website marketing

Generate More Real Estate Listings: Tweak Your Homepage

Apr 22, 2021

Effective real estate agent websites aren’t cheap. So many agents spend a small fortune on theirs only to have it go live with no clue that their sites truly aren’t finished and need some tweaking.

By “effective,” I mean engaging to prospects, able to help you convert prospects or even get visitors to stick around long enough for you to work your magical powers of persuasion.

If you hope to rank organically for local searches, customizing your homepage is something you absolutely must do.

Your homepage is your site’s curb appeal

You have only 10 to 20 seconds to communicate your value proposition to those who land on your homepage (Nielsen Norman Group).

What problem do you solve and how do you do it better than other agents?

While your homepage represents your site’s curb appeal, your value proposition is what entices them to want to know more about your services.

Let’s take a closer look at value propositions

Here’s an example of a site that gets the value proposition out front

PetPlate makes it clear that not only does it offer fresh, healthy dog food, it customizes the meals and delivers to your door.

So, ok, it’s not a real estate site.

Although you may cringe at the thought of an iBuyer, you have to admit that they do some crazy effective marketing.

Opendoor’s value proposition is front and center. They will give an instant offer to homeowners hoping to sell. The problems they solve?

“No showings. No Stress. No surprises.”

The whole homepage is, in fact, one long value proposition. As you scroll beneath the fold, you’re shown how Offerpad will make “… selling your home easy, fast, and stress-free.”

Back up your promise of value with proof

One of the best ways to communicate value, however, is through testimonials. There’s nothing more effective than someone who has used your service singing your praises.

Kelly Soule, Lake Tahoe, NV agent, has the right idea. Notice the testimonial under the photo of the lake.

Your testimonial doesn’t need to be this long. In fact, choose your best one and get your client’s permission to edit it to make it shorter and to use their name on your website.

Where are you?

If your site is like so many other agent sites, I could land on it and not have any idea where you list and sell real estate.

Imagine you’re interested in relocating overseas, or you’re from a neighboring country and you come across this website:

It’s a gorgeous photo and one that, no doubt, locals will recognize. But what about us?

There is absolutely nothing above the homepage fold that tells us which market this brokerage serves. It turns out to be west and central London, but you’d only learn that by clicking the “Enter” button.

You’ll also have to go there to learn their value proposition. They did have the right idea about putting testimonials on the home page but they’re beneath the fold. Scooting that green box up a smidge would make all the difference.

Simple changes to your website’s homepage can be worth their weight in gold. Go take a look at yours. Is it working as hard as it can to entice visitors to stick around and is it generating more real estate listings?

If not, put some of the ideas listed above into action now.

If you’re interested in creating a buyer pool, for the new listings you’re website is going to attract, consider pursuing renters.

Did you know Renter Scheduled Campaigns are currently on sale 10% OFF the first month? But ONLY for 3 MORE DAYS! (sale ends 4/24/21).

*Renter* Scheduled Campaigns (shown above). Learn more, **HERE**

TO LAUNCH A RENTER CAMPAIGN:

Hit “CLICK HERE”, below, to get started on your Renter Scheduled Campaign (from a desktop or laptop computer).

And, remember, YOU DON’T PAY for each mailing until it actually goes out (cancel or change each mailing up until the night before it goes out. The price shown at check out is per mailing, not campaign total).

Launch a Renter Scheduled Campaign now, CLICK HERE!

Please reach out to our support team at 866.405.3638 with questions or if there is anything we can do to help you with your success.

PLUS: When you have time…here are some helpful resources we’ve made available to support your success.

1. The Free 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, Niche Marketing, Get More Listings, Geographic Farming, and Sphere of Influence. –Click Here

2. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals. – Click Here

3. Become a Neighborhood Brand

Become branded in a specific neighborhood with a 12X15 marketing piece sent automatically each month to an exclusive carrier route. Watch this video to learn more or Click Here.

