1. Search

The first component of a successful real estate website is a fully functional IDX search program. Imagine if you walked into the local convenience store to buy a map of Princeton. You go back to you car, sit down, open the map and it is blank. That is what having a website without an IDX search function is like to the consumer.

People who go to real estate websites…want to search for homes. They are not there to read about your awards, the houses you sold in the past or the cryptic designations you have earned.

They want to surf your website and find a house to live in. Once they are ready they will contact you to show it to them.

2. Content & Structure

In the age of Trulia and Zillow the customer is increasingly sophisticated and can choose from a variety of sources to draw information from. Key word in that sentence, information. We are in the information age and anything you want to find in the world is a keystroke of a computer away.

Customers want information, specifically information on the local Real Estate Market. The days of Realtors providing school reports are over. Train schedules, nope. Grocery stores, uh-uh. It is is raw data as to what is happening in the neighborhoods that consumers expect from and want to see on a real estate web site.

The concept of build it and they will come was for a movie. In real estate web marketing you want to build it, have them come to the site again and again and again and again. The average consumer spends 6+ months searching and researching the web for a home purchase. You just want to make sure that they are doing all their work on your web site!

3. Relevancy

In the age of Twitter and Live Facebook feeds having a web site that does not keep up with the Jones’s is just not good enough. Your website has to be a combination of static information and up to date, relevant posts.

Consumers want to have the latest information at their fingertips and if you do not provide it to them they will go somehere else.

If you do not have the resources to put together a comprehensive web site strategy call me and I can show you some low cost options.