Site design is subjective and every agent has their own opinion, likes & dislikes. What’s important to consider is… most home buyers & sellers have a very limited attention span on the web. If you think about your own behavior when looking for information, do you move around quickly until you see something you want?

To help think design through, here are some steps we’d advocate to support better impact and lead conversion with your site’s home page design!

Successful Site Design

1. Define Your Purpose Succinctly: find the discipline to define who you are and what you do up top and in as simple a manner as is possible.

The Mortgage Centre Toronto is not only the logo, but incredibly succinct and easy to understand. Adding the region of emphasis – ‘Servicing The Greater Toronto Area’ – certainly supports.

2. Emphasize ‘Call To Action’: give visitors an obvious and immediate means to get what they want.

The Mortgage Centre Toronto and Corvallis Oregon Agent Annette Sievert want visitors to get what they came for including options to search homes; to access to great deals; to ask questions and to communicate now!

3. Offer Clear Menu Navigation: give the visitor a means to drill down into your content without having it clutter the home page design.

We’re suggesting items for emphasis in this post, but your site will likely offer a lot more … so develop a top-level menu of tabs that are simple to understand & navigate. Allow visitors to drill down easily, yet the home page doesn’t have to be an overwhelming experience.

4. Demonstrate You Are Current: it is good practice to demonstrate you are both current & knowledgeable in your profession and you can do it with your site’s blog.

However, there’s no reason your entire home page has to be blog copy; certainly not when you’re trying to achieve all of the above [and below]. Consider designing a summary of what exists on your site’s blog, with a few recent post titles all linking into the greater depth of information you have there.

It’s also worth mentioning, you do want some recognition of new copy on your home page. It supports more visitor page views and also deeper search engine crawling!

5. Offer Reasons To Register & Subscribe: most visitors want to be in control of their experience on your site, so allow it; however, there’s no reason you can’t offer some improved value in exchange for a registration.

A number of real estate agents offer unlimited free home search because, frankly, visitors expect it AND the competition is doing it too. Beyond free search, the opportunity to register for email when similar listings arrive on the market is a pretty standard lead capture solution with most IDX Search accounts. Other options that might enhance an individuals search experience include a personal account profile, saved search criteria and also specific saved listings?  How about FREE UPDATES via email where there’s some good local blogging going on? In either case, find conspicuous but not obnoxious ways to promote these added value registration options.

6. Try And Keep It Above The Fold: and we repeat, “most home buyers & sellers have a very limited attention span on the web!”

People have different screen sizes, screen resolutions, browsers, versions of browser, security configurations and ‘who knows what else’ influencing their view, so do your best to keep what’s important above the fold! Don’t worry about all that depth of content you have, if you designed well visitors should be able to navigate their way to it all easily enough.

Related Posts: 

WHAT IS YOUR GOAL WITH SITE DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN?

BUILDING GREAT BUSINESS SITES THAT FOCUS ON CLIENT GOALS!

Interesting Development: San Diego’s four Association of REALTORS® = Sandicor Is Attempting To Direct ‘Consumer Home Buyer Search Traffic’ Away From 3rd Party Aggregated Sites Like Zillow & Trulia Back To Its’ Member Brokers & Agents through an aggregated listings search site of it’s own.

Keep a close eye on this trend nationally because Sandicor appears to feel the traction 3rd party sites Like Zillow & Trulia have with consumers searching for homes is at the expense AND/ OR popularity of local broker / agent websites and brands. 

Here’s an informative video on the Sandicor Consumer Listings Search Effort produced by Wav Group’s Victor Lund , a leading business consultant to various national Real Estate Organizations.

