Top 10 Real Estate Website Tips to Boost Income
- First, a solid website is a brilliant way to distinguish yourself in your local market. Especially if you love working with younger buyers and sellers, who are more likely to find an agent online than by any other means.
- Then your website gives you a platform to provide useful information to all your clients and prospects. The value you provide via your website will help you convert more prospects to clients.
- And finally, your website is your hub for all your income streams. If you’re one of the few elite agents who are recession-proofing their businesses by adding multiple income streams, your website is where everything comes together.
So to make sure your website is working hard to maximize your income, here are our top 10 real estate website tips.
10. Have a modern design with clear navigation
If your website looks outdated, visitors to your site will get the impression that you’re outdated and out-of-touch. And this decreases your likelihood of converting prospects into clients. Since the overall design of your website is the first thing your visitors notice, we’re making it the first of the real estate website tips we’ll address.
Generally speaking, your website should probably get a little facelift every 5 years or so. The good news is that you don’t need an expensive overhaul. A simple design theme update will work wonders. If you’re working with a website you built yourself, this might take an hour or two and cost around $60. If your site is provided by a 3rd party, it may cost a couple hundred dollars. Money well spent!
The WordPress design theme we’re loving right now is called WP Residence. It’s incredibly versatile, inexpensive, reliable, and robust. You can read all about it in our full review.
While we’re on design, take a few minutes to navigate through your site. Are the navigation buttons where you’d expect them to be? Are the labels clear? The navigation menus on your site are not the time to get cute. Stick with tried and true labels that are self-evident. Like Home, About Me, Contact Me, Properties, and Blog. When people can find what they need, they’re less likely to get frustrated and leave.
9. Make sure your site is responsive on computers and mobile devices
Speaking of getting frustrated and leaving a site…
Have you ever left a site simply because it was loading slowly? We all have! We simply don’t have the patience for that anymore.
Make sure your site is quick to load. Also make sure it loads quickly and correctly on mobile devices.
The WP Residence design theme we mentioned takes care of all of this for you. If you outsource your site and you have any issues with load times or mobile displays, contact your site provider asap!
8. Don’t waste money on a property search feature
Warning: potentially unpopular opinion coming up…
You don’t need to spend money integrating an IDX property search on your real estate website. The fact is, if someone wants to look at properties, they’re going to Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, or maybe Realtor.com. No one is going to your website to compare properties. Because no matter how good your search tool is, your buyers are already comfortable with one of these big search sites. They probably already have homes favorited on those sites. They don’t need (or want) to search for properties on your site.
This is a waste of money. Eliminating this expense with instantly boost your net income.
7. Use keywords
Your website won’t bring you much income if no one can find it. And the key to getting your website found is using strategic keywords.
Keywords are the words and phrases that define your message. You get to choose focus keywords for each page of your website and every blog post on your site.
For example, the keywords for this blog post are “real estate website tips”. If someone types “real estate website tips” into Google, we want to show up on the front page. But this is tricky because we’re competing with every other web page and blog post that chose those same keywords. Google has an algorithm that decides who wins this keyword battle and gets to show up on the front page of the search results.
It’s obviously in your best interest to work this algorithm and help more searchers find your website. This general concept is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Check out our post Intro to SEO for Realtors® if you need a quick primer on SEO and want to learn more about how to use keywords effectively.
6. Promote your other income streams
Your website is your hub for all your real estate related income streams. It gives you the power to cross-promote and grow your income exponentially.
What other income streams? I’m so glad you asked! We’re all about helping real estate agents diversify income by creating multiple, independent revenue streams like:
Did you know you can even turn your real estate blog into its own income stream?!
We actually have a list of over 25 ways to make money as a real estate agent. It’s well worth checking out. You’ll get some great ideas for generating money when sales are slow and even starting a passive income stream or two.
Your website is the perfect place to promote these other income streams because many of them work together to help your buyers and sellers in different ways.
5. Include a killer About Me page
Your About Me or About Us page is the perfect place to explain to your potential clients why you’re the person best-suited to help them meet their goals.
It shouldn’t be a resume. Don’t just chronicle your education and work experience. And don’t simply list your academic and professional accomplishments.
Your About page should really be about your clients’ needs and how you can meet them.
Feel free to throw in a few details about your personal life. For better or worse, the residential real estate industry is heavily personal. Many clients want to feel as though you’re both their friend and their real estate advisor. So include a few details that might endear you to people on a personal level: your volunteer work, a local hobby or two, and maybe even a photo of your family.
If you’re including politics or religion in your professional brand, your About page is also the appropriate place to mention your affiliations in a non-aggressive way. But if you’re not making a conscious decision to plant yourself firmly in a single camp, it’s probably best to steer clear of these divisive topics.
4. Blog
Blogging is the modern Realtor’s secret weapon!
Blogging:
- boosts SEO by giving search engines more content to index (crucial if you want buyers and sellers to find you online!)
- establishes your credibility as a knowledgeable agent (invaluable during the early days when you don’t yet have client testimonials!)
- provides value to your prospective clients even before you make contact (which turns more prospects into clients!)
- can even become its own independent income stream!
If you don’t already have a blog, we have some practical resources to help you plan your blog and get started. Check out our section on blogging and online income for the complete list of blog-related posts.
3. Collect email addresses
Give your website visitors a chance to leave their email address so you can stay in touch, and continue providing value long after they leave your site.
In fact, don’t just give them a chance, give them an incentive. Offer a digital download for free. Your visitors just enter their email address on your website, and your digital download is automatically emailed to them immediately.
For example, our most popular free digital download is 100+ Blog Real Estate Topics (for everyone who knows they need to blog, but don’t know what to blog about). If you enter your email address in the form below, you’ll get this useful resource delivered right to your inbox for free. In return, I get your email address so I can send you a once/month update about new posts and notify you if I have something extra special that I think could really help you.
This should go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: email addresses are sacred. Never spam your readers. Never release the email addresses to anyone. And always give your readers the option to quickly and easily unsubscribe. The whole point of collecting email addresses is to have a way to communicate directly, but non-invasively when you have information that could help your subscribers. Trying to take advantage of your subscribers will always backfire.
If you’d like to make your own digital downloads and offer them on your site, we have a full post dedicated to the subject.
2. Testimonials are gold
Testimonials from happy clients are the best marketing a real estate agent can get! They offer social proof to everyone trying to choose a real estate agent.
Ask every client for a testimonial after the deal closes.
Bonus points if you can get a video testimonial or even just a photo to accompany the written testimonial. Having imagery to go with the words makes the testimonial more powerful because it is more attention-grabbing and relatable.
Put those testimonials front and center on your homepage. As long as you are able to drive traffic to your website, these testimonials will immediately generate more leads and boost your income.
1. Put your contact info everywhere
This is so simple and so often missed! Don’t make your visitors search for a way to contact you. Put your contact info everywhere.
The best way to make sure your contact info is always on display is to have a floating header, footer, or sidebar with your contact information.
Cover all the bases: phone (specifically invite people to “call or text”; texting is important), email, and social media handles, plus a Contact Me page and even a live chat service if you’re so inclined.
And reply as soon as you’re physically able.
Making it as easy as possible for prospects to reach you, and being responsive when prospects reach out, is simple but so effective!
If you want your website to increase your income, use it to connect with your prospects!
Get Started
If you don’t already have a website of your own, today is the day to get one!
We’re lucky to live in the age of DIY Tech. Check out How to Build a Real Estate Website for completely free step-by-step instructions on building your own website. It’s easier than you might expect, and DYI-ing your site will save you thousands of dollars!
