To Register or Not to Register, A Personal Website Question.

I vote for no registration. Your competitors give the information away, so it's up to you to participate in free information. Try to add value in your information or have a strong value proposition to make them call you.

Teri - an excellent question and there are views on both sides of the fence.

I use 1 Park Place, which allows folks to search and look at some information on listings. Once they see how much information they can gat many go ahead and sign up to receive ALL the details and to receive daily emailed listings. I like how this works. If folks don't use a true email they don't get their information, but that seems rare. I get a good number of leads this way.

Jeff

Having them register is nice but you get less activity.  It is really personal/professional preference on your part.

Hi Terri - good question.  I found that it helped to provide 2 options - one where they will get daily emails of any new listings if they sign in, and one where they don't have to give any information at all.  Typically it seems that some will start with the one that has no requirements and may then see something they like and call me, or they move on over to the daily email program.  People love options.

Hi Terri - What a great question!  I currently do not have any registration but I like the suggestions above of 2 options: with and without registration.  I think that I will move to that format.

Hi Terri, I think Norm Rice (above) has the right idea.  Give them two options and they may start with the more anonymous and then move to the next option of giving you their information.  Thanks Norm for the great idea. 

Well Terri, from the consumer side of it (being a loan officer and not a Realtor), I think Norm has hit on an excellent choice. You get the best of both worlds.

Terri- people can view and print fliers and email homes with no registration at all on my site.  But my site does capture their IP address.  So if they come back later and sign up for emails of new homes in their price range I will know they have been surfing around before. And if they do sign up for that I have tried with name and email address and I got less signing up than when I just asked for email address, so I changed back to just email address. 

My web site is point2agent hosted and I have been uber pleased with them.

There is a form on my website where people obtain access to the MLS, I do not require them to fill out the form in order to search, but many of them do. I'm not sure you can go wrong either way.

I don't require registration. And we have a good number of people who call and/or email and tell us they have been on the site, so I'm happy with the results. If they want me, they will contact me.

I did a blog about this subject earlier today.  Do not require viewers to submit any information in order to see listings.  Realtors in general haven't figured out how to properly intergrate their business with the internet.  It is frustrating to see how behind everyone is.  I have a service that teaches realtors how to properly intergrate, and make your listings work for you.  I was part of an Internet Department for an RV dealership that did $11 million in internet sales.  That was back in 2004!  I know what your thinking, real estate and rv's aren't the same. The listing principles are the same, and the systems we used can be intergrated.  Just like we were using the internet as a selling tool, realtors are trying to do the same.

NO! People are much more sensitive about their personal information than ever before! Earn their trust first!

I think if you want to know who has been on your site, you have them register.  I use Wolfnet and I can control how many detailed listings they see before the registration box pops up.  It is currently set at 5; so they get 5 free looks...but then it locks them out.  I get about 20 registrations a month and about 1 or 2 are warm leads that convert.