Google is rolling out a new feature of their search called “Google Instant Previews” which gives web searchers a quick way to visually preview the search results being presented to them.

This is a pretty big deal, for those of us who have nice looking websites.  It’s probably a bigger deal for those of us who don’t though.

Think about it this way…  someone who is performing a search for “Portland Real Estate” gets results presented to them based on the content of the site, may now choose which site they actually visit based on a visual bias. If they think your site looks old, and outdated, they’re probably WAY less likely to click through, even though you may have better content than the result around you.  But, because that site below you looks nicer, they choose to visit that site instead.

How’s that for a compelling argument to have us design you a better looking, 100% custom, WordPress Agent website?

Combine that great looking website design with good content, and you’re likely to have a winner!

Now with WordPress websites and the new IDX home search tool that we have developed lets visitors to your website look at listings with just one click on the map.  No waiting for emails, no signing up right away, clients can start their search more quickly.  Clients can also setup their own saved searches now and receive emailed updates when new homes enter the market.  The agent still has the option to create more advanced searches for the client if they need.

WordPress Training

Before you jump into trying a new WordPress IDX site, check out one of our regularly scheduled web trainings of WordPress 101 (You can also check out a pre-recorded video here).  The training will familiarize you with how to work with one of the new sites and eliminate the “What do I do now?” learning curve.

Upgrading your Site to WordPress

Upgrading a website to the WordPress platform is easy if you already have an older HomeQuest site.  Just click the “Change to IDX” button available in your HomeQuest account on the “Websites” tab and the system will give you one of our basic template sites available in red, blue, or green.  Site Customization is also available if you would like to break away from the template.

WARNING: Once you have upgraded a site to WordPress there is no option to return to the old sites.

Basic Setup

There are 4 things at the very least that you should check out to get going with your site. 1) Take a Training Class, 2) Change your Home page text, 3) Edit your Agent Profile, 4) Edit your blog posts.  Of course that is only the beginning, WordPress is a tool that if wielded correctly can have a lot more benefit than a site that stops at these steps.  For a more successful website try Going Beyond the Basics.

Frequently at the support desk I get the question “What do I do to get the most out of HomeQuest?”

1. Website: The first and biggest answer to that is a website.  Over 2 years ago we started offering WordPress based websites which are far more capable than the older websites we used to offer.

Our old websites were basically just a simple web page with some contact information and a way for clients to sign up for HomeQuest listing emails from you.  This was essentially just a lead capture to try to get listings into a clients hands.

The new websites are fully fledged WordPress websites.  You can blog on them, create pages with information and live listings from the MLS, add media including pictures and video and much more with it.  Because of the changes in search engines and web technology over time, upgrading to a WordPress site is imperative for your web presence.  Having an old website with the HomeQuest lead capture just doesn’t cut it for a website any longer.

The biggest and most noticeable difference between our old sites and our new is the way the listings are presented to the client.  With the old websites, clients had to signup and wait for the listings to come by email.

With the new websites, any visitor to your site can instantly see the listings by clicking on your Search Listings map.  No waiting for an email required, the search is available 24/7 for your existing clients and anyone who visits your site. See a quick tour vide of our new home search tool.

2. Unique Content on your site: The text and images of your website need to be something unique, not left as it was when you first setup the site.

A site without unique content is pretty much worthless.  If you setup a WordPress website and it still looks like the example image below, you are missing the point and missing out on an opportunity.  Default text is murder on a search engine ranking.  Not only does it look unprofessional to any real user, but when Google indexes a website that says “This is your default home page welcome text”, it knows that this is a crap website that has just been tossed together from a template and has no real value.

You need to change the wording on your pages, blog posts, and Agent Profile at the very least to get rid of that default text.

To take full advantage of your capabilities in WordPress:

Have useful pages up top with real information on them.  Your website needs to be a resource for the people who are going to be using it.  If your website is not a compelling resource of information, there is no reason for someone to return to it.  Likewise with the Google search engine, if your website is not full of information for it to read and index, how are you supposed to show up when someone searches?

Blogging is important too. If you add something to your blog regularly, there is more information for Google and the other search engines to crawl and look, more keywords that it will find and match you to.  One of the very best ways to move your site gradually up in the search ranking is to give Google exactly what it wants to find: new, fresh, relevant and unique content.  Being unique in your content is a big deal, Google will see copied content if it came from another site, and you will not receive credit for it.

