3 Must Haves For Your Real Estate Website To Rock

Today we reach into The Ticker Mailbag to answer a question we’ve been asked since we started the show. Instead of answer this question via email again, we decided to take a page out of our own playbook.

The question has been asked many different ways, but the most recent version read like this:

Hi Chase,

I’m struggling with creating, or rather enhancing my website to be more informative and service oriented. What tips do your guys have?

-Mary

Without further ado, here are our 3 must haves for your real estate website to rock!

Content Creation

There is no question that content is one of the most important aspects of any real estate website. Content is what people are looking for when they hit the search engines and on your website.

Producing great content is what drives people to your website, and encourages them to share what they’ve found. It’s also one of the best ways to turn a prospect into a lead.

Ideally, you want your content to educate and provide your visitors with value. Many Realtor’s websites have little to no dynamic content, and offer almost zero valuable information for consumers.

The best way to start building a more informative and service oriented real estate website is to start blogging. Keep your content fresh, fun and unique. Creating quality content will produce more traffic and help convert leads into clients.

Design Matters

Now that your content has some decent traffic coming to your website,  it’s time to focus on design. The late Steve Jobs said,

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

I think this is the fundamental problem with many websites, especially those in real estate. Our idea of what design is needs to evolve past just what a site looks like, but also how it works.

The usability of your website is key to keeping people on your site. The three biggest design issues we’ve seen on real estate websites are cluttered layout, slow load time and poor navigation.

When it comes to designing your website don’t be afraid of white space and avoid clutter. Make sure you have a fast, reliable host for your site.

Lastly, in a recent survey done by HubSpot, more than three-quarters of survey respondents said that the most important feature in website design is ease of finding information. So keep your site navigation clean and simple.

Inbound-Links The Other SEO

So now you have great content and a sleek, clean website design, so how do you get people to come to your site?

No doubt you’ve heard a ton of talk about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A fabulous real estate website or blog is great, but without visitors it’s totally pointless. That’s what makes SEO so important.

On-site SEO is probably the one you’ve heard the most about. On-site SEO is all about keywords, more specifically the placement, number and quality of keywords.

The other type of SEO, Off-page SEO, is just as important to focus on. This type of optimization is all about using other reputable websites to link back to you.

There are three basic steps to increasing your Off-page SEO:

• Create amazing content. Go back to step one. If you create engaging, educational content you increase the likelihood of someone linking back to you.
• Write a guest post. People are always looking for high quality content, and it’s a great way to get a link back to your site. Here’s a quick guest post overview from ProBlogger.
• Submit to directories. This is one of the most basic strategies to increase website presence. I’m always surprised by how few people do it. Here’s how to submit to Google, Yahoo, Bing and DMOZ.

Never beg, buy or barter to build up links.

Action!
A better website will generate more traffic, leads and sales. Follow these simple guidelines to step your internet game up.

Which of the 3 must haves for your real estate website are you going to work on first?

Photo credit: Flickr, John Saddington

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