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Do you understand the meaning of the word compelling? It means forceful, convincing, persuasive and gripping. That’s what a truly successful ninja website should be.
Take a look at your website and ask yourself if it is compelling. If you were a prospect, is there something that would grab your attention and make you want to read more? Is there something that would make you want to give this person your contact information? If you’re honest, 95% of you will say no.
I work as a consultant to some of the biggest agents in the country. My clientele understands that their sites can make them serious money. Their websites are compelling—so much so that once they get a visitor, they rarely lose them to their competitors. This compelling quality can be traced to ten common denominators amongst the pros. I call them the Ten Website Commandments for Making Money:
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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Why do these agents get so many sales from their website? Because they’re getting so many leads from their website. Why are they getting so many leads? Because their websites are highly visible in the search engines. Why are their websites so visible? Because they all “invest” in SEO to make their websites “search engine friendly.” It doesn’t matter if you have the most professional website in the world if nobody knows you’re there.
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IDX – Search Home Listings *
I can’t believe that I have to mention this one, but there are still agents who either do not see the value of this tool or give it poor placement on their website. Sometimes when consulting with an agent, I’ll suggest adding a link to listings on their homepage. The agent says there is one—the button that says “Homes.” How does that tell me that I can find listings? Trust me, it doesn’t. “Search Home Listings” should be displayed prominently and in various places so that if the viewer misses one, they’ll find it elsewhere. Better yet, include a “Quick Search,” where you can search listings right on the homepage. No more guessing whether the agent is going to make you sign a “guestbook.”
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Featured Listings
Your website’s main target is potential buyers. But don’t forget to showcase your sellers’ homes as well. “Featured Listings” implies a sense of pride. It is easy to highlight a seller’s home with photos, text and even a video tour. When the listing presentation is made, the “Wow Factor” comes when the seller sees their home on the website in glorious color.
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Drip Marketing
“Drip marketing” is one of the best tools the pros use to automatically and immediately make an impact. This tool can make visitors “want” to give you their name, email and phone number. An effective “drip marketing” tool is a form the buyer fills out giving the price range, location, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and any other features that they want in a home. Prospects are automatically notified by email whenever a home that meets their parameters comes on the market.
- “Static” Web Pages
A “static” webpage is any page over which you have complete control, and it is locked in until you change it. Typical “static” pages are “About Me,” “Testimonials,” “Communities” and other pages of description. Why are these pages so important? They play an important role in establishing your professionalism. And from an SEO perspective, they are ripe for burying your keyword phrases within the text and thus getting you found more often.
- “Dynamic” Web Pages
As opposed to “static” webpages, “dynamic” webpages have content that can be pulled from back-end databases and modified by the viewer. Some examples of “dynamic” webpages that prospects love are “Search the MLS,” “Loan Calculator,” drip marketing pages and more. “Dynamic” webpages add real zing to your website. They make the website a tool for the user rather than a marketing piece for you.
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Blog Sites
Blog sites by their very nature are communicative and “chatty.” They are meant not just to be read but to be commented on by their readers. Many agents are shifting their emphasis to having just a blog site, as they are so easy to put together and maintain. However, blog sites are best used in conjunction with an effective website for a 1-2 punch. Think of the website as the mother ship, and the blog site as the satellite that can bring in visitors. The power of the blog site is its use of text, audio and video—and its frequent updating. If linked to the website, search engines will read the website more frequently, giving you higher rankings and more search engine visibility.
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Video Tours
For years, many agents have been using “virtual tours,” overlapping panoramic shots that showcase entire rooms. However, new technologies have given us the ability to take a video camera and “shoot” a home or neighborhood with voiceovers. Once video is shot using a digital camera, the file can be copied over to a standard computer. Videos, especially HD digital videos, have very large file sizes, so these files should be uploaded to YouTube or converted to Flash and embedded on your website or blog site.
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Social Marketing
Social marketing includes social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), social bookmarking (Digg, Del.icio.us, etc.) and video/photo sharing (YouTube, Flickr, etc.). So much can be done now with a digital camera and/or video camera that you can almost produce your own commercial. It used to be you were limited by budget and outside help to create the marketing piece you wanted. With social marketing, only your mind is your limitation. It is almost all free and is getting easier and easier to use.
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Mash-Ups
Another important word to keep in mind is “convergence,” the combination of services such as the MLS listings, maps and other tools. I’ve even seen virtual tours and video combined with mapping MLS searches. MLS searches that utilize the new “mash-ups” have a more elegant look and feel and definitely will hold the attention of the viewer far longer than the typical MLS search. The downside of using mash-ups (at least right now) is that they are the one tool that can be a little more costly. In most cases, a lot of money has been invested into creating the technology. This is typically paid back in the form of royalties for its use.
* This portion of the article has been edited since its original publication to conform to MLS language-usage standards outlined by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. “Search the MLS” has been changed to “Search Home Listings” to ensure that the button presents a true picture to consumers.
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Randal K. Eagar, CRS, GRI, is the president/founder of Computer Camp in Salt Lake City, Utah. President of the Council of Residential Specialists in 2006, Randy is an experienced instructor and author of multiple real estate technical training courses. If you are interested in receiving a list of websites that utilize these commandments, you can email Randy at Randy@WebsTarget.com. |
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