It’s Not About You 15
Don’t take offense; the consumers that you are working hard to attract don’t want to learn about who you are, what you’ve done, or what you’ve sold; Initially. Choosing to make your real estate website more consumer focused than agent focused is a decision you surely won’t regret.
Nearly 85% (TAR) of consumers browsing your real estate website use it for one thing only: to search and view properties for sale in your market. Take a look at your website now. At first glance, now that we know this vital statistic, is your site conducive to giving them what they want?
It’s all about adopting the right mind-set. When you’re working on new marketing materials, take a step back and assume the role of a skeptical customer. Ask yourself: Why should she care about your product? How will it make her life better or easier? What are the damn benefits? – Dan O’Sullivan
I feel that this can directly relate to the content advertising you are placing on your website. In Don’t Make Me Think by Steven Krug, you’ll learn that most users don’t actually even read everything on a website; they scan.
All this has to be taken into consideration when you begin the construction of your very first real estate website, or used in planning an overhaul of your existing one. Here are five useful tips to implement on your site that can help you keep your visitors longer, and increase your online conversion ratios.
The Property Search
This hands down is the most important feature of your website. Not only do you have to make the visitors immediately aware of where your property is located on your site, but you must also ensure that your property search is simple, intuitive, and overall easy to use.
Having an impressive property search is a very worthwhile investment, and increases the user experience your site delivers to consumers looking to buy or sell homes.
Advertise No Registrations
If you currently are not forcing your users to login to view properties, let them know! I haven’t personally researched the number of visitors that prefer no registrations versus forced registrations, but the winner is pretty obvious. When the hurdles to get to your properties for sale are minimized, you’ll find your visitors staying at your site longer and the frequency of contacts from them increased.
If you don’t require registrations, in a subtle but visible way inform your visitors that they will have an easier time viewing properties; all with no registrations required and pressure-free. Who wouldn’t enjoy that?
Relate To The Client
The content contained on your site is an expression of your services. Is your content filled with information about how you can help them, what you can do, what you have done in the past, and how you’re just an overall great person? While I’m sure you are, how are you making an attempt to relate to your target audience?
A good practice is to interpret how the offer you and conveying to the client will directly help them in some way. One good example is explaining how your home market report will help your client make a more informed and intelligent decision regarding the refinance of their home or as a tool for fighting property evaluation nightmares.
Keep Your Homepage Clean
First impression is of vital importance to your website conversion ratios. A visitor will mostly likely make a mental decision to stay on your site, or jump to another within the first 10 seconds; this is commonly referred to as bounce rate.
Make a wise decision to avoid banners, adsense advertisements, contrasting colors and large fonts on your home page. It’s also wise to make it readily apparent that you have a property search on your site, and provide a link to direct your visitors on how to get there.
The About You Page
Giving a history of your career in real estate, also with some background information to better help your visitors to relate to you as a person, is useful in a page usually named, “About Me” or “About Us”. Keep this page separated away from your content, enabling your visitors to initially find what they’re looking for while still offering information about you should they take interest.
Your website can be a very valuable asset to your business, and can be considered one of the best sources for online leads. As time progresses and more consumers are taking advantage of the wonderful tools presented to them online, real estate agents not adapting to this change will be left in the dust.
Have you started to implement a source of online lead generation?
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Steve, you’re absolutely right about the clean homepage and no registration. Both of those are BIG hurdles for a lot of individual realtors’ websites.
You are exactly right Steve – buyers only want to get to the listings. Selling them on our services comes later. The homepage should be clutter free and it should be very easy to find the property search and our phone numbers. It is amazing how many real estate sites break these rules.
I could not have said it better, but I hate it when people share info like this with those not in the know. Let them continue to make their sites with giant pictures of themselves and all of their good deeds while we make a killing on keyword specific seo enhanced long tail grabbing
sites that bring us more leads than we can handle:-)
@Mike – We live in a world of abundance!
If the world were fair we’d all be driving yugo’s and living in the projects. As Judge Elihu Smails from Caddy Shack says “The world needs ditch diggers too”
Great points, Steve. And its in fact why I don’t even have a photo of myself on any of my sites. And from a business perspective, I think its a good thing NOT to create branding around your photos. What you look like changes over time. (How many real estate agents can you name that have outdated photos from years ago that look NOTHING like them today?) Give the consumer what they want. And create branding around something other than yourself and you’ll end up with something thats marketable to others down the road.
I could not agree more. I am much more concerned with what the consumer wants and it really isn’t me:-) It’s about them and them finding what they want.
Thanks Steve – great article. I’m actually do some much needed housekeeping right now. Completely forgot to mention the “no registration” thing. Think I will stick it in the description as well!
@Malok – Personally I think agents shouldn’t brand themselves, but something more generic. With the use of Suburban House Hunters Team I have an asset that is salable when I decide to leave the business. The business doesn’t need me, and in general most clients don’t even know that I am the main agent. I left my ego out of things and focused on building a real business.
@ Steve – Nice post, lots of useful information. There are a few things I might have to look at again on my site.
No Registration Required and almost no contact from anyone unless it is totally on their terms… It would appear that this is what the consumers really want.
Steve,
We’ve been offering a no registration website for a little over 6 months and have not been advertising the no registration feature. Thanks for the tip – I definitely don’t use websites that require registration as I know I’ll be getting some unwanted solicitation shortly after I do register.
I’m glad they are not looking for me. Real estate is much more appealing than I could ever be.
Agreed…that was how it was done in the 90’s. Everything was about me me me. How many sales, awards, ect. The consumer does not care about any of that. They want to be able to access information easily. Once they are ready to connect they will be looking for someone they can trust and relate to.
I agree with you because if they found your website on Google they aren’t looking for you, they are looking for property. If they are looking to sell on the other hand they might want to know a little bit about your background. I just make the navigation to search property very visible on every page.
I totally agree Steve. My MLS pages are getting 96% of the traffic that the main pages are getting. The great thing is that people are registering so smiles from ear to ear.