Archive for Real Estate Website Tips
There’s a website called Tynt that can help you, if not stop Internet theft, at least make those thieves think about what they’re doing. And, for people who just like the information you have on your website or blog, Tynt’s service will help them keep track of where they got the information, and establish incoming links to your website, too!
I heard about Tynt from Mr. Internet, Michael Russer. If you read Michael’s post, you can watch a short video explaining how Tynt works.
I tried adding the (at-least-for-now-free) Tynt code to our main site at BuildRealEstateResults.com. Then, I copied a paragraph from one of the articles on that site to this post. You can see what happened in between the 2 lines below:
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Tynt automatically added the information starting with ”Read more” to the text I copied.
Now, this service won’t stop a determined Internet thief from stealing your content. They can very easily delete the attribution that automatically appears after the content or image that has been copied.
However, for copies made by people who aren’t trying to build a website or blog by stealing the content from other places, this could be an interesting way to get some incoming links to your website or blog.
If someone copies something from you to go in an email, the email recipients may well follow the link back to your page. If someone copies something and places in a public place such as a blog or Facebook page, that incoming link could help your SEO and bring more visitors to your site.
And, I would hope that when someone who just isn’t aware of the laws against Internet theft sees the link, they will leave it in place – or decide to write their own content!
There are some Tynt options. Here are just some examples. I chose to show the Creative Commons license which applies to my copyrighted material. You can also connect Tynt to your Twitter account – anytime someone does a copy/paste from a protected site, it will show up on your Twitter account.
Tynt will also provide activity statistics. You’ll notice that the URL referenced in the Tynt attribution has some coding after the .html for the page. That coding allows Tynt to let me know things about what is being copied.
Just as an FYI, when I copied the Tynt-attributed text to this blog post, every paragraph I entered after that copy was placed in a <div> which eliminated the white space between paragraphs. So, if I hadn’t really wanted to show that example, I might have given up on copying the information. Tynt, if you’re listening, please tell your code to stop doing that! Also, it would be nice if you could set up multiple websites in one account. Right now, it looks like you need a new account for each one.
In any event, it’s an interesting capability to play with!
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This guest post was written by Kevin Kaiser of Military Homes,
where you can list or search military home listings.
Sixty-seven percent of all real estate websites and blogs are horrific abominations.
There’s no source for that stat, but it sounds about right. Real estate professionals were early adopters of the Internet and the power of online marketing. Despite the head start, many real estate web sites have failed to keep pace — and that spells trouble on the front lines, not to mention for the overall bottom line.
In a world of iPads and attention deficits, increasingly sophisticated buyers are no longer the exception but the rule. Real estate professionals have an array of tools and ways to reach and educate their consumer base. Today, about 8 in 10 buyers are using the Internet to look for homes and property.
So why is your site so stagnant? Usually there isn’t a single, straightforward answer. Like most things in life, it’s a combination of things bound together by a single overarching theme. In this case, the theme would probably be “You expect people to find you on their own and keep coming back even though you’re doing nothing to ensnare and engage them.” Here are five main reasons why your site is flailing and tips for improvement.
1. You’ve Written Off Basic SEO Activities
You don’t need to hire a consultant or spend hours hunting through online forums to learn the search engine optimization skills necessary to boost your site. Doing simple keyword research and keeping up with what people are searching for is not a daunting task.
Once you identify a new trend, change your internal linking, title tags, and headers to reflect what people are looking for. Two years ago it may have been “Los Angeles Real Estate” but know more people are just searching for “LA real estate”. Be sure your keeping up with the trends.
2. You’re Not Producing Enough Quality Real Estate Content
It’s not enough to slap together a post every four weeks and forget about it. The search engines and consumers demand relevant, worthwhile content. Share your expertise. Interview colleagues and explore the latest trends. Post hints, tips and insider insight. Embrace video. Give visitors a reason to come back.
