- define and create (or find) the content
(and appearance) of your
Internet presence (web site);
- maximize the probability that your clients and prospective clients
will find your site (and appreciate its) content; and
- respond to inquiries and interact
with your web site visitors in
an efficient and effective manner..
You’ve got to have all three of those parts of this
cyberpuzzle working for you.
Effective, Friendly Content
Is a "profile" on your corporate site enough? Is a page in
realtor.com or homeseekers.com enough? Is a so-called "template" site enough?
Your favorite answer: it depends. It depends on your goals
and your audience. And the underlying answer in most cases is, "not
really." It’s not really enough to have a profile on one of these sites. Why
not?
Have a look at the following list of goals. Here are eight common
goals/audience combinations. Which goals match yours?
I want to …
- Tell my sellers that their property will be advertised on the
Internet. (Do nothing. Let your MLS provide the listing information to all the home-search
sites.)
- Tell my sellers that their property will be advertised on the
Internet on my custom site, including Virtual "surround" tours. (Site with
specific property information, lots of photos, and an IPIX® or Bamboo® tour to make
Seller happy. Whether anyone really finds it or not may or may not be important.)
- Tell my sellers that they can get more information about the
selling process, who-does-what-in-escrow, inspections, responsibilities, disclosures,
etc., from my website at their own convenience. (Seller content important.)
- Have prospective sellers get information about me and call me to list
their property. (Site positioning you as "the real estate professional who
_______." (Seller-content important; findability important.)
- Tell my buyers that they can look for properties on the Internet
through my website on their own. Then they can clarify their priorities about
neighborhoods, price, features etc. and tell me the MLS numbers of properties they like.
(Buyer content important.)
- Tell my buyers that they can get information about loans,
pre-qualifying, credit reports, inspections, the community, the schools, recreation, the
arts, employment statistics, etc. right through my website. This saves me tons of time
that I now spend with buyer education. (Buyer content important.)
- Have prospective buyers get all of the above information plus
information about me and why they should select me as their agent (and why they need an
agent to begin with) and then contact me for help with their home search and home
purchase. (Buyer content important; relocation and community or regional information
important; findability important.)
- All of the above!
Regardless of the goals, communicating your positioning is
always important. Positioning? The position you want to occupy in web visitors’
minds; how you are perceived; your "reputation." Maybe you already have a
"tagline" or "slogan" That’s probably the best place to start. If
you don’t have a positioning statement that you’ve been using and may already be
recognized, write one now. Examples? Here are a few: The First-Time Buyers Expert; The
Resort Properties Specialist; the Agent who Really Listens; the Professional who Knows
what Sellers Need." You might think of three or four statements and test them with
your friends and colleagues. (But try to avoid using statements that your colleagues are
already using!)
Once you’ve identified which of these goals or combination of
goals suits you, and you’ve staked out your market position, you’ve actually
completed the first phases of formulating your web site strategy. Next step? Define your
site content. Here are some "do’s and don’ts" of web site content.
Content-Do
The key factor that you want to remember here is service.
Your site must provide service. Your site must make sure that visitors know immediately
that this is the place and you are the person with the answers, information,
and help they need.
- Positioning—who you are, what you do, how you do it. (Not
billions of dollars of sales, 47 awards & 200 client testimonials.) Include both
direct content about you as a real estate professional and indirect content related
to your positioning. The direct content should (a) communicate your position in a few
words; and (b0 enable the visitor to get to know you as a professional and as a person.
Photos of you with your family, at a conference, with clients in their new home, all help
your web visitors see who you are.
"Indirect content" is not about you, but is related
to your position. For example, indirect content to enhance the positioning of the
"equestrian property expert" would be information (either on-site content or
links to content) on horses, breeds, veterinarians, shows, rodeos, feed & tackle, etc.
- Real estate selling process information—checklists, repair
information/instructions/references, pricing right, marketing, etc.
- Real estate buying process information—search for homes, compare
homes, making offers, negotiating, loan info, title searches, etc.
- PLENTY of contact links. Free market evaluation form. The "Put
me to work finding that perfect home for you today" form. The "Enter your e-mail
here to receive my monthly newsletter" form. The "Click here to get local school
information" form/link. And "Send me email" on every page!
Content—Don’t
- Tout your alphabet (CSR, GRI, CE, PC, XT, XYZ) without making clear
why it’s relevant and important.
- Spend most of the space talking about how wonderful you are instead
of demonstrating how well you understand the needs of the people who visit the site. (More
YOU than I/ME/MY.)
- Put your photo, an agent profile, and phone number … and expect
that to do anything at all.
- Put large graphics that make your site slow.
- Put music, complicated animations, and other "cool
technology" on your site just because you can. Often these extras slow down the
site’s loading time. Sometimes, users with older browsers can’t make the fancy
stuff work anyway—so you just make them crabby.
A note on appearance …
Dress your web site the way you dress yourself. Do you wear a
rainbow beanie with a whirligig on top? Or leopard pattern leotards with lace cuffs and a
neon-green sun-top? Okay. That may be exaggerating. But don’t put
"cyberstuff" on your site just because you can. Your site must be readable and
easy to navigate. Those are the most important criteria. After that, the site should look
informative, professional, and interesting.