Here’s an email sent out yesterday to it’s members on this new site: 

San Diego’s four Association of REALTORS® and Sandicor are excited to announce the release of a new consumer website! This website is designed to turn the consumer’s focus back to Brokers and Agents and away from third party sites such as Zillow and Trulia that rank among the top 20 websites in the category of San Diego real estate. In addition to the Sandicor MLS site, there will be four additional websites branded to each of the four Shareholder REALTOR® Associations that own Sandicor. The goal is simply to reverse the trend of consumers going out to and staying on third party sites and to drive consumer traffic back to our member’s websites. Recent analysis (click here to view relevant video from Victor Lund) using HitWise (an Experian company) has shown that website traffic from third party sites to broker and agent sites has significantly declined and that consumers are staying on the third party sites for their San Diego real estate information. We want to change this! The four Realtor Associations and Sandicor consumer websites are intended to “unseat” these third party sites as the de facto resources for property searches and property information in San Diego County.

Developed around a powerful and flexible search engine, the websites provide the following benefits for brokers and agents:

–Deliver leads to brokers and agents
–Drive traffic back to brokers and agents and away from third party sites like Trulia and Zillow
–Facilitate a consumer’s search for San Diego County real estate information and properties.
–Provide consumers with unbiased, timely (updated every 10 minutes) and comprehensive data – all of which are valued and preferred by the consumer
–Allow the consumer to find an agent using a name, affiliated office or location
–Permit county-wide Open House searches
–Provide valuable Community Data
–Provide links to helpful information such as Population Statistics, School Systems, and Government Resources
–Offers a variety of reports for both Brokers and Agents on their listings such as the number of views of their listings in a search, the number of times the listing was displayed and emailed and more.
–Lead to a reduction in the fees paid by Brokers for participation in national third party sites.

There is no additional fee to provide this tremendous benefit. Sandicor can leverage the consumer view that the MLS is the trusted source for real estate information provided by and for the real estate professionals in San Diego County. The consumer knows MLS data is unbiased, timely and comprehensive.

Video Can Support SEO, Better Yet It Will Support You With People

Rumor has it video drives competitive SEO. And, if approached correctly, it can [ See below tips AND See Video Improves Likelihood of 1st Page in Google by 50X? ] be true, but let’s not ever forget the effects good content – especially video! - can have on people. It’s one thing to have visitors, but it’s entirely another thing to have loyal & trusting visitors. After all, who’s more likely to buy?

Great Use Of Video For People

We think John Poltrock, Top Murphy NC Agent, sets a great example for real estate marketers with his video tutorial efforts here:

Video: Learn how to search the Murphy NC MLS System for homes.

Optimization Tips for Video

1. Add targeted keywords to your video file names… change abc.jpeg to Murphy_NC_MLS_Search_Tutorial.jpeg
2. Add targeted keywords in video titles & tags
3. Add targeted keywords in video captions & descriptions… *blog posts and pages using an embed code from the video host* can go a long way here!
4. Create a video library on your site
5. And because the Google algorithm counts & compares total video viewings,
a. Create a video library in YouTube… this is where video search and consumption is happening folks!
b. Embed those same YouTube Videos into relevant pages… this will increase Google’s understanding of the content [assuming you describe it] and potential viewings!

Related Posts:

• Murphy NC Real Estate Video Tutorials
• YouTube: Is It Important For Business?
• How Do I Search Engine Optimize My Images?

Seeing as how there are so many homeowners concerned about their taxes, a ‘Free Property Tax Appeal Service’ should be a great lead conversion tool.

Is there an opportunity to assist clients & prospects with their current property values and a tax appeal process? In a down economy and depending on ‘farm area’, assessed values may be down anywhere from 15- 50%. It’s likely property owners are receiving their 2011 ‘Real Property Notice of Valuations’ now. Depending on a number of different factors, can you support your future clients & prospects with a more favorable county valuation … and cement their loyalty?

If so, design a ‘Free Property Tax Appeal Service’ offer into your home page, link it to a form they easily fill out and you’re prepared!

