5 Things Your Real Estate Website Should Do for It’s End Users

Your real estate website is an arm of your business. Yes, you have an office space to meet them in. Of course, you’ve got business cards and your face on grocery store carts and bus stops – with a current picture, I hope. You attend the Chamber functions and the networking events. Everything you do is meant to build your business, increase those referrals, and help more people buy or sell a home.

If you have a website but aren’t really sure what purpose it serves, here are a few things your website should be doing for people who visit it – and how you can make that happen for them.

Help People Find a Home

Of course, this one falls under the “Duh” category. Most real estate websites are mostly function as a search engine for listings. Don’t rely on adding your own listings that need manual updates. Make sure you’re using an IDX or other MLS feed so that visitors get the most accurate and up-to-date listing information.

Share Market Information

A lot of people want information before they’ll commit to buying or selling their home. Make sure you are the source of that information. If your local or state association makes statistics available, use them. Post links to the national stats. And, of course, pull reports from your own MLS or a market data vendor and share good local  information on your website.

Teach Them Something About Real Estate

Whether you blog or post videos, somewhere on your website should be an area for information you’re sharing about the real estate process. Blog and video topics can be anything from “What is Title Insurance” to “How to Stage a Home” and anything in between. Not sure where to start? Use the questions your buyers and sellers ask you – write down the answer and share it as a blog post.

Give People a Way to Contact You

This may sound basic, but you’d be surprised at how many people bury their contact information on their website. Phone numbers, email address, social media profiles – make sure a visitor to your website doesn’t have to hunt for your information. There’s a real good chance they won’t, and you’ll have lost the potential lead.

Make Them Want to Share Their Contact Information

Don’t expect people to visit your website and immediately hand over their email address or phone number. Give them a reason to share that information. Offer an exclusive e-book or white paper on the home buying or selling process. Let them access specific market data when they sign-up as a member to your website. Create a newsletter with your blog posts or videos and ask them to subscribe. (This one works best if you’ve got great content in your blog already.)

When done right, your real estate website can be a useful business tool that brings in leads, creates loyalty to your brokerage or to you, and helps you build a successful real estate business. Make your website a place that people want to come back to and stay when they arrive because they know they’ll get something of value for their time.