- Modern and mobile-friendly
- Includes targeted content to engage with consumers
- High-quality photos AND virtual tours
- Easy to find contact forms
- Consistent with your online persona
- Customizable and easy to navigate
Competition is fierce in the real estate industry. Naturally, agents focus on doing things that make themselves and their brand stand out, like clever marketing, creating flashy ads and handing out branded freebies.
But your real estate website is just as important, if not more so. Anyone who searches for you will land on Google and then continue to your website. It only takes a single impression to hold their attention or lose their business. Getting it right is essential in preventing consumers from leaving your site too quickly. If they’re engaged, they’ll gain value from your content, have more confidence in your brand and ultimately convert into a lead.
There are six common traits that the best real estate websites for agents have in common. These include usability and content features that meet consumer expectations, as well as specific tools that help real estate agents capture leads’ contact information. Get these right and your website will be ready for prime time.
What Do the Best Real Estate Websites for Agents Have in Common?
Modern and mobile-friendly
First thing’s first: Your website sets the impression for your brand and your client service. It must convey organization and professionalism in order to build trust. Using modern design techniques will help achieve this. Make sure your website includes these features:
● Clean, uncluttered design
● Lots of white space with adequate separation between images, text, buttons and borders
● Easy-to-read font set to at least 16px
● Simple top navigation, including a Home link
● Readily discoverable contact information, especially in the footer
● Eye-catching high-resolution images, some prominently featured
Your real estate website can’t only look great in desktop browsers. It must also be mobile-friendly, which is what’s called responsive design. Nearly 50% of all web traffic in the U.S. is now coming from mobile, so it’s crucial that customers are able to access your website from any device they use.
Includes targeted content to engage with consumers
When people land on a new website, they scan it for information that is most pertinent to their needs. Your homepage must clearly display valuable content “above the fold” to keep them from leaving. “Above the fold” essentially means the space that is visible when the page loads, without the need to scroll down.
These examples of valuable content all appear on the best real estate websites for agents:
● Top navigation that identifies who the site is for (for example, a link for Buyers and Sellers)
● Built-in home search engine
● Featured listings from the local MLS
● Comparative market analysis (CMA) tool for sellers
● Local real estate market e-newsletter registration for buyers
See an example of what these features look like in action.
It’s imperative to use a home search engine integration that you trust so the content you provide is always up to date. The worst experience a consumer can have is falling in love with a listing only to find out it sold a week before.
High-quality photos AND virtual tours
It’s a no-brainer that your listings should be prominently displayed on your real estate website. But you should also go above and beyond to beautifully showcase each one in an engaging way. In addition to a detailed description of the property, the listing should also include high-quality professional photographs and other rich media, like video walk-throughs and interactive 3D tours. This combination of content gives consumers a full picture of the property and actively engages them.
Easy to find contact forms
It should be very easy for consumers to contact you from your real estate website. Your office address, email address and office and mobile phone numbers should always be included in the footer on every page across your site. This is a standard practice, so people are accustomed to looking there for contact information. Be creative and add these details anywhere else that makes sense, too, such as on your About page or next to featured listings.
Not everyone will be ready to pick up the phone or write out an email as they browse your site. You should also offer a more passive way for people to contact you, like through a basic contact form on your About page. Elsewhere on your website, you can offer an incentive for people to give you their contact information. A lead capture form on your homepage, for example, could offer email alerts for newly listed properties, registration for an e-newsletter or a free downloadable buyers’ or sellers’ guide.
Consistent with your online persona
Your real estate website is just one component of your online (and offline) presence. Make sure that the information you present is always up to date and consistent across platforms. Use the same headshot on all your profiles, prominently display your logo and brand colors, and ensure that the URLs connecting your website and social media profiles always work.
Don’t forget about your brand voice. Whether you present yourself as a no-nonsense professional or informal and approachable, that branding should be reflected in your headshot and how you describe yourself on your About page.
Customizable and easy to navigate
We talked a bit about how consumers are used to a certain experience when navigating websites. This includes a user-friendly navigation bar at the top of the site, contact information in the footer and a simple contact form on the About page. The entire site must be mobile-responsive, meaning pages aren’t distorted or difficult to navigate on a tablet or smartphone. The best real estate websites for agents include these standard features and are also customizable to individual agents. That means your headshot, logo, colors and voice are displayed prominently across the site for consistent branding.
The importance of having a website
You may question whether you even need a website. After all, you’re maintaining social media accounts and a Google business profile. There are three main reasons:
1. Keeping up appearances. It’s true. Having a website conveys to others that you are digitally savvy. It is simply status quo nowadays as part of having a holistic online presence.
2. Your competitors are doing it. Don’t let consumers hit a dead end when they search for you online. You will easily lose to competitors who are able to show prospects they keep pace with today’s technology.
3. Add value and build trust. Consumers need you to demonstrate your expertise in multiple ways in order to feel that you’re trustworthy. You can do this through social media posts, but having a dedicated resource to direct buyer and seller prospects to will show them that you’re a serious agent (especially by offering built-in home search and competitive market analysis tools).
How Homesnap Can Help
The reality is that few agents have the time or resources to build out a site. Homesnap Pro+ Real Estate Websites contain all the standard features consumers expect in a site, and agents don’t need to lift a finger to create one. Our service will claim your domain name and then instantly create a custom website built around the content you upload to your MLS—contact details, listing information, 3D tours and more—plus the information you provide to Homesnap, like your logo and professional headshot.
Your personalized, branded website will be powered by Homesnap Search, providing consumers with the latest listings and up-to-date market activity for CMAs directly from your MLS. Whenever someone views a listing on your site, you will be featured as the sole point of contact and they can message you directly from your website.
And because a Homesnap Pro+ Real Estate Website comes as part of your Pro+ membership, you’ll save hundreds of dollars each year on third-party hosting and management fees—meaning your Homesnap Pro+ membership practically pays for itself. Membership features a variety of other valuable benefits, like Google business profile verification, optimization and management; advanced off-market search filters;access to Who’s Viewed My Listings & Profile; custom lead pages; an enhanced Homesnap profile; and more.
Sign up for Homesnap Pro+ subscription and claim your real estate website.