3. Have a plan:  A website with a focus and a plan will make your web life easier.

Are you a neighborhood expert?  A short sale/REO specialist?  Your website needs to clearly reflect what you do.  If you are a selling agent you should write a great blog post about the home, and place the link to that blog post out there on the internet for people to find.  Click here to see how to write a good blog post about your listing. If you are a neighborhood expert your site should be full of listings, text, information and images from the neighborhoods that you serve.  Check out Jewel of the Pearl for an example of a good neighborhood expert site that is informational and unique.  Know what information you want to present to your audience before trying to decide what you need from your website.

4. Customization and SEO: Yes, it’s important; Yes, it costs more.

Another aspect of a good website is the customization.  Customization is completely optional, you don’t have to do it. A site that is customized is far more visually appealing to the visitors, and even the search engines can tell the difference between a template and a custom site which arguably would give it more weight in the search engine ranking.  Custom sites bring out a unique design based on what you and the designer came up with, and are built to match your needs rather than being bound by the limits of a template.  Click here to learn more about our custom sites.

The other important aspect to a truly effective site is your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  For those who would like help with their SEO, HomeQuest recommends contacting Though Faucet.  Gahlord Dewald at Thought Faucet can help you with planning and executing the right SEO tools and techniques to improve your ranking with the search engines, and improve the website experience overall for both you and your clients.

Both customization and SEO are an additional investment into your website, but they also might just be the most important one you could make.

Apparently, we had written a post a while back after previewing some of the homes for sale in the neighborhood, and Google was returning that post as one of the results.  Normally this is a good thing, but we noticed all the visitors were bouncing (a term used to describe when a web site visitor lands on your site, and either hits the back button, or closes the browser window) for some reason and normally this site has an unusually low bounce rate (avg. 14%).

Using the principles I’ve described in previous posts regarding converting traffic into something more relevant (like adding a prospect to your database) we decided that we just weren’t giving the visitors what they were searching for.

This got us thinking…

What if we created a landing page for this specific traffic that gave them exactly what they were after?  Would they stop bouncing?  Could we get Google to display this new page as the more authoritative spot for these search terms?  Would we get any business from the traffic?

So, Garron and I set out to gather some content and build a new neighborhood landing page for Multnomah Village.  We had lunch, took pictures, videos, and viewed some of the listings in the area.  Then when we got back into the office, we sat down and put a little more thought into the new page.  In the end, we decided to keep the written content very short and sweet, include a short video Garron recorded while we were out, and give the visitor exactly what they were after, a list of properties for sale in the area using the HomeQuest WordPress IDX plugin. See our new Multnomah Village Real Estate page.

The results we’ve gotten so far were pretty much exactly what we had expected.  After about a week, Google began displaying this new landing page as the main result for the specific search terms.  The previously written blog post now displays as a sub-result of the landing page (see the image to the left) along with any other page that mentions the search terms.

The bounce rate for the new page is significantly lower compared to the blog post and is just slightly above the site average of 14%.  This means the visitors are getting what they were searching for.  They’re also now easily able to find the listings in the area (both in list and map form) so we’ve been able to capture contact information for several visitors, one of which has already requested a showing for a few listings in the area.

So you can now start to see how all this ties together and can lead from a click to a closing…

You do the research, get in the heads of your visitors, give them what they’re after, and create capture points to capture their contact information.  From there, it’s on you to do the appropriate follow up contact which allows you to create conversations which should lead to a face to face meeting, and hopefully a transaction a little further down the road.

Although the site is brand new, Jewel is already beginning to implement the “Activity Based Marketing” strategy that I’ve written about before. (see: Creating Content from Your Daily Activities)  A perfect example is her recent post (see: A Sexy View at Chown Pella Lofts) where she saw something while out touring property that reminded her of the time she spent in New York.  She snapped a quick picture of it with her iPhone, and wrote a short blog post about it when she returned to the office.  It’s as simple as that!

While we can’t help every agent with their complete marketing strategy, we can help you create a strategy around using your website as an online marketing hub to share, capture, and convert.  If you’re interested in having a custom WordPress site developed to showcase your activities, get in touch with us. We’d love to work with you!

]]> http://www.homequestgroup.com/real-estate-website-showcase-jewel-of-the-pearl/feed/ 3 http://www.homequestgroup.com/5-tips-to-make-sure-your-website-can-convert/ http://www.homequestgroup.com/5-tips-to-make-sure-your-website-can-convert/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:58:47 +0000 Jeff http://www.homequestgroup.com/?p=3135 Is Your Real Estate website optimized to properly convert traffic into clients?

