There are many real estate website providers, each with dozens of templates and customization options. How do you know if your new website has what it takes to rank on Google, capture leads, and be the home base of your entire operation? Well, in this article we’ll reveal the seven critical components that your real estate website needs to be successful.
Are you ready to start building a successful real estate website? These are the seven things that I believe you absolutely have to have:
1. IDX Search Capability
This feature allows users to search for properties available for sale and create customized alerts for properties that fit their needs and their budget. IDX Search Capability generally turns your website into a portal that your prospects, leads, and clients can all use to interact with the market at large. Without IDX, your website is basically just a multi-page business card. If you want your site to be interactive, make sure you’ve got an IDX search function.
2. Customizable Lead Capturing Landing Pages
If you’re not familiar with landing pages, they are single-focused web pages that act kind of like like a front door to your website for anyone coming in but especially those coming by the way of an advertisement these landing pages are critical in maintaining conversion rates and making sure that you’re getting your money’s worth on any paid lead generation that you’re doing to send traffic to your site without landing page options your website traffic becomes largely anonymous and anonymous traffic is really, difficult to convert to clients.
3. Neighborhood Guides
Real estate isn’t just local it’s hyper-local buyers and sellers that care about what’s happening on the streets, and in the neighborhoods where they are looking to buy and sell, your website needs to deliver on these needs, sections like neighborhood guides allow you to create content specifically about the most popular areas in the markets that you serve. You’re signaling to your clients that you’re not only an expert in real estate, but you’re a specific expert in the places that matter most to them. This sort of differentiation is often the deciding factor between who gets the client and who doesn’t.
4. School ratings
Now I know what you’re thinking you’re thinking, not everyone looking for a home has kids or cares about schools and you know that’s true. Still, for those who do have kids and those who do care about schools, this is a huge level up plus this feature is almost always a plug-in that requires no work on an agent’s part while at the same time providing a ton of value and upside that may help your buyers feel better about their decisions.
5. Robust & Original Blog
The absolute best way to establish yourself as an expert in a particular area is through content marketing and the best way to market content on the internet is through blogs. Blogs allow you to share your knowledge, outline your experience, and communicate your expertise. Your website needs an easy-to-maintain blog, it needs to be accessible to your clients, your prospects, and your leads. You need to be writing in it, regularly.
6. Lead Capture
The sixth feature that every real estate website needs seems obvious but it’s amazing how many providers get this wrong. I’m talking about varied contact and lead capture options on every page of your site, if you want to convert your website traffic into clients you need to have ways for them to raise their hand and say yes I’m ready.
7. Client Testimonials
Finally, my seventh must-have website element is a front-and-center display of your most satisfied clients in the form of reviews and testimonials. According to the national association of realtors, more than 75 percent of buyer and seller clients consider reviews as a factor when deciding whether or not to work with an agent. A hearty, customizable, review section with the option to choose how things are displayed is a great way to verify to your prospects that you can in fact deliver on the promises you made, and in fact, here’s some proof, that’s it, not complicated.