It’s become fashionable for Real Estate IDX Companies to create WordPress- ready plugins. Mostly, this is, to automate property listing driven pages. It makes sense as WordPress is not only acknowledged by Google to have some of the best markup for search engine spidering, but it’s also highly extensible software [i.e. easily modified, including by the addition of useful features.]

While we never recommend one IDX provider over another, and many aren’t available in all markets anyway, we came across this great bit of advice from Diverse Solutions the other day and felt it important to repeat,

“Every dsIDXpress page on your site is index-able content, but it’s content that Google will find on thousands of other real estate websites that use an index-able IDX solution.It’s the original content you add to your site that supports all the dsIDXpress content that will help get your site placement. Simply linking to dozens of dsIDXpress pages can lead to a heavy reliance on dsIDXpress without any supporting original content; which ultimately can lead to huge drops in Google.” - Robert Larson, Official Rep, Diverse Solutions Community Forum, 04/11/11

The quote is fashioned around their own dsIDXPress plugin, and we stand by it! Folks, in the long run and other than good original content there is no silver bullet! IDX driven content activity will help get your site more indexing placement and this has been proven by many of our own clients, but no matter how many index-able pages you can generate always REMEMBER that each page competes individually [think: it's '*page* rank', not 'site rank'] for placement. If everyone else in your marketplace has the same [IDX- driven] indexed content, your competitive rank, visibility and human like- ability is always going to fall back to what ‘on page content’ [and measurable off page reaction = like links, bookmarks, likes, subscribes, etc., etc.] you have.

Ultimately, what differentiates you from a competitor with that same content?

If the dsIDXPress plugin is available in your market, we’re experienced with WordPress integration and would love to answer any questions you may have – please do not hesitate to get in touch! AND AGAIN PLEASE REMEMBER that while these plugins can be a great resource, it’s the original content that wins the long term sustainable war!

PS: 3rd party applications can influence the health of your site! Do your due diligence before adding any 3rd party plugins!

Related Information:

1. What Do Agents And Brokers Need From Their Site?
2. Kinetic Sites Now Incorporating ds IDXPress for MLS Listings!
3. IDX Broker Now Offering a WordPress Real Estate Plugin!

Goal: Affordably consolidate multiple sites into one easily managed, easily indexed site that is flexible and will grow with the business and technology.

The Primary Challenge: Use WordPress to consolidate two separate sites, one a WordPress blog hosted on a sub domain and the second a static HTML website on the primary domain, to an all encompassing WordPress blogsite hosted on the same primary domain.

Secondary Challenge: While re- establishing hundreds of pages to new permalink URLs on the consolidated site, maintain search engine indexing for all content, including any established back links.

Solution: Identify the permalink structure of the static HTML pages, properly apply 301 redirects to the new WordPress based permalink structure, all the while migrating the existing WordPress content from a subdomain into the primary domain to cohesively exist.

Result: “You guys have out done yourselves, I am kicking my self for not doing this sooner!” – Barbara S. Reeves, Mobile AL Real Estate

Similar Custom WordPress Site Consolidation Projects:

- Michael Zimmerman, Honolulu Hi Real Estate Search

- “We’re showing up on page 1 of a google search and that is way AWESOME!!! We all must be doing something right – It has been an absolute pleasure working on this re-design with you and am looking forward to our continuing partnership!!!! Thank you for all your hard work and your complete and total understanding of all our wants and needs.” Joe Stacy, Chicagoland Real Estate

More Custom WordPress:

- Custom WordPress Project: “Fees Generated Pay The Service For The Next 20 Years!” – Mike Gallo on behalf of the N.J.S.A. / VP Winston Staffing

Can Local Real Estate Agents Expect 300+ MLS To Regulate 81 Real Estate Aggregator Sites?

Being that we do a lot of real estate listing integration into WordPress sites, this post is a relevant one for agents fighting to be visible online on a level playing field. Per ‘Geek Estate Blog’ author Justin Britt, “… my competitive nature had me checking to see if other Hawaii real estate websites were also following RETS rules and regulations. Some of them were not.”

