What Realtors ought to know about their websites

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What was popular for your real estate website a couple of years ago is no longer working. If you have a site that hasn’t been updated recently you can relate to this. You’ve noticed less activity, visits, leads etc. and likely a drop in your search position on Google. This isn’t about your meta tags and keywords, it’s about your content.

The good news is that you really don’t have to throw money at traditional advertising to improve your online search strategy and conversion. And while improving your content takes work, this work can take the place of other less profitable marketing strategies while saving you time and effort in addition to money.

Take a few minutes to view this video. It will help you get in the frame of mind to accept how quickly things are changing. And why you need to change your online marketing strategy to keep up.

Some people think this video is creepy or scary. Change is always a little scary and seeing how quickly technology is evolving can be intimidating but also exciting.

People surf the web to research or to be entertained. If your website is simply an advertisement about how great you are then you are missing an opportunity to connect with your visitor. You won’t be able to hold their attention because you are not meeting their needs.

Your affiliations, years in business, awards and sales volume is not content aimed at meeting the needs of your visitors. Don’t say “I’m a luxury homes specialist” prove it. Provide interesting  information about the luxury home market. Define your audience. Who purchases/sells luxury homes? What topics would be of specific interest to that demographic? Educate and engage your visitors.

Check out the following resources for writing engaging customer focused content:
“First of all, you’d better be blogging. You’ve got to join the conversation and have something valuable to say before anyone will bother acknowledging you. In the excellent business blogging book Naked Conversations, authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel envision a day when a business that doesn’t blog will be viewed with suspicion by the public. Blog marketing has been dismissed as fad and reviled as fanciful, but the denial stage is over, and everyone is getting in on the action.”
Quoted from: Viral Copy: Trading Words for Traffic
download the full 30 page report and visit copyblogger.com for more information and articles about viral marketing and creating great content for your real estate web site.

The Customer Focus Calculator (We-We Calculator):
A great tool to illustrate whether your site is focusing on the customers’ needs…or just loves the sound of its own voice.

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Lie to Me. Your brochure says you are lying!

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I’ve recently been sucked in to a new TV drama called “Lie to Me”. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a guy who is supposed to be the world’s leading deception expert. He can read you like a book using your facial expressions and body language. They cut in real footage of well known liars in the act of lying and show you how the facial expression or gesture is exactly the same. Fascinating!

While most people don’t have PHD’s in this field they are intuitive and can detect lies or sense that someone is saying one thing but telling another with their non-verbal language. We call it intuition but an expert will tell you it is not intuition, it’s a scientific fact – the difference is that you and I can’t name what it is or why we know it. We aren’t trained – we just know.

This same concept is true with your marketing materials. Website, brochures, fliers, postcards, newsletters, etc. The personal computer has given everyone the tools to make cool stuff. The problem is that not everyone has the design training or the intuition to use design to effectively support their message. Your brochure copy may be saying you are a waterfront luxury homes specialist while the actual brochure is telling people you are a used car salesman. Or maybe your marketing materials are saying you are lazy, unorganized, downmarket – whatever. The point is your brochure is NOT supporting your message.

An example of this would be a brochure about Home Stageing & Decluttering. This brochure tells us that decluttering will make our home more attractive to buyers. We should agree it’s absolutely a good investment to hire an expert to declutter and showcase our home BUT this brochure is putting doubt in our minds and we are not fully sold. Why? Because the clutter and mess on this brochure is even worse than our most neglected spare room! We don’t have the design degree or training to name it – we’re just not sold.

Consider that having your admininistrative assistant design your marketing pieces may not be in your best interest. Their time could be better spent performing tasks they are proficient with. Designing brochures and ads will likely take them longer than a professional and with sub par results. A more cost effective solution would be to hire a professional to provide you with templates that you can re-use for new brochures, newsletters and so forth. This will cut down costs and give you the added benefit of all marketing materials being professional and consistent.

If you are a die hard DIY person then I would suggest purchasing a professionally designed template or use one that comes with your publishing program which you can modify. There are resources available that will help you improve your layouts by helping you learn to identify what needs improvement and to call out many of the usual amateur pitfalls:

Non-Designer’s Design Book, The (3rd Edition) (Non Designer’s Design Book)
The Non-Designer’s Design and Type Books, Deluxe Edition