Findability
Build presence and visibility. If people can’t find you, they
can’t contact you. Yes, search engines are important. Your web site developer should
be doing that for you. The site should be registered with search engines periodically
(every 2 to 3 weeks), since the engines delete old addresses on a regular
basis—that’s how they stay updated. The METAtags should be constructed for you
and the text on your pages written and laid out in such a way that search engines display your
site listing when web users search for real estate or homes for sale in your area.
Unfortunately, only ten places are available on a list of ten sites.
You, of course, want to be among those top ten. But since there are only ten
places, you cannot rely on the search engines alone to make your site findable.
You must assume some of the responsibility for that too. Here’s a list of some of
your duties related to the findability of your site.
On the Net: Make sure that you have plenty of internet presence that
points users to your site.
- If you have paid realtor.com or homeseekers.com or cyberhomes.com,
etc., for an agent listing, make sure it links, or at least points, to your main site.
- If you have an agent profile on your corporate site, be sure it links
to your main site.
- Make sure you are listed in real estate directories, particularly
ired.com and realestateabc.com, and where possible, have those listings be actual links to
your site.
- Submit your site address to the "Realtor Referral" pages on
title company and loan company web sites. (southlandtitle.com, octitle.com, and
countrywide.com, for example)
- Make sure you are listed in directories that are related to your
positioning—horsenet.com for the horse property agent.
Off the Net
- Put your e-mail address and your web-site address on EVERYTHING. If
your phone number is there, put your email and web addresses there. Put it on your voice
mail, classifieds, homes magazines, tablets, refrigerator magnets, etc.
- Generate press releases about you (and your Internet services), and
indicate where readers can get more information.
- Advertise your web site. In between listings? Advertise your services
and the information and tools available on your web site.
- Tell your dentist. Tell everybody!
Responding and Interacting with Your Web Visitors
Few real estate professionals would fail to return a voice mail
message from a caller saying "I’d like to list my property." So why do so
many fail to answer such an inquiry that comes to them via e-mail? Here are some of the
excuses … er, reasons, that agents give, and comments on them.
Reason # 1: Checking e-mail takes to long. It’s a bother. I
can’t do it from the car.
To beginners, checking e-mail seems to be more difficult or
time-consuming. In reality, you can probably check your e-mail more quickly than listening
to your voicemail. If your email program is open on your computer, a click of the mouse to
"get mail" will dial your server (if you aren’t online already), retrieve
your messages, and display the sender and subject line for you in a matter of seconds.
Every time you walk into the room where your computer is set up,
check your e-mail. And if you are using your computer or near it for an extended period,
check your email at least every few hours. Stop complaining. It just takes a few seconds!
Actually, you can check your email from your car now. One way
is cellular phone connections to the Internet; another is a service that reads your
email to you. You can even "dictate" a response via your phone.
Reason # 2: The senders aren’t clear about what they want.
They don’t give me enough information. It’s a big waste of time.
You must learn to view this as an opportunity. E-mail works
more like a conversation than like a series of business letters. Reply to inquiries with
questions. You know the ones. Do you need a large yard? Would you like a pool or spa? Do
you prefer a gated community? Do you need a 3-car garage, or will a 2-car garage suffice?
Would you like to be near a golf course? School? Shopping center? Is the age of the home
important to you? Would you consider a fixer? Etc.
The goal is to engage this person in a conversation. Establish a
relationship. Eventually you can turn the conversation into one over the phone or in
person. Meanwhile, ask questions and provide information.
Reason # 3: I’m not a good writer. I’d rather just call
them on the phone.
Yes, this can slow you down a bit. If this is true, then it’s
time for you to work on your writing skills. How? Draft some messages to imaginary clients
and have a close friend or family member read them over with you. Find ways to say things
clearly and concisely. E-mail messages don’t have to be long; they do have to
be timely, friendly, and informative.
The E-mail Do
- Check your e-mail frequently.
- Answer your e-mail immediately, even if you just say "I’ve
received your inquiry, but I’m leaving to show property right now. I’ll write a
detailed answer to your questions when I return." And then be sure you do.
- Write clearly and concisely, in a professional, conversational tone.
- Answer questions point-by-point.
- Learn to send listing information and photos from your MLS via
e-mail.
- Never, never, never send e-mail in anger. (You can’t always get
it back.)
- Extra tip: DON’T WRITE MESSAGES IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. IT IS
CONSIDERED "SHOUTING" IN EMAIL. Besides, it’s harder to read.
If you aren’t going to answer your e-mail, keep your e-mail
address a secret. It’s worse to have e-mail service and not answer messages than it
is to not have e-mail!
In Summary...
Yes, the Internet is here to stay and real estate professionals will
need to use it as a primary business and marketing resources. No escaping this one for
much longer. Getting up-to-speed with Internet marketing, both web site and e-mail, will
require some investment of learning power and time, and a commitment to allocate a certain
part of one’s advertising budget to the Internet. Do it now, while you’re still
in the game. Catching up later will only be more difficult.
_____
Barbara Cox, Ph.D., has been helping real estate professionals
establish their Internet presence and use Internet marketing tools effectively since 1996.
She is based in South Orange County, California and can be reached at (949) 369-7882. Send
her e-mail at bgcox@home.com. |
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