At least this is relevant in terms of understanding the SEO benefits of publishing local addresses; understanding how those giant aggregators like Zillow & Trulia and local firms alike are competing with you when publishing addresses AND THEN ALSO understanding what compliance issues AND/ OR protections there may or may not be with your local MLS when publishing local addresses.  

Give  Justin Britt’s post, ‘Can MLS Companies Level The Playing Field?’ a read!

Related Posts:

What Do [Real Estate] Agents And Brokers Need From Their Site?

Ben Rosales over at Agent Genius has a neat post on how consumers can [and are!] sourcing their answers when they search… to vet yours!

In his post titled, ‘You wondered why you should blog as a Realtor, Google is answering’ , Rosales goes on to explain how the timely nature of published content via blogsites can and will work in our favor versus those sites that never seem to move out of the top positions.

We’re always competing to be visible for various target key words & phrases, but what has changed are the varied results a person can have when they search. By narrowing a search via the many options Google offers in the left side bar when one goes looking for answers, it’s quite possible they will be able to bump those annoying sites that seem to forever hold the top positions [for their link profiles, gaming strategies or what have you]  for the high value answers you may be providing on a regular basis!

I suggest giving Ben’s informative post, ‘You wondered why you should blog as a Realtor, Google is answering’ , a look

Ever heard of  Google Fusion Tables? While Google announced it was dropping their ‘real estate listings database to mapping service’, it doesn’t mean they don’t provide real estate professionals with great tools to map listings.

A FREE data management and publishing application, Fusion tables makes it easy to present any data you have, say in CSV files or spreadsheets, visually online. If you’re looking for better ways to present data in posts, Fusions Tables will enhance you ability to do it!

What can you do with Google Fusion?

• Upload your data sets from spreadsheets or CSV files
• Host your data, and then easily embed it on other sites
• Visualize your data on maps, in timelines and on charts
• Pick who can access your data; hide parts of the data if needed
• Merge data from multiple tables
• Collaborate on data with others, track changes and discussions

Three simple steps: import, display, publish.

For real estate posts a Google Fusion Map, with data applied, can display where featured real estate listings are located. It can map where you have sold homes recently, as well as charts and tables for historical sales volume and values.  In addition these tables and maps can be set to be  interactive, allowing both visitor commenting and also just more information for visitors who want it. 

Other real estate pros have utilized market data and reports from sites like Zillow to create valuation maps.  There can be specific values of homes for sale or sold, as well as locations of homes that are for sale within a certain price point.  The tool is virtually limitless, allowing real estate professionals to maximize the information they want their sites to convey. 

You can display school locations in an area, as well as specific information on schools, including performance, ranking and more.

You can show hospital locations, including pop ups to display in-depth information about each hospital.

Even important local businesses you endorse… and the list goes on – go check out Fusion Tables!

What Do Real Estate Agents And Brokers Need From Their Sites [= brand] ? 

If you’re in the real estate business and you haven’t updated your site [= your brand ] in awhile, ‘what do I really need?’ is a question you should be asking yourself! 

These days, the return from a site can be much greater than many have been accustomed too with basic websites. At least a return without having to buy SEO, PPC or more traditional advertising to get traffic anywhere near it. However and no matter what you’ve seen or heard, you must start by defining a goal… everything [design, elements, search configurations, social integration & feeds, lead capture, widgets, etc.] should stem from the goal!

