Realtors - Making Sure Your Home Page is Sticky

It's coming up to two years now since I moved my site from one service provider to another, it's been a long time since I stopped by here to talk about SEO and websites, so time for a little update. 

My website continues to bring good traffic and leads but it is still a work in progress. It has to be. From an SEO perspective we must never stop. If you put the brakes on adding content, the master known as Google will leave you and go explore your competitor who is adding content. It's like a child, it's gets bored with the same old same old!

Today I wanted to show you how you can make sure your site becomes sticky. Rather I actually wanted to prove to you that sticky things on the home page will keep your visitors rather than let them bounce out and go search somewhere else.

IDX, yes IDX. To have a website for buyers that works, you must have IDX or at least some property search function on your site. I know not all areas as lucky as mine. Living in the big Chicago metro area, I more or less have my choice of providers and believe me I have tried many of them. Find something!

Here's what you need to make sure you have. IDX on your home page. I am not talking about a link to a page with your search, I mean you must heave search on your home page. About 30% of my traffic arrives on the home page and I engage them right away.

Let's see:

First I created some quick links by price range for people looking for homes in my target area. This makes it really simple for people to find homes. There are also 2 links to very popolar gated golf communities. These links are at the top right of my home page and also repreat throughout my site.

Next below my pictures and quick links is an IDX quick search. This is the stickiest part of my home page. How do I know. I use Crazyegg to monitor pages to make sure they are getting traffic and when they do that they are sticky. Now for the proof. Blue is cold, red is hot and white, well that's white hot! Now take a look at this picture. Use my blue, red and white colors to see where my visitors engage on the home page.

As you can see my MLS home search areas are very warm with the quick search area being the hottest. The quick links are also in a very warm area. I know that this has improved the stickiness to my home page. Over a year ago I did not have the search on my home page and it was my designer who suggested it.

To make your home page sticky, and assuming you are trying to capture buyers, get a search on the home page and oreferably above the fold. Remember you have 2 seconds or less to engage your visitors!