All great comedy has an element of truth to it.
Before the Internet we had the Phone Book, commonly referred to as the Yellow Pages, or, The Giant Yellow Book which would arrive every year at your front door.
Today, having your own Real Estate Agent Website is like being in the phone book. Let’s have Steve Martin demonstrate this point…
What’s Included In This Training Article…
1. You can listen to the latest Podcast Episode here or on iTunes.
2. Below you can read the article and get your starting point for building your own real estate agent website.
Podcast Episode No. 5
Getting Started
Several times a month I get emails and phone calls from real estate agents about websites. Most agents are looking for some advise and direction on what do about their own websites. In many cases they don’t have one but are looking to get one started.
Some of the questions I get are…
- What are the best real estate agent websites to use?
- Do I even need my own website?
- How much do websites cost?
- If I get a real estate website, how do I get leads from it?
- What is the IDX?
- Do I need to have the IDX on my real estate website?
- Should I use my broker supplied generic website?
These are all good questions.
However, before you get into costs, features, and designs you should be asking yourself one single question first.
Which is…
What do you want the website to do for you?
You should first establish a set of objectives for what you want the website to do for you and your business.
Just putting up a website alone will not bring in more business. Plus, not all real estate websites are created equal. They are all very different in terms of what they can and cannot do for you.
Once you establish your objectives for the website you can then start looking at all of the options you have available to you. Unfortunately, there is no single perfect answer for what is the “Best Real Estate Agent Website” out there for agents to get.
This is exactly why it’s important to establish your objectives first.
My Own Opinion About Real Estate Agent Websites
I do believe every agent should have a website. It’s 2016!
It’s never been cheaper and easier to have a website for your business. Furthermore, there are a lot of website solutions available for agents to have one at an affordable cost.
Your website is just has important as your cell phone number and your email address. You simply cannot do business with them. Clients and prospects need to see some type of an online presence about you and your business.
It’s like during the days of the Yellow Pages before the internet. If you weren’t in the “Yellow Book”, then you were nothing. Just like what Steve Martin said in the movie clip.
A real estate agent website should be one piece of the whole marketing plan puzzle you have for your business.
Here’s a copy of the Marketing Plan I use to train real estate agents all over the country. You can see the real estate website is under Stage 2, which is, in an advanced level of marketing. Before you get to putting together a real estate website, you should have all of your basic marketing squared away first.
The Real Estate Agent Marketing Plan
So do you need a website? No. You can still run an effective real estate business without one, but I would highly encourage you to plan on getting one in the future.
If you really want to take your business to the next level online and have a presence there, you’ll simply need to have a website or a plan for getting one.
What a Real Estate Agent Website Should Be
Your real estate agent website should be the focal point of all your online marketing. Traffic is redirected there from Social Media and real estate search websites like Zillow & Trulia.
At a minimum, I believe your website should meet the following are objectives….
1. It Should Be a Source of Valuable Information
Your website should be source of information for your Buyers & Sellers. It should provide information in the form of ebooks, videos, blog articles, and/or audio, which answers questions.
Think of the most commonly asked questions you get from them. You’re a walking, talking, living book of real estate information, so share that knowledge online at your website.
2. It Should Be a Portfolio of Your Previous & Current Listings
This is the place where your sales record of listings should be. You should be using professional real estate photography and virtual tours for all of your listings.
There is no better way to show off your brand as a professional real estate agent than showing off how you “market” your client’s homes. Each listing should have it’s own page on your website. This page should be directly linked to the active listing both Zillow & Trulia thru virtual tour and external links. These linkbacks are also phenomenal for the SEO benefits to your website. Bringing in traffic from Zillow & Trulia should be a major goal of each one of your Active Listings.
3. It Should Tell Your Story
Your real estate website should show clients and potential clients who you are. It is the place to bring your own personal branding to play.
Don’t be like every other agent out there. Be Yourself. Be You. This is what they want to see.
Here are two great resources you should check out when creating your “About Me” pages and Bios: Sally Hogshead and Mellissa Cassera.
Sally Hogshead and Fascination
First, you should check out Sally Hogshead and take her Fascination Advantage Test. This will change the way you look at your personal branding. She is all about taking an assessment on your personality traits and then applying those traits into your business and using that has a differentiator in your marketing.
Take the Fascination Advantage Test… CLICK HERE!
In this video you can see her TEDx talk on this subject. It’s pretty awesome.
