Five Must Haves For Your Real Estate Website

Having a website presence is just not enough to get potential leads from the internet. The website needs to be well structured enough to attract users to explore and even generate vital leads. The most important five elements to make your real estate website a hit are discussed below.

According to the National Association of Realtors, in a recent survey 9 out of 10 realtors affirmed to having a website. However, not all of them got hits, traffic or even leads. The reason was that their site was missing on one or more of the five essential elements people look for in a realty website. When you get a site made, do not think of what you would like to see, think of what the people would want. Whether you have opted for a template site or not, becomes irrelevant if your site is missing few key elements.
Before we go on to those elements, a word about the control a website owner must have on their site. They must be able to control and modify the content, page titles, placement, headers and link structure of the website. Apart from these controls, they must include these five elements:

A Search Box: People do not like to get overwhelmed by the plethora of information on a site. They are in a hurry to complete their property search. And the thing they are looking for is a “search for homes” or something similar option right on the home page. Place your content below the search option. Do not bury the search box behind pages of content. The search form must be right in the center, easy to spot and must be accessible right away. People do not appreciate if they have to fill forms or sign up before they can see the homes available in their desired area. Another must have is that the listings must be clearly displayed or the links to the same must be prominently placed.

Detailed Contact Information- Just putting your name or a smiling photo does not help users wanting to contact you. Place your contact details very prominently on the page. Give your office address, phones, emails, and even links to your blog/social networks profile (Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.). People will trust you more if you tell them more about yourself.

Lots of Content- Google loves fresh content and so do people. Give them fresh, good and most importantly relevant and interesting content. Make sure it is factually as well as grammatically correct. Mind the spellings too. People are put off by poor quality -badly written content. So you must always keep refreshing your home page content. Include Links to your latest blogs. Add testimonials and queries and their answers too on the site.

Market Updates- Buying property is a big decision. People want to know if they are putting their money in the right place. So always give market snapshots to the visitors. Create some with your MLS data.

Clean Design – Your website must be clean and uncluttered. Do not add unnecessary content and pages. Be precise. Your navigation must be clear and structured so that people know where they are and where can they go from there. Keep control of search engine optimization elements like page titles and text headers on each page, keep them simple and direct. You can also give links to relevant information about the area.

The bonus must have feature- Include lots of photos and video whenever possible. They look pleasant and people see them the most on real estate websites.

The writer is associated with Intagent Real Estate Website Network that creates realty websites that are easy to manage yet give a sound web presence.