Steps To Building The Best Real Estate Website
A lot goes into creating an appealing and functional realtor website. Finding an expert who understands how to design websites for realtors is the best way to get a good return on your investment.
Building a real estate website can be an easy or hard process, depending on what you know. Unlike other types of sites, a real estate website has a couple of intricacies and nuances that must be applied to facilitate the ease of use and the effective display of solutions.
Most real estate agents prefer working with specialists who design websites for realtors. This way, they can rest easy knowing everything is going as planned. Besides, building a website is an involving process that can take days, weeks, and sometimes even months. Unless you have all this time to spare, it’s in your best interest to let the professionals handle the work for you.
In this article, we will look at the steps to building the best real estate website to help point you in the right direction:
Identify your niche
You might not know this, but focusing on one niche may open more doors for you than trying to handle all niches. With more than 500 niches to select from, finding one that matches your preferences can’t be hard. Core real estate niches include:
- Single-family detached
- Single-family attached (townhouse)
- Residential multifamily
- Duplexes/triplexes
- Apartment buildings/complexes
- Condos
- Mobile homes/ home parks
- Retail
- Office
- Shopping centers
- Industrial
- Medical
- Self-storage
- Sports and entertainment
- Land
- Farm/ranches
- Mineral rights
- Hotels/motels
- Parking lots
These are niches in real estate and are all lucrative. The idea is to settle with one that suits you, and market it fully. When clients identify you with a particular niche, you become the go-to source for everything related to your offerings. Having a niche also sets you apart from your peers and the leading companies.
Use neighborhood pages
It is highly unlikely that visitors will come to your site looking for homes by city or state. By using specific neighborhoods and communities that you serve, you make it easier for users to find whatever it is they are looking for. An area profile also gives you a good chance at optimizing your platform for search engines through a URL that includes the specific neighborhood name.
Understand your audience
Knowing your audience and what they want allows you to customize solutions as per their interest. This way, it becomes easier to connect with them and also establish yourself as an authority in the industry. When you have a clear picture of what your users like and or want, as well as their behaviors, you will know how to present your platform and the features that you must include.
Keep your users glued
Perception is an essential element in real estate – when people come to your website to shop for a house, they want to see appealing images, design elements, and layouts. Something short of their expectations and they change their mind about buying with you. To that regard, it’s in your best interest to work with high-resolution images and videos to capture visitor’s attention. On top of that, you may want to highlight the most crucial sections of your site with strategically placed and powerful visual elements.
Be as human as you can
In the age where technology has taken over every aspect of life, the importance of having a human touch on your real estate website can never be overstated. People want to know that they are dealing with a person as opposed to a robot. So, try telling a story about the neighborhood, hometown, or region to give readers a good idea of what they might be signing up for. Explaining easy-to-use tools and other significant resources on your site can also go a long way. Doing this will help you earn their trust and also show them your extensive local knowledge. Other things that can help you build trust include testimonials and success stories, regular blog posts.
Be smart with your designs
Don’t be the pushy type of agent. Instead, try offering value first before focusing on any other thing. For example, you can help your users access your home search, featured communities or properties, and home valuation pages. You also want to make your contact forms concise, simple, and user-friendly.
Maintain consistency
Last but not least, you want to ensure there’s consistency between your site and brand identity and overall mission. You can achieve this removing clutter that distracts prospects and ensuring that both you and your clients are on the same page.
Conclusion
Creating a highly effective website is essential for your growth as an agent. That’s why it’s essential to ask for professional help when you are unsure about what to do or how to do it.