Every so often I hear Real Estate agents stressing out over things like: what kind of content they should create, search engine optimization techniques, and the number of visitors their website is getting. Now don’t get me wrong, these are all things you should think about if you’re going to have a successful web presence, but they’re definitely not things to be stressed out over.

If there is one thing that I would obsess over, although not necessarily stress out about, it would be whether or not my site is optimized to convert the traffic it receives (be it organic, PPC, or self promotion from social media) into some sort of “conversation” that would eventually result in a face to face meeting and hopefully a Real Estate transaction further down the road. After all, that’s still the goal of all this stuff.

If you’re not sure your site is optimized to convert, it probably isn’t. Conversion optimization is something that takes time, and lots of testing.

Here are 5 simple tips to get you started on the road to having a website that is a conversion machine:

Good content is the best SEO – Your content is essentially what will define the kind of traffic your website generates. For example, if you write about nothing but foreclosures, it’s fairly safe to assume that the traffic you receive from organic sources will be looking for info on foreclosures. Keep this in mind as you’re coming up with a content strategy. If you don’t like working with foreclosures, I wouldn’t suggest including much content in your site related to them. For some examples of a good content strategy, see my previous post on using your daily Real Estate activity to produce content.

Build enough traffic to test properly – like I mentioned above, conversion optimization takes a lot of testing. But, in order for your tests to be worth a damn, you need to be working with a fairly large sample size. In this case, the traffic your website receives should be fairly substantial. What is a fairly substantial amount of traffic? Well I suppose there’s really no correct answer to that question, but as a personal preference I would recommend shooting for somewhere in the range of 100 unique visitors per day before you can even start any sort of A/B testing. The more the better. If you have a new site that doesn’t receive much traffic, think about running some Google Adword campaigns, or Facebook ads. Be prepared to spend some money though, but know that in the end, this will be money well spent.

Give visitors what they’re after – This especially applies if you’re running a PPC Adword campaign of any type. If your ad is promising info on something specific (which I recommend), you better make sure they’re landing on the proper page of your site with the related content, or that will be money down the drain. I don’t recommend offering something generic, like “Real Estate Search” and just dropping them onto your home page. With generic offers come high bounce rates, and more money wasted.

Put some thought into the design – This can really tie in with the above tip. Having a design that matches your content strategy can be a HUGE component in better conversion rates. If your content and promotion strategy revolves around searching for homes on an interactive map, it makes sense to have some sort of a “map theme” built into your site design, right? We’ve noticed a significant improvement in both analytic stats (bounce rate, time on site, page views, etc.) and conversion rates (IDX sign ups, and contact form requests) when we apply custom design that parallels the content strategy of our clients websites. Contact me if you’d to talk about a custom designed WordPress site for your Real Estate business.

Nail the “call to action” – Similar to the custom design (and often an integral part of it) is having a call to action that also parallels the content strategy of your website. Again, with the idea that your visitors are finding your website under the assumption that they can search for homes on an interactive map, you should probably give them what they’re after. Notice on most of our example sites that we have a custom “search for homes” graphic up near the header? There’s a reason for that. Although, sometimes you’ll hear all the “experts” saying that nobody clicks on text based calls to action anymore that you need to have a graphical call to action if you want results. Well, they’re partially right. Having the graphic with a matching “map based” design is a given, but don’t rule out the text based call to action. We have sites that get a large percentage (nearly 50%) of the clicks on that page to convert using text links in the navigation bar. Again, we would only know this from testing and monitoring the click points where our traffic is clicking on our site.

Create multiple “capture points” – When creating a funnel with your content, you need to create something to capture the visitors as they pour out of the funnel. Having the HomeQuest IDX with “forced registration” turned on is a great start for capturing visitors who are searching the properties on the map or your listing pages. Vancouver Realtor, Dale Chumbley has reported a drastic increase in visitors contacting him since he implemented his custom site design and contact form (courtesy of HomeQuest), which invites visitors to “Meet up with Dale…” Prior to the new site design and some basic changes in strategy, Dale had received very few visitors contacting him through his site. Now he’s getting several per week.

So as you can probably see by now, to become decent at conversion optimization, you don’t have to use deceptive marketing tactics, and you definitely don’t have to pay for a bunch strategies from the “guru” of the week.