Melissa Casserara’s “My Story” Page
Second, if you want a great example of an “About Me” webpage then you have to check out Melissa Cassera’s website. Her “About Me” (called My Story) page rocks and I pretty much used it as a template to redo my own “About Me” page on this website.
Click Here to see her “About” page on her website.
What You Should Do Now
Figure out what your websites objectives are going to be first. Next, make sure you have complete all of your basic level marketing before you spend time and money (your resources) on a real estate website.
Once you’ve completed this you’ll need to begin to explore all of the options agents currently have available to them, and there are a lot of them.
I’m going to leave you with some additional information which should help you in answering some of the other questions you’re most likely going to have about real estate websites.
What are the Best Real Estate Agent Websites to Use?
There is no single best answer for this question. So I’ll give you the list of what’s available out there.
In my opinion WordPress is the best. I love WordPress. I believe it’s the single best solution not only for Real Estate Agents, but all entrepreneurs. However, that’s just my own personal opinion. There are some other really good alternatives out there.
Real Estate Website Choices
There are several companies which supply agents with basic template websites. Some of these site offers features like IDX and CRM functionality. I’m personally not a big fan of these but for certain agents this is all you need.
You can also go the WordPress route with an agent website. In this case you’re taking on a more advanced level of marketing because you’re going to be pouring in more resources to get it started and maintained.
Which ever platform you decide to use you will still have to ask yourself the first question: What is the Objective/Goals for having your own website?
Here is a breakdown of some of the most popular agent website choices you have available to you today.
A. Z57, Point2, and Market Leader:
These are usually the top choices for the basic template websites available for agents. I’m not a big fan of these sites and wouldn’t expect that you’ll get very much out of them in terms of lead generation.
Each of them have some level of CRM functionality Listings Syndication services. The customization features of these templates are usually pretty limited.
In my experience, agents that get a website from one of these companies usually don’t keep them over the long term and eventually search out for a better long term solution.
However, this doesn’t make them bad alternatives. It comes down to what you NEED and WANT to get out of your agent website.
B. Agent Websites from Zillow:
I don’t hate or love Zillow. They simply are the most viewed real estate website in the world. However, their website solutions for real estate agents are very “Not Good”.
Zillow offers Premier Agents a WordPress site, but it comes with very limited functionality. They are also very weak in design and look very generic. In my personal opinion, I highly recommend NOT to use these for your business merely because of the lack of Functionality and Design.
I still think Zillow is a very important tool and website to use for your overall marketing plan and you should be engaged on this website. Before you pour time and effort into setting up and using one of their websites, think about it clearly first.
C. Placester, SquareSpace, and Wix:
If you want to step it up a little then I like these alternatives better. They have more functionality and better design. You can call these a “happy medium” for all of the website alternatives out there.
If you’re going to use Wix or SqaureSpace you don’t actually need to use a “real estate template”. You can go with another design. You’ll just have to be more creative about it. It’s not necessary for you to have a “real estate themed” template, or the IDX on a real estate agent website. Go with a design that fits your brand and style instead.
Placester has some of the most attractive real estate website designs out there. They have 4 different packages with different levels of CRM capabilities to them. This is where it starts to get costly, especially if you don’t intend on using their CRM services.
I’m not a big fan of using your website for also being a CRM, but it comes down to what works best for you and what your goals are.
D. WordPress for Real Estate:
I’m totally biased here, but it’s how I feel and look at real estate websites. I just think WordPress is the best solution in the LONG TERM for any real estate agent.
However, WordPress is not perfect. WordPress, takes some work to set up and some more work to develop the content you’re going to put into it. There’s also maintenance costs which carry over into the future.
WordPress is FREE software but you will incur other costs for keeping your WordPress site up and running. These include: Hosting, Backups, Security, and Theme Purchases. The good news is you can run a WordPress website for under $100 per month depending on which companies you are using for these other services to run your WordPress website.
I will have some more info about putting together your own WordPress real estate website coming soon.
Have More Questions?
No problemo, I’d be happy to answer them for you…
What does your current website look like? Do you love it, or hate it?
Or, do you even have one?
Thanks, George
looking to get a website that I can promote on social media. I am looking for some direction. I have contemplated proagentwebsites.com or have something created from squarespace. My back end CRM might be realty juggler.
HOLA Helen. So this is a good question and i’m going to break down the answers into 3 parts…..
