How Good is Your Website? How to Find out for $10.

Everyone has a website. At least every realtor, anyway. So, what makes yours so special? That's what we're going to find out today. Hopefully, you read my last post about the 2 things your website has to have to make money online. If you did, then you know that you need to first focus on CONVERTING your visitors, then focus on bringing more visitors to your site.

Ok, so you took my advice and carefully went through your website to make sure that it was easy to use. Now what do you do? The next step is a usability study. Now, wait, wait! It's not as hard as it seems. Here's what you do: Ask a friend of a friend (that you don't know but who falls into your target demographic) to sit down at a computer at your house (or other neutral location) and review your website. Tell them this: "Hi, friend. I'm trying to make my website better and I need your help - it should take only about 15 minutes and it would really help me a lot. I'm going to hand you a list of 4 things that I want you to do on my website. I'm not going to help you at all so it would be really helpful if you would think out loud while you do them. In other words, I want you to talk about what you see and what you're going to do on the site. I'm just going to listen and learn from what I observe. And, when it's all done, I'll give you this $10 gift card to Starbucks. Okay?"

Ask them to do these things:

1. Find the phone number or other contact information. (Or, whatever your call to action is...)
   
2. Search for a home. (You could give them a specific criteria like 3 bedroom, 2 bath, with a pool in the X school district.)
   
3. What 3 areas of town do you specialize in.
4. Request more information about a listing.
   

These could be different for you if you're a sellers-only agent or something like that so customize the questions for the things that you absolutely want people to do that make you money on your site. Here's the hard part: YOU DON'T GET TO TALK OR SAY ANYTHING TO THEM!!! In fact, it may be better to set up a video camera so that you can leave the room. You may be surprised when they can't find your phone number, can't figure out how to use your spiffy new home search tool, or don't know how to contact you for more info about a listing.

Time each question. If it takes more than 4 seconds for a visitor to find your phone number, they will simply not call. It's easier to find another website than to navigate a difficult one!

Try it once! It only costs you 20 minutes and $10 but the information it gives you could make you a millionaire.