It’s simply about understanding exactly what visitors to your website want, and aligning what you’re offering (in both content and your tangible services) to their wants and interests. If you do that, I think you’ll be amazed at the results that you yourself can produce.

Have an example, or a story to share? Post it in the comments, I’d love to hear it.

**Also, for our Portland area clients who are interested in learning more about conversion techniques, I’ll be speaking on the topic at the upcoming Inman News – Agent Reboot.  If you’d like to attend, use the code HomeQuest when you register to get special pricing of only $79 (normally $149).

Well, one of the easiest ways to create good, relevant content for your Real Estate website is to document your daily activities. Now I don’t mean document everything, like what you’re having for lunch (although some people do).  I mean documenting the activities that you, as a Real Estate agent, should be out doing anyways.

Here’s Garron to explain a little more:

Like I mentioned above, these activities are things that you should already be out doing, as a Real Estate agent.  Then you can use them to create interesting content, that reiterates what you actually do for a living which is sell Real Estate.

Here are some examples:

Alicia Selliken – Alicia previews roughly 50 homes per week.  From that she creates content based on what she sees while out doing so. She lets people know where she’s been in her “Home Tour” posts along with any “Great Homes” or “Real Estate Details” that catch her eye.

Claire Widmark – Claire loves coffee. She takes every opportunity she has to visit local coffee shops, learn more about the business, meet the owner and even the other patrons of the shop. Just being out meeting people, is a Real Estate activity (and one that is often overlooked in today’s digital world) that Claire enjoys.  Her site features “The Weekly Grind” which showcases Portland’s best coffee spots.

Dale Chumbley - I touched on some of the thought behind Dale’s site last week (see: Real Estate Website Showcase: Clark County Real Estate Guide) but not on his actual activity set. Dale is out in his community every single day visiting shops, restaurants, and other places that residents of Vancouver, WA may find interesting. He’s documenting it all, and building a fantastic local following around his activity set and online presence.

So, this whole idea of creating content from your daily activity isn’t really that hard, if you put just a little bit of thought into it. Plus, it pretty much squashes the thinking of “I’m just too busy to do this “blogging” thing”.  The 3 agents above are blogging about what they’re doing, and getting more business from that activity alone than any other form of marketing they’ve tried.

One last thing to consider: none of your content matters if your website doesn’t have good design elements, and some sort of lead capture built into that design. These are things we can help you with, as part of our custom WordPress website design process. Contact us if you’re interested in learning more.

Our friends at Inman News have extended a special offer for registration to their upcoming Agent Reboot events in Seattle (Aug. 18th) and Portland (Sept. 22nd).

Agent Reboot is a power-packed, low cost, local event for real estate professionals. This one-day,
fast-paced program, will equip agents with the latest in business development, technology and
marketing skills to help them be more successful.

Highlights of each event include a networking power-hour and expo featuring cutting-edge real estate
technology vendors.

Topics throughout the day include:

Download: Must-Have Tools for the Agent with Mobile Mojo
From Clicks to Closings: Turning Your Online Marketing Strategy into a Lead Machine
Mastering Social Media to Expand Your Reach Online
Life Style Branding: Why it Matters
Case Study: Managing Reputation and Content on the Web
Maximum Exposure: Publicizing Your Listings
Going Local: What Does It Take to Win in Local Real Estate?

Each agent who attends Agent Reboot will receive: a bag of goodies from our partners, an Agent
Reboot t-shirt, complimentary morning coffee and continental breakfast, a networking power hour,
and a copy of the Inman News 30-day Social Media Marketing Plan.

Register today for $79 (regular price $149) Use Promo Code: HOMEQUEST

For more information and to register online, visit www.agentreboot.com

We just finished up another custom WordPress website for local Real Estate agent Dale Chumbley this last week.  Check out Dale’s: Clark County Real Estate Guide to see the finished product.

The thought and design behind this site was based on the creation of Dale’s “365 Things To Do in Vancouver, WA” project that he began on Facebook 173 days ago (at the time of this writing) where Dale basically shares a years worth of cool, fun, or for some reason noteworthy locations in Vancouver that offer something “to do/see/eat/etc”.  As a lifelong resident of Vancouver, Dale knows the area like the back of his hand, which is something his family, friends and clients quickly grow to appreciate.

As we’ve discussed before, you’ve got to have a central online location (and a good strategy) to use as the “hub” of your online presence.  If you’d like us to help with the look, feel and overall design of a custom WordPress website, feel free to get in touch. We’d love to work with you.

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