Making Your Website Work For You - Real Estate Blogdog

Approximately 65 percent of REALTORS® report having a website for at least five years but only 2 percent of their business come from those sites, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. Yet more than 90 percent of home buyers start their search online.

Does anyone else see the problem with these numbers?

I am all for referrals and repeat business, but what if you could connect with home buyers more frequently and in better ways? The numbers don’t lie: Home buyers and sellers are online, and it may be easier to get them on your website than you ever thought possible.

The best way to get real estate buyers and sellers to visit an agent’s web site is with optimized SEO and blogging.

That is exactly what RE blogdog is all about. Believe it or not they go hand in hand. First off, you need to have a blog on your own website. One of the keys to having blog posts is, the ability to share posts to your social media via a link. That way people can comment on your website as well as your social media.

If your website is about real estate in Scottsdale AZ. Then your blogs should be about real estate in Scottsdale AZ. Too many times realtors blog about local accommodations, mortgage loans, or just do the same old boring list of tips on how to move or clean your house. These topics have been done…and done…and done. I would recommend talking about the latest listings in your market area. Or how prices of homes have gone up or down.

Does your website have IDX?

If you have a real estate website, then you should have an IDX. What is an IDX, you might be asking? In the simplest terms: For real estate agents and brokers in the US, IDX is the system that allows REALTORS® to show MLS property listings on their websites. IDX stands for “Internet Data Exchange”, which sounds technical, but really it’s quite simple from the agent’s perspective. Also include a search of available homes to fit your blog post topic. If you use latest listings for the sort order of the IDX. You will always have fresh content on that page.(great for SEO)

See an example of a RE blogdog post via abrentco.com real estate website.

If you have traffic flowing to your site but you’re still only getting about 2 percent of your business from online leads, then there may be a secondary problem with your website. It might be ineffective on a usability level. Does it have outdated listings? Does it look like a site that was created when the internet first became a thing? Your website may not offer engaging reasons for people to contact you or leave their information. And your site must be mobile-friendly, bottom line.

This brings us to my next tip

Get website visitors to leave their contact information by creating a fun and compelling offer that is tied to a prominent data-collection form. Why? This will help convert site surfers into actual leads.

None of us like spam, and most home buyers and sellers are savvy enough to know if they complete your contact form, then they may never get off your e-mail list. As shocked as we may be when it comes to prospects reluctance to sign up on our business lists, we know this is the very reason why we do not sign-up on most retail websites. Unless, of course, the website offers us something we want. This is intuitive when we visit various retail sites, so why do we expect our real estate site visitors to think or act any differently?