4. The Free Real Estate Mailing List Guide

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The Real Estate Mailing List Guide outlines the top tools for generating targeted prospecting lists including Baby Boomers, Empty Nesters, Investors, Lifestyle Interests, High-Income Renters, Move-Up Markets, and more. The Guide also defines done-for-you marketing campaigns to match these markets. –Click Here

5. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

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Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

6. The Free Online ROI Calculator

Consistency and automation are the keys to success. Discover how effective direct mail marketing can dramatically increase your bottom line. Enter your statistics in our Free online ROI Calculator and click the ‘CALCULATE MY ROI’ button to see your results instantly! –Click Here

7. The Free Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

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The “Crush It” Guide includes easy steps to launching an effective direct mail marketing campaign, how to create a targeted prospect list, the perfect way to layout marketing materials for success, seven opportunities available to target in your area right now. –Click Here

The 3 Most Common Website Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Sep 9, 2020

Most agent website mistakes are easy to fix once you know how. Let’s take a look at the three most damaging agent website problems and their solutions.

1. Lack of focus

Many agent websites seem to reflect a common agent mindset: “I am a jack of all trades and master of none.” When agents are trying to reach every, last conceivable prospect, their websites end up with a vague and meaningless focus.

No, “Buyers” and “Sellers” aren’t target audiences – at least not in a way that sets you apart from every other agent in town. If you truly want these two, overly-broad groups as a target, create two websites, one for each.

Your buyer’s site can then be narrowed down even further. Are you looking to work with renters? Condo buyers? Move-up buyers? Retirement buyers? or Luxury homebuyers?

The same holds true for the seller-focused site: first-time sellers, downsizers, selling the luxury or waterfront home, for instance.

“One of the biggest marketing mistakes is to attempt to appeal to everyone at once.”

Suggests Tom Hallissey at Fat Guy Media. “The most-efficient way to reach more qualified consumers is to target smaller, more specific groups.”

We once worked with a woman who specialized in mobile home buyers. Sure, one mobile home here and there seems hardly worth the effort, but this lady specialized and marketed herself as the expert. She made a killing in the mobile home market and, her website was one of her best lead generation tools.

2. Overly-focused on the wrong things

Real estate prospecting is all about building relationships and each visitor to your site is a prospect. What happens then when visitors are immediately bombarded by how great you are, how many homes you’ve sold and how much money you make?

Is the braggadocio the person you would want to build a relationship with? Of course not. Self-important bragging is unattractive and doesn’t tell your website visitor one thing about “what is in it for them”.

So, skip the hype about you and, instead, make your website client-focused. If your ideal prospects visit your website, what do they want to know? How can you help them find it? Use your knowledge of and experience in real estate to demonstrate why you are the agent they should hire.

3. Wait … isn’t real estate all about location?

We recently read a Facebook post from an agent who was complaining that, after six months, his website just wasn’t “working.” He was blaming the website company.

Yet, one look at his site points the finger right back at the agent. The only mention of his market – his geographic location – was in his email address, posted at the bottom of the page.

He bought a template website and did nothing to customize it, except to plaster his own name all over it. This, despite there being numerous opportunities on the home page alone to stick in at least the name of his town.

His neighborhood pages consisted of his IDX for the area. That’s it.

According to NAR’s study, Real Estate in the Digital Age, nearly half of homebuyers using the internet are interested in neighborhood information.

Many agents ignore this section (if they even have one) of their websites, and it’s a pity. What’s it like living in a particular community? What are the good points? Why would I – as a first-time buyer, a move-up buyer, a commuter, retirement buyer, someone with a family or any other type of buyer want to live there?

Use your website to show pictures, discuss local news and events in your blog posts and anything else that captures why this neighborhood is a great place to live.

If your website isn’t converting as you hoped it would consider tweaking it to be more consumer-focused and offer the information they’re craving.

Send the Dream Neighborhood postcard from the Move-Up Market Series to a Move-Up Market prospect list.

Need help targeting a specific niche of buyers or sellers? Use our Demographic Search Tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy). Or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are some helpful resources we’ve made available to support your success.

1. Become a Neighborhood Brand

Become branded in a specific neighborhood with a 12X15 marketing piece sent automatically each month to an exclusive carrier route. Watch this video to learn more or Click Here.

2. The Free Real Estate Mailing List Guide

3. The Free 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

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4. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan

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Treat your business like a business it is vital to long-term success in this industry. Some agents may put together elaborate business plans, yet there’s something powerful about keeping it simple. Check out our one page Online Real Estate Business Plan. – Click Here

5. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

6. The Free Online ROI Calculator

7. The Free Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

Is your website generating real estate leads?