Questions That May Help Define ‘The Goal’

1. What is the tactic? Maybe it’s consistent blogging or social networking … or both.
2. What is the strategy? Maybe it’s to target home buyer and sellers with current community news or home sales data or useful education or both. Maybe it’s the best home search environment possible.
3. What differentiates you and/ or your firm? Maybe you’re a luxury or distressed homes expert. Maybe you focus on buyers only.
4. What is the target market? Maybe you’re in only interested in luxury listings. Maybe distressed. Maybe buyers only. Maybe all of the above.
5. What is the ultimate Goal: While immediate sales are probably unrealistic in the real estate business, visibility isn’t. For some it’s straight up raw traffic, although I’d caution that when quality is within your grasp place your focus on it. With others, it’s MLS Search email subscription; others free offers to lead capture forms  [i.e. 'FREE Home Appraisal', 'FREE Tax Assessment Advice', 'FREE Market Data'] and for others it’s building pipeline, maybe via driving brand engaging blog subscription. In each scenario, the answers to these questions should have everything to do with your site!

What Do You Need From A Real Estate Site?

Chances are you are not a computer programmer, but even if you’re capable the reality is that rapidly evolving software, plugin applications, security patches, core code updates, optimized hosting and the customized apps’ and design you may need makes it complicated. So, what will give you all the advantages needed with your site [ = brand] to reach your goals?

1. WordPress, because it’s core code advances at the pace of the web; because it’s massive open source support makes virtually any application manageable; because it’s easily customized, added too, redesigned and day to day adjustments are mostly doable for the owner … so you’re not incurring cost each time you make a change, nor the cost of designing a site from scratch… WordPress matters for real estate!
2. Managed and Optimized Hosting for WordPress. You rarely hear about it, but managed hosting for WordPress exists and it matters.
3. Custom Design: Are you a differentiated, compelling brand? Is there a highly visible focus on the communities you service [Remember: it's less about you and more about useful service in communities you work in!] Are you set up to reach your goals? Does your designer have any experience with all the subtleties that go into a site that meets your goals?
4. Home Search: Is there an ease for visitors to search homes. With WordPress we recommend using Diverse Solutions, which in lieu of a complete custom integration, enables you to generate search indexing for local listings. With WordPress it’s easily enclosed and managed.
5. Featured Listings: Your featured listings are the money maker and your clients want visibility for their homes. Get serious about featured listings on your site!
6. Search Engine Optimization: WordPress is highly spider friendly software with it’s cooperative permalink, category and tagging markup. While it doesn’t come out of the box completely ready, meticulous configuration to support as many search engine signals, including updating to remain current, is manageable.  
7. Blog: While it may or may not be an emphasis, and it can either be designed front and center or in the background, you should be current via use of a blog! For Brokers, we even build solutions that aggregate content into category specific channels from all the agents. It makes for a highly active current and engaging stake in local real estate news visibility for both the firm and the agents.
8. Social Integration: While you never own the social network environment, it sure helps to have exposure amongst their members. And whether it’s highly visible links, automated content feeds and/ or sharing icons  you need to look at how to leverage visibility for your brand in the social networks so that it supports your ultimate goal. And building a page in Facebook, for instance, that mimics your brand [= site] is also a good idea.
9. Subscription: With blogs, subscription is standard via RSS; however, our experience shows people still choose to subscribe voluntarily via email. Make sure your site offers blog subscription via email. As mentioned above, most IDX offer home search email drip programs.
10. Categorization & Simple Navigation: Don’t underestimate categorization’s effect for humans and for search engines. Assuming permalinks grab the category you’ve chosen into it’s URL string, it adds a spider friendly signal to the post/page’s markup … so choose your categories wisely. What’s more, you want visitors to navigate your site with ease, allowing them to drill down to the content they want. Keep categories focused and specific for them… maybe 8- 10 maximum, if possible.
11. Lead Conversion: While you might deploy a series of lead capture strategies [i.e. 1) IDX driven email drip, 2) blog subscription OR 3) local offers, like  'FREE Home Appraisal', 'FREE Tax Assessment Advice', 'FREE Market Data'] the goal always includes lead conversion.
12. Traffic Analysis: You cannot improve and optimize what you do not analyze – see You Simply Must Convert!!

Folks,  with your site [ = your brand] we believe it all starts with the question … ‘what do I really need?’