resource for community businesses and events, while others provide helpful videos and advice on the real estate market. Whatever route you go with, just make sure you’re developing content that is helpful, actionable and concrete. Stuck on ideas? This list of 50 topics for your real estate blog can help.