3. You’re Not Thinking About Aesthetics
As with search engine optimization, you don’t need to spend a fortune on web development. But consumers in 2010 have expectations about how a professional website should look, from its layout and usability to colors, fonts and Flash. Now, you don’t need to build the next Trulia. But a sparse, joyless Blogspot hub isn’t going to cut it, either.
4. You’re Not Leveraging Your Credibility
Showcase your designations, awards and rankings. Create an “As Seen In” section on your site and show visitors where your work, quotes or logo has appeared. It’s almost as important as the “Featured Listings” buttons or blurb on your home page.
Given the economic distress of the last 18 months, consumers are looking for all the protection and certainty they can get. Ooze credibility, and your clients — current and future — will reward you.
5. You’ve Stopped Working on Your Real Estate Internet Presence
This is a rule of online marketing and one that applies to all industries and sites equally. This isn’t a “set it and forget about it” space. You have to commit to constantly tweaking, updating and feeding this beast.
Competitors appear out of nowhere, and the fickle search engines are always in motion. That doesn’t mean you have to work 18 hours a day with your eyes glued to a laptop or smartphone. But it does mean that caring for your web presence has to be part of your daily business routine.
Compelling Propositions: Promoting Them
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I’m sure you know that you need something on your website that will motivate visitors to contact you. Otherwise, you end up with a pretty website that may even have a fair number of visitors, but does nothing for you in terms of lead generation.
This post will address the last of the three things you need to do to provide strong motivation for your real estate website visitors to contact you:
- Identify a unique, valuable and attention-grabbing offer.
- Create the offer.
- Promote the offer.
Let’s say that you have already identified and created a compelling proposition. The last step is promoting it! And, that’s where the concept of web-centric real estate marketing comes in.
Web-Centric Real Estate Marketing
The idea of web-centric real estate marketing is to make sure that all marketing tools you use end up driving people to your website. The reasons are simple.
- People are much more comfortable stopping by a website than they are placing a telephone call to you directly.
- Your website should have tools and information that visitors find useful.
- Once someone gets to know your website, they will likely do things like return to it from time to time or add it to their favorites. That should help them to remember to contact you when they want to speak to a professional.
- If you don’t have any direct contact with a website visitor, at least you have the opportunity to stay in front of them when they visit your site.
Therefore, any type of advertising or promotion you do should drive people to your website. Here are some examples:
- Email - include a live link to your website in your email signature
- Printed material – Your web address on everything – business cards, promotional items, etc.
- Print advertising - Invite the reader to take advantage of your compelling offer and direct them to your website
- Postcards – regardless of any other topic – that invites the erader to take advantage of your compelling proposition and directs them to the website. Even if you’re sending out a Just Listed postcard, the offer should be on there.
- Ads on Craig’s list - yup, same thing.
And, the examples could go on and on. So, now that you have all of your marketing initiatives pointing to your website, make sure it’s easy for people to find your proposition.
Your Website: The Compelling Proposition Should Leap Up and Grab People!
Well, naturally, you’re going to put the proposition on your website. But, where? If you read the Insider Insight post by Kevin Kaiser on improving lead conversion, you have some ideas already.
Kevin’s testing found that he got the most response by having a call to action in the upper left corner of the home page. You might want to give that a try. Create an eye-catching graphic “button” that contains a strong call to action to make sure your offer is seen immediately.
Don’t assume that people are going to poke around your website trying to figure out where this great offer is! A text link in the body of the home page isn’t visible enough, a tab on your menu isn’t visible enough. If someone is visiting your site with the express purpose of taking you up on a special offer, that offer better just jump up and bite them! If it doesn’t, that visitor will turn into another bounce statistic on your traffic report.
If you can put the offer on a page of its own and use that link in your promotions, even better. Just make sure it’s something easy to remember. Something like AtlantaRealEstate.com/FirstTime might be good. Something like AtlantaRealEstate.com/First_Time_Home_Buyer.html – not so much.
So, what do you think? Any great ideas for new ways to motivate your Internet visitors?
I’m sure you know that you need something on your website that will motivate visitors to contact you. Otherwise, you end up with a pretty website that may even have a fair number of visitors, but does nothing for you in terms of lead generation.
