Agent Websites Are Dead

If you are planning to invest in a new website, or to update your current website, be sure to think deeply about it, and maybe even think backwards. Let me explain. Most agents do not need websites because they cannot afford to drive traffic to them.

When do you need a website?

• If you have more than 10 buyers set up in the MLS to get listing alerts
• If you have at least one listing (and yard sign) at all times
• If you plan to spend at least $500 in online marketing

Too many agents spend time and money on a website that they may not need. Most brokerages provide a webpage for their agents. That is probably enough for most agents. The fact of the matter is that if you are not setting up buyers on your website, investing in new customer acquisition advertising for your website, or if you do not have a listing with a yard sign that is driving traffic to your website, you may be wasting your time.

Managing a website when you do not have any consumer traffic to the website makes no sense. Too many agents are investing $500 to $5000 to set up a website. On top of that, you spend between $50 and $100 or more for basic maintenance. If you want your website to be successful, you need to add content to it by blogging and composing neighborhood pages. Even after spending all of that money and investing all of that time, your website may only get between 10 and 100 visits a month (most of them by you and your mom).

Thinking backwards is the key to understanding your need for a website. If your broker provides you one – take it. When you get your traffic up over 500 visitors a month, consider something a little more customized.

Start your online marketing on Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and Homes.com. Your agent website will not come anywhere close to generating as many leads per dollar invested as those sites. When you spend $500 on those sites, you know that you will get leads. You can nurture those leads on your broker provided website or the MLS client portal.

For those who have an agent website already

Okay, if you already have a website, be sure to look at your Google Analytics.

As you can see from this screenshot, this website is doing what most agent websites do. From November 22 to December 22, the site averages less than one visitor a day. If your website looks like this, you need to fix it or get rid of it.

To fix it, you need to do some online marketing. Google Adwords and Facebook are great, but you need to know what you are doing. If you do not know much about buying online advertising, you may want to check out a company like Adwerx. They do the online advertising for you and can drive traffic.

If you cannot get your traffic numbers up high enough to generate at least one good lead a month, dump the site.