1. I looked at proagentwebsites.com and i don’t like what I see there. The reason is that a website should just be a website. To expect your website to be your CRM is just not what a website is supposed to do. Plus, the costs are high at 60 bucks per month, that would be just over 700 per year! Furthermore, you don’t need the IDX on a real estate website any longer, it’s 2016 and buyers and sellers have made the decision to use websites like Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, and Realtor.com to perform their real estate searches. They do this because the “experience” of searching through these portals is much more easier and enjoyable than any IDX service will be.
2. SquareSpace: I do like sqaurespace. Its and affordable solution and they have very attractive designs. Furthermore, you said you want to drive more traffic from Social Media to your website. The best way to achieve this is by “CREATING CONTENT”. This is best when your using blog articles, videos, and/or podcasts. SquareSpace has a blog function and once you create content you can transfer that over to another website platform if you decide to move from SquareSpace to WordPress in the future.
3. CRM’s. There is no one perfect solution for a CRM. I wish there was. Every single one has plusses and minuses about them. The most important thing about a CRM is to first look at what your needs are. Then, once you’ve established your needs look for the one which best can service those needs. Typically, I find that you will have to use a few different systems. One for marketing emails, and one for your physical mail marketing.
Hope that helps, feel free to ask any more questions…
Question on the Zillow Agent Premier Website. Should I set this up and use it as a landing page of some sort. I’m a little lost here, but I liked the idea you had of making every listing a separate page on my website and linking to Zillow….how do you go about that. My site is thru Agent Image. It’s wordpress and I have Homefinder IDX. Thanks, Fran
Hey Fran, thanks for asking. It’s a good question, but the answer is not so simple.
There are a lot of different options you have available, but not all are 100 percent perfect.
Here’s what I suggest in steps….
1. First establish what your goals are. What is it that you want to accomplish and try to be both general and specific.
2. Second. You need a website, but it should be one in which YOU CONTROL. The zillow website is not pretty, it maybe built on WordPress, but you cant add any plugins or customize it. I’m not familiar with Agent Image, but I’m guessing they don’t give you the full control over your WordPress dashboard. (i may be wrong about that, maybe they do give you control, if so great)
I’m not sure what Agent Image is charging you, but it is most likely cheaper if you ran your own hosted WordPress site.
3. Two leads into 3 with what are the best alternatives for building and setting up your website on. Now I don’t believe you need the IDX on your website. The majority of buyers have already choosen a platform like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, etc… and they will most likely search on one of those sites and not yours. I have not put the IDX into any real estate website I’ve built in over 3 years.
If you have your own WordPress site, you have control over everything which is what you need to do this…
I use a couple of different tools but the easiest one is from a Company called Agent Evolution. I have all WordPress sites and I use their Single Website Templates for creating the single property pages.
So, I create single property pages off of one single WordPress site. You can see my site http://www.RedefinedAgent.com where I host all of my MLS Branded Virtual Tour pages that I create for my Realtor clients. These are the pages they use for the Branded Virtual tours, however you can see this same technique can be applied to any WordPress website.
The templates are cheap and easy to set up. I don’t have any affiliation with Agent Evolution, but I like their stuff.
Im creating a new website right now for my GF and using this same technique and some other new stuff on this one as well. Check that one out also at http://www.JeanneDominguezHomes.com.
4. Landing Pages.
Landing pages are specific pages you set up to offer some type of a product, service, eBook, etc…
But the only way a landing page works is that you have to have an OFFER, if you don’t have an offer of some-type, no one will fill out what ever form you have on the website.
On a single property page, you want to give the viewer all the information they need plus have all of the contact info they will need to contact you, and it should be easy.
Lot of stuff there, hope that helps…
I currently have a Zillow site and I think it works well but not great and I would like to change over to a WordPress because I have done this with other businesses however my question is in regards to search…I have the Zillow site because of the home searching capabilities for my clients and according to my analytics over 80% of my traffic are using it to search. On the other hand the template that I am using basically pushes them to do that. My question: How important do you feel home searching capabilities are on a real estate agent website? Should I drop the search and switch to a WordPress site in order to maximize the other valuable information that I could provide my clients and create a stronger call to action to do something else (such as “contact me”)?
Hi Kyle. Thanks for the comment and question, here are my thoughts. Please remember, my answer is my opinion and when it comes to websites and how to best to use them in your business, there are many different points of view on this topic.
This is what I would do.
The zillow site that Premier Agent/Zillow gives you is a restricted WordPress theme and it doesn’t give you full control over it. WordPress is the single most powerful website platform in the world to build a company website on and by not being able to take full control of everything it can do is a real let down for the Zillow provided website.