This post will address the first two things you need to do to provide strong motivation for your real estate website visitors to contact you:
- Identify a unique, valuable and attention-grabbing offer.
- Create the offer.
- Promote the offer.
The best way to set up a real estate website (and your marketing plan) is to identify a niche market. And, if you do that, identifying compelling propositions is much easier. For example:
First-Time Homebuyers
If this is your niche, think about the questions that first-time homebuyers ask you. Is there a way you can put together a booklet to answer those questions? It could be a booklet that explains the buying process, and perhaps most especially, how to avoid the traps first-timers often fall into. To identify the traps, just think of all the things you tell your first-timers as opposed to the questions they ask you.
Think about presentation, too. A booklet called “First-Time Homebuyers Guide” isn’t going to be compelling. Give the offer a strong name to create an individual identity for it. How does “Staying Out of Court When Buying Your First Home”. Maybe a bit strong, but you get the idea.
And, when you put that booklet together, don’t prepare it on plain paper. Create a letterhead-looking template for the pages that contains your logo and contact information – and don’t forget your web address!
If you’re very creative, you could turn the booklet into a video with you and some of your first-time buyers as the stars.
Since your goal is to generate leads, set up the offer page to require some contact information before the visitor can access the information. Don’t make too much information required – you don’t want to scare the prospect. And, make sure you display a privacy statement with the form to ensure your visitors that you won’t be selling their contact information, etc.
But, how would you provide a video online? If you have the ability to put a registration form in front of a page on your site, or before a visitor has access to the offer, that’s great. If you don’t, you can always use a regular contact form, then send email replies (an auto-responder would be best) that contain a link to the page containing the offer.
Second Home Buyers
Would second home buyers in your area be interested in finding out how to get their second home to pay for itself by renting it when it isn’t being used by the owner? Put something together that illustrates the feasibility of that happening. For example home prices/money down/interest rates, calculate the scenarios considering typical rental rates in the area, typical occupancy percentages, etc.
Neighborhoods
If you’re focusing on specific neighborhoods, take the time to meet some of the local business people. Put together a coupon book for discounts on dining, cleaning, hardware making the local merchants your partners. It could be you’ll only be out the price of printing the coupons if you play your cards right.
None of these compelling propositions can be identified and developed overnight. But, let’s say it takes 6 months. You’ll still be in business — won’t you? If so, you’ll be in business with a compelling offer or not. But, you’ll probably enjoy the business more if you have one. . . or two.
Do You Use Compelling Propositions?
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One thing I preach is the concept of web-centric real estate marketing. But, you probably already know that. What that means is that you use your real estate website as the hub for your marketing efforts.
If you send a postcard, encourage the recipient to visit your website for a specific reason. If you have a Facebook fan page, encourage the recipient to visit your website for a specific reason. And, the list goes on. But, how to use your website as a hub isn’t the main point of this post.
Do You Use Compelling Propositions?
A compelling proposition is the “specific reason” noted in the paragraph above. You need to give prospects a reason to visit your website. Just putting a web address on a postcard isn’t enough motivation. People just aren’t that curious.
But if there is something on your website that a prospect really wants. . . something that would compel them to visit your website. . . something that would make them look like the guy in the photo above. . . you’re in business!
What Does Your Market Consider to be Compelling?
That is always the big, BIG question. And, the reason why more agents don’t use compelling propositions is because putting one together requires WORK.
But, if you’re among the multitude of real estate professionals who constantly lament that you have traffic on your website but no leads, you should be getting to the point where you’ll admit that the work is worth it.
Here’s what the work consists of:
- Identifying a unique, valuable and attention-grabbing offer.
- Creating the offer.
- Promoting the offer.
Stay tuned for posts addressing those three topics. In the meantime, if you have a compelling offer on your website, if you’ve tried but failed to create a compelling offer, etc. leave a comment. Tell me about the offer you use that works, or tell me how/why you got stuck putting one together!
