Are you frustrated with not getting a steady stream of quality prospects from your real estate website? Suffering from too many visitors leaving your website and never coming back?  If you are having a tough time getting new leads and visitors to sign up for your list and contact you, take a long hard look at your site.  Chances are, you are probably doing it wrong.

You Are Doing It Wrong if…

1.   Your site is a stale static site that does not have regularly updated content like a blog.

• If you are not updating your site regularly with new content, like blogging, your site stays stale, uninteresting and totally irrelevant. And blogging doesn’t have to be strictly written articles. You can regularly post videos and pictures relevant to your market area that will provide content that people will come back to see.

2.   You have pictures of palm trees and beaches all over your header and pages, but your local market is in Denver Colorado.

• If your site does not reflect you and your local market, what is the point? How would anyone know if you are the local market expert when your site displays a complete disconnect?

3.   You have a forced sign-up immediately just to be able to start a property search or to view IDX listings.

• I know this is a common tactic to garner leads, so some may disagree with me here. But from my own experience as a consumer… when I am looking for homes and you make me sign up just to search or view them, I will bounce out of there and go where I can view homes unimpeded. It’s a personal annoyance of mine, but I know many consumers share the same experience.

4.   It is too hard to find the top THREE things visitors to your site want most: Home Search, “What is my home worth”, “How is the Market”

• If those top three things are not above the fold or in a most obvious place on your site for buyers and sellers to find, you are missing the mark. Your site will lose credibility with visitors right away if they have to search too hard to find the information they want the most. So they will bounce out and find it elsewhere.

5.   Your website is all about you and nothing much about your local market and what your visitors want (see the top 3 items above).

• Truth is, consumers don’t much care about the agents when they start their home search. When you go car shopping, do you first start by searching for the best car salesman you can find? My guess is that you don’t. The same goes for home buyers. They start searching for HOMES not for Realtors. So drop the ego and make sure your site is geared towards the consumer. Answer the question, “What’s in it for them?”.

6.   You’re not offering buyers and sellers something of actual value to them for signing up for your list or updates.

• Those cheesy, canned “free reports” provided by template sites don’t count. (does anybody really sign up for those?) Try something like the Market Snapshot system, a special buyers guide, offer IDX listings to their inbox, or free foreclosure lists.

7.   Your site has no links or way to connect with you on social media.

• Social media gives web visitors the opportunity to observe your activity, a bit of your personality, and build up that trust factor over time. And since many visitors are not usually ready right then to make contact with you, provide them links to your Facebook business page or Twitter feed for them to get to know you from a distance. This is especially appealing to Gen Y’ers since they are way more likely to reach out via Facebook than pick up the phone or send an email.

8.   There’s no clear call to action on your site.

• If you don’t have clear consistent calls to action to tell your users what you want them to do with the information  you provide them, you’re doing it wrong. Tell them to call or email you for more info. Tell them to leave you a comment about their own experiences or questions. Tell them to sign up on your form to receive market reports on recent solds in the area.

9.   You have no contact forms on your site for visitors to actually contact you when they are ready.

• Only having your phone number or links to email you may be hurting your site’s ability to capture leads. Having no (or very few) contact forms on your site, you’re not making it easy for visitors. It can be especially difficult for those who primarily use a web based email client like gmail or they happen to be at work. In fact, it is important to have some sort of contact form on every page. Make it easy on your users to contact you!

10.  You say you are different from the rest, yet you are using a templated website that looks identical to 50,000 other agents’ sites.

• Using a template site that is provided to you by your broker or from from some other web vendor, does you no favors. Those template sites hardly reflect your local market or your own brand and you can get easily lost in the shuffle. How can you stand out from the rest if your site looks exactly the same as the next guy and does nothing to set you apart.

If you took a good look at your site and saw that your are doing one, all or any combination of the above, it is probably time for a new approach. Your website should be your hub, your engine for delivering exactly what consumers want when they search for real estate info. If you are not making it easy, not making it all about them, you are losing them. Stop doing it wrong.

Consider utilizing a Real Estate Virtual Assistant to help you do it right.

Seen other ways people are doing it wrong?  Have any questions on how to do it right?  We want to hear from you! Leave us a comment below and let us know.

Megan E. Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, and owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions. With over 10 years of experience working within the real estate industry, Megan and her team Virtual Assistants provide top notch real estate support services such as marketing, lead follow-up, social media, WordPress websites, and more. Megan E Barber is also the creator and author of The BVAS Connection and VA Mommy

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