Feb 26, 2020

With all the changes Facebook has been forced to institute in its ad program, many agents we speak with are dumping their ads on the platform and seeking alternative forms of lead generation.

Some are reconsidering the “old” ways to generate leads, primarily direct mail.

We agree that direct mail is even more effective today than ever, but all marketing plans should be multi-pronged.

One free way to generate leads that is often overlooked is the agent website. Sure, you can hire someone to tweak your SEO, but there are other ways to help generate organic traffic.

Start with your content. As you go through the content on your site, keep this advice from Dan Ritzke, founder of Third Act Marketing, top-of-mind:

No one wants to learn about your brand

No one wants to learn about your product

No one wants to learn about you

Everyone wants to solve problems that are bothering them

Everyone wants to make their life easier

Everyone wants to make their job easier.

luxury marketing brochures — Give consumer s what they are asking for. Create property brochures with multi-photos and detailed descriptions. Available in the Brochure section.

The “everyone” you should concentrate on is real estate consumers. Luckily, NAR offers some tips they gleaned in a survey of these potential clients (2019 Homebuyer and Seller Generational Trends).

The top three website features that consumers find “very helpful” have to do with listings:

Photos
Detailed information about listings
Floor plans

That these consumers chose listing information as the most useful shows exactly why they visited real estate websites. Although neighborhood information is important, that’s not why they visited.

Your bio is also important, but most don’t find it “useful” to them.

The most useless information on agent websites, according to survey respondents, includes:

Videos
Information about open houses
Real estate news

While all ages rank videos as unimportant, 27 percent of baby boomers like them (the highest percentage of all groups).

What stood out the most for us is that floor plans are important to real estate website visitors yet we see few listings that include this feature.

Among the tasks you can accomplish to make your listings more valuable to buyers is to start including floor plans, lots of photos and get more detailed in your descriptions. Get more tips here.

While we can’t personally vouch for the following floor plan providers, several agents we’ve spoken with recommend them:

Then, ditch the videos on your website. Another NAR report proves that homebuyers don’t watch videos and don’t find them useful. They do, however, like virtual tours. Get on the 3-D virtual tour train in 2020 to offer value to website visitors.

The value the real estate agent brings to the process

That NAR survey also asked participants about the “Most Important Factors when Choosing an Agent.”

Let’s start with what they consider least important:

What matters least to real estate consumers?

Which broker you work for
Your level of community involvement
Designations (last on the list)

Note: There have been studies over the past couple of years that claim an agent’s community involvement is very important to the younger real estate consumer.

Your broker’s brand, whether it’s a Keller Williams or RE/Max or a local boutique brokerage, is often shown to be of little importance to consumers.

And, designations? Not only do consumers not know what the letters stand for, but when told, they aren’t impressed.

Create a personal brochure describing important attributes and experience and use it as a leave-behind

Don’t feel as if you need to take up space on your website, especially above the fold, with these items. Save that area for the things potential clients feel are valuable.

The top 3 qualities consumers look for in a real estate agent:

That the agent is honest and trustworthy
Experience
Reputation

Experience matters most to baby boomers and least to members of Gen X.

Think about Ritzke’s advice when tweaking your website’s information about you. Overtly salesy stuff will get you nowhere.

For instance, while they value experience, it will take a lot more than “Three decades as the top-selling agent” to convince them.

Ask yourself how your experience will help them solve common problems in a real estate transaction:

Experienced agents are better negotiators
Experienced agents know what can go wrong and can help buyers/sellers be proactive to avoid these pitfalls

When it comes to proving your honesty and reputation, nothing will do that better than your testimonials.

Tell them until the cows come home that you’re experienced and honest or the king or queen of trustworthiness and they may or — more likely — may not believe you.

When tweaking your website ensure that your best testimonial resides above the fold and that others – especially those in which your clients extoll your honesty and boost your reputation — are sprinkled liberally throughout your site.

Need more tips on how and why to use testimonials? You’ll find them right here.

Send the Multi-Photo Just Listed Postcards out to the area surrounding your listing. Turn one listing into many.

Need help targeting the perfect niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are Free killer tools to help your success this year!

1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan – NEW 2020!

2. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan – NEW 2020!

4. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

5. The Free Online ROI Calculator

3. Get the ALL-NEW Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

The “Crush It” Guide includes easy steps to launching an effective direct mail marketing campaign, how to create a targeted mailing list, the perfect way to layout marketing materials for success, seven opportunities available to target in your area right now. –Click Here

Boost Traffic! Dust Off Old Website Content

Website Marketing

Sep 17, 2018

Update Your Community Pages

What if we told you that you can increase organic traffic to your site by as much as 40 percent just by updating old content?

“It’s one of the quickest (and easiest) ways to make Google recognize you and bring your rankings back from the graveyard,” according to Neal Patel. He goes on to explain how the co-founder of Ninja Outreach increased the site’s organic traffic by 40 percent just by resurrecting old content.

The best content on your site to bring back from the dead resides on your community or neighborhood pages.

Why?

Because these pages, if done right, are your most valuable when it comes to showing up in organic real estate searches.

Let’s find the walking dead posts

Find the posts that have been bringing in the most traffic. The Google Search Console website is a handy tool for this step. We prefer the old version, which you can reach by clicking the link on the bottom left side of the page.
Go to “Search Traffic” and then click on “Search Analytics.”
Now you have a list of your most popular content. Click on “CTR,” located above the list.

To identify the posts that will “give you the most bang for your buck,” according to David Schneider, co-founder of Ninja Outreach, look for the following on your most popular pages:

A CTR lower than 1 percent
A high impression rate
A “position” between 1 and 30

What to change

It can be pretty embarrassing looking at your old blog posts but you’ll need to do so before going into the site’s backend to tweak them.

First, check the page’s overall appeal. Does it include enough photos, subheadings and white space? Then, check the page for broken links.

Make note of any issues you need to fix and then head over to the backend of your site.

Next, look for the following:

Fix or update links on the page. Cyrus Shepard suggests that you should update the text surrounding the links as well, claiming that it helps search engine spiders more readily see that the page has been updated.
Consider removing any content that isn’t evergreen. This includes mentions of the community’s average home price, which, as you know, can become quickly outdated.
If you haven’t yet added alt text to your images, do so now.
Consider adding additional text to the page to make the word count longer. Have there been changes to the area since you wrote the original content? Any changes planned for the future? Longer content tends to rank higher so if there is anything you can add to beef up skimpy content, it’s worth it to take the time to do so.
Is there enough white space on the page? Break up paragraphs so that each contains no more than five sentences, add bulleted lists, subheadings, and additional photos.
Ensure your CTA is clear and compelling.
Check the copy for grammar, punctuation and spelling errors.

Once you hit publish, head over to your social media pages and post your new and improved content.

One additional note: Patel suggests checking that blog posts don’t compete with your community pages for “SEO authority.”

“For example, you create an amazing page for your primary neighborhood focused on ‘real estate-centric’ keywords,” such as ‘homes for sale in (name of community).

Then, you later publish blog posts for the same neighborhood using the same keywords in prominent locations, such as the title, URL & headings – that would be a mistake,” Patel cautions.

Keep track of the pages’ progress

SEO experts suggest taking a screenshot of the Google Console results we walked you through earlier. Then, when you check for changes in a month or two you’ll have something to compare the new results too.

Keep tweaking as needed until you get the results you’re looking for.

Homebuyers demand local knowledge and neighborhood or community pages are an ideal way to meet that demand. But letting information go stale isn’t a good strategy.

In fact, it could be costing you money.

A great way to keep your Geographic farm updated with local knowledge is to send the Neighborhood Update postcard with a Free Offer.

Send out at least 100 in an area where you want more listings.

Need help targeting the perfect niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are 2 free ways we can help you CRUSH IT in 2018!

1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan.

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, Niche Marketing, Listing Inventory, Geographic Farming, and Sphere of Influence – Click Here

2. The Free Online ROI Calculator.

Also…check out these cool tools

Three Click Postcards – Just snap a home photo & create a postcard all from your mobile phone

MLSmailings.com – Automated Just Listed, Just Sold Postcards

Market Dominator System – Become a neighborhood brand

Want to Refer a friend or colleague? Refer them, Here. THEY get a Free $25 Gift Card and YOU become their hero. BTW, you also get a $25 Gift Card too (now that’s what I’m talking about)!

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