A Good Real Estate Website
Delivers Great Content &
Attracts Prospects
The goal of having a real estate website is to encourage prospects to customers to contact you.Why Build A Real Estate Website?
To website purists, the best websites are those that are designed and built from scratch, by combining several applications.These folks tend to scorn template based sites the way salad purists scorn packaged salad and bottled dressing.
If the reason you are building a website is to demonstrate your technical know-how and expertise, by all means build it from scratch.
If however your reason for developing a real estate website is to get customers to contact you, using a template based website can be the perfect approach.
The website of Andrea Swiedler, a Realtor® from New Milford Connecticut illustrates how good a template-based real estate website can be.
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A Good Template-Based Real Estate Website
The opening screen shot of the home page is clean and inviting.After visually introducing Andrea, the home page immediately gives visitors what they want...information.
If you are searching for homes, the search feature is front and center, clean and simple.
If, however you are looking for other kinds of information, the navigation bars along the left of the page get you started on your search, quickly and easily.
As you scan the topics listed on the navigation bars, some attractive content in the form of interesting stories and informative tips and comments.
All in all, the front page is a great introduction to Andrea's website.
Of the many categories in the navigation bars is the 'About Me' page.
This page illustrates a minor flaw in the template. Although 2 identical pictures on the same web page is 1 too many, Andrea cannot remove 1 without removing both.
In some respects, this page should be more properly be called “About You”.
In describing Andrea's personal brand and brand promise, the page
outlines the kinds of benefits that clients can expect from hiring
Andrea. After a brief outline of these client services, Andrea has included several testimonials and a list of her honors and achievements.
This page goes a long a way to answering the common prospects' questions:
- What's in it for me?
- Why should I hire you?
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Andrea's Story
In preparing this page, I asked Andrea about her experience in choosing to use the corporate website format for her own website.Here are some of her comments:
Less Hassle
“When I
decided to develop my own
website, I
had worked up a design but had not put it
anywhere.
“I chose to use a corporate template because I wanted less hassle than doing my own was going to take.
I was thinking about the future, IDX, etc. I felt it was more important to spend my time selling real estate than it was to spend it working on a website.
“Although I knew I would be giving up a bit of artistic control, I felt the time I would save was important to me.
“I also knew that because things change all the time, I wanted to be able to have one person to call and answer my questions, give me advice rather than to try and do all the research myself.
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“I chose to use a corporate template because I wanted less hassle than doing my own was going to take.
I was thinking about the future, IDX, etc. I felt it was more important to spend my time selling real estate than it was to spend it working on a website.
“Although I knew I would be giving up a bit of artistic control, I felt the time I would save was important to me.
“I also knew that because things change all the time, I wanted to be able to have one person to call and answer my questions, give me advice rather than to try and do all the research myself.
A Breeze To Set Up
“When I was looking into different companies, the initial cost of development were staggering to me. I felt that most companies were offering the same services on the whole, yet some were charging huge set up fees.“The company I have been with was a breeze to set up, however I will admit that my website was rather dull and static as I did not take full advantage of their knowledge base.
“I may have known how to make the pages and save them, I didn’t understand what a good website needed, and didn’t know about SEO.
“To stay on top of it takes a lot of time. Unless you have the money to hire someone to do everything for you, write content, keep up with your page rankings, etc, you will need to keep up with the latest.
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Learn All You Can
“If
you have not yet developed your own websites, learn all
you
can about SEO, check many other agents' websites and see what draws
you in, then call around to the different companies and see what they
will offer you.
“Figure out a way to incorporate your blogging into your website.
“Make sure that the people who you are working with will work with you, will take the time to explain things to you, will help you with any ideas you may come up with for you site.
My experience with the company I use is nothing short of excellent.
“The major thing that keeps me where I am is the level of customer service. Not once have I been ignored, my requests and questions get answered in a timely fashion, I am thrilled with this.
“As a result of developing my own website I will be able to keep up with the changes that are required as the market changes.
“I can make the changes needed to keep my page rankings up, to keep people interested in my website, to get them to engage, to sign up and search for homes.
“In 4 short months of really putting an effort into my website I have had people signing up for searches.
“The whole goal of having a real estate website is to get customers to contact me, and this is happening now.”
Andrea's
website
clearly demonstrates you can develop your real estate website using
a template-based corporate format. “Figure out a way to incorporate your blogging into your website.
“Make sure that the people who you are working with will work with you, will take the time to explain things to you, will help you with any ideas you may come up with for you site.
My experience with the company I use is nothing short of excellent.
“The major thing that keeps me where I am is the level of customer service. Not once have I been ignored, my requests and questions get answered in a timely fashion, I am thrilled with this.
“As a result of developing my own website I will be able to keep up with the changes that are required as the market changes.
“I can make the changes needed to keep my page rankings up, to keep people interested in my website, to get them to engage, to sign up and search for homes.
“In 4 short months of really putting an effort into my website I have had people signing up for searches.
“The whole goal of having a real estate website is to get customers to contact me, and this is happening now.”
The key of course is to keep your site client-focused and offer great web content that satisfies visitors...just as Andrea has done.
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Now...You Tell Me:
- How does your site compare to Andrea's real estate website?
- What feature of your site do you like better than something on hers?
Or maybe Andrea's site has triggered a desire to update or modify your site content...that's fine too.
Just complete the form and I will conduct a free review of your website and offer suggestions as to how you might improve your site.
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