By now, you already know that SEO is not as hard as people make it out to be. You're getting alerts every time Google adds your pages to their search engine. More and more people are starting to come to your website because of your link building on Social Networks. You're watching your stats and paying attention to what's important. Everything is in place right? So why are you not getting that flood of new leads you were expecting? Because your website isn't converting those visitors into leads!
Sometimes we get so caught up in getting more traffic that we don't think about making sure the site is doing its job to bring in those leads. That's what this post is about: making sure your site is setup to convert that influx of new traffic. It's about giving the visitor exactly what they want, so much great information that you prove your value and they would be absolutely insane not to contact you!
Don't Be All Things To All People
Make sure your site is targeted to a specific market since you can't be all things to all people. It can target a specific area, or be family friendly or focus on a person's love for the outdoors. Just make sure your audience connects with you.
Compel Them To Click
Don't rely on your main navigation menu to pull the site visitor into your site. Make sure your site has lots of compelling offers that will intrigue visitors to interact. Make sure these offers give something that will be valuable to your specific market.
The Property Search Is Everything
Give your site visitor what they want: an easy way to search for homes. You may even want to incorporate unique features like drag-and-drop sliders. Anything you can do to help you separate your real estate website you from your competition's.
Relocating Buyers Love Area Information
Give relocating buyers lots of area information. This establishes that you are the expert in your town. Use of images is also a great way to add personality to your site, and it helps buyers to know if a town is right for them, which will reduce the amount of time you'll waste driving them around. Contracting a professional photographer is always a good idea because you can use the images for your marketing materials and the quality difference is noticeable.
Interactive Maps Makes Sites "Sticky"
Don't just limit interactive mapping to properties. People also like to see interactive mapping for neighborhoods too!
Don't Forget About Your Sellers
Make your sellers happy by making sure photos explode off of the screen - (click on thumbnail photos for an example). If you have the best way of marketing sellers, then they will run to you.
Let Them Know Their Information Is Safe
Always have a privacy policy on your site. Make sure every form has a Privacy Assurance Statement that links to your privacy policy.
Give Them Content
Most web visitors are in the information gathering stage. So don't disappoint them. Give them plenty of good content.
Make It Super Easy to Contact You
What does this site, and this site, and this site have in common? They all contain a small, easy to use form on every page of their site. If at any time a site visitor wants to contact the agent, they don't even have to go to another page, the form is right there beside the content. Try it. You will be amazed at how something so simple can make such an impact on your leads!
Back Office Systems
Make sure your website has a feature rich Control Panel. The last thing you need to be worried about is struggling to update your website using cryptic HTML. The more features, and the easier the control panel is, the more likely you will go in and keep your website fresh. (Both visitors and search engines LOVE fresh content.) Look for features like: ability to add an unlimited amount of pages; ability to edit content; ability to reorder menu items (you will want to do this based off of your stats); ability to maintain listings; and the ability to add mappable neighborhood and area information.
Lead Management Tools
Consider integrating a lead management system into your site. This way you can assign leads to your team members, keep notes on leads, export leads to Top Producer or Outlook and assign leads to email drip campaigns.
We all know that Internet Buyers know what they want and require less time to convert than Traditional Buyers. So follow these suggestions and watch that steady supply of Internet leads fill your inbox!
To Your Greater Success,
Brad Carroll
Dakno Marketing - A Real Estate Web Design Company
Have additional tips for a successful website? Let me Know!
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You've provided some excellent information. I just started my website a couple of weeks ago so I'm still in the "tweaking" phase. Hopefully it will work out as well as I hope. So far so good...
www.ricardobueno.com