Now lets address the home search. If you’re able to drive traffic that are actually using the search function on your website, I would just say WOW. We usually don’t see that. In the majority of cases and in the constant market research I conduct we find that home buyers and owners are conducting their searches on third party portals like Zillow, Trulia, RedFin, Realtor.com, and Yahoo Homes. I find that they prefer to use these third party websites.
I would want to know this:
1: Who exactly is using the search on your website? Is it your clients? or is it other consumers landing on your website?
I would really try to come to a truth about who is actually using it.
If you’re clients are actually using your search function and you are seeing the majority of them continue to use and enjoy it, then the next action step should be to improve that for them.
The analytics aren’t going to tell you who is doing the searches on your website, but I would want to get intel from your clients directly start asking them where they are searching. Find out directly from them are they using the search? is it helpful for them? do they prefer that to other third party web portals?
We don’t see consumers use the search capabilities on agent’s personal website and this is why I advocate for NOT putting the IDX on your website.
The reason this is happening is because of the User Experience. Buyers and Sellers have a much more robust, easy, and pleasant experience when searching for homes via a mobile device when using Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and Redfin. This is why these sites rank the way they do. Consumers like the search better there.
The IDX experience on an agent website is much less robust. Buyers and sellers want to be in full control of their own searches and they feel like they are going to get the best info from these third party websites (even if the data is wrong). This is what their behavior patterns are suggesting in the online search.
So I would go full WordPress. Buy a good WordPress Theme and start building a website with a long term plan. Your website should be used as a place which is to be your central hub of your business online. Your website should do exactly what my website tries to do. Which is HELP. Answer questions that your prospects and clients have and make your website a resource rather than a sales broshure.
Marcus Sheridan, from The Sales Lion, says it the best: “Make your website the Wikipedia of your Industry”.
I hope that helps, keep me posted on what you decide to do….
Hi George,
What do you think of IDXCentral.com templates? I’m interested in clean design with video support for my Drone videos…
Thanks for the article and the dialog in the comments as well.
Hola Craig. Let me try and tackle this.
1. VIDEO SUPPORT: Most modern website platforms like WordPress will easily display video. If you are are looking at a website platform which does not support video, RUN FAR AWAY from it.
2. DRONE VIDEOS: Awesome, share some so that we can check out.
3. IDXCentral.com: $69/month? That’s $828 for the year! I think that is just too much. I don’t believe you need the IDX on your website. You should definitely have a portfolio of all of your current and past listings with great photos and videos, but having the IDX on your website in today’s market just doesn’t make sense to me because I don’t see buyers/sellers using them on agent sites. I know there are a few out there that do, and that’s great.
4. REAL ESTATE WEBSITE: In the long run I would recommend a WordPress website that YOU own and fully control. Learn how to use it, it’s been the best decision of my life and if you’re serious about having an online presence you need your own website.
Hope that helps…
I want to than know you for writing this article. I’ve seat he’d a lot o line looking for advise and this sums up everything I needed to begin with. From here on I am interested in learning how to create a real estate website using WordPress.
Again thank you for articulating this answer very well! It’s helped me!
Thanks Veronica. I hope this helps. Some of the places where I learned WordPress online were by searching on YouTube and watching videos there and also a website called WP Beginner. They have a ton of free helpful articles there. Here’s the link: http://www.wpbeginner.com/
Thank you for the great article. I have a question that maybe you can answer for me, Since I am new to the business and do not have any listings of my own what do I put on my website to make it relevant? Do I use my brokers listings or just choose homes that are not mine , but the ones I would be interested in selling?
You’re welcome. So in the article I outline 3 things which a real estate website should include.
But these are just suggestions and direction. You have to work with what you have and listings are not the only thing that will attract buyers/sellers to you.
Therefore, I would focus in on what your strengths are. Since you are new in the business I would see this as a positive thing. Now pre-warning, this will make some agents mad to read this part, but I feel like it’s the truth. You have not developed any bad marketing habits yet which are often transferred on from bad real estate marketing practices that other agents around you might be utilizing.
So since you’re fresh with no bad habits here’s what you can compete in. Your competition is most likely not fully online with a strong web presence. This is where you will be able to compete. You can do this by building your website into a resource for both buyers and sellers to get free access to info about how to buy and sell a home. You can turn the website into a local reference guide for things to do, restaurants, interview local mom and pop shops/businesses. Be a connector and showcase the area. Finally, watch this video, It’s Gary Vee at the Inman conference in August 2016. All the answers you seek are there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLh7OBI1lqg
Plus, if you want to dive deep into what a website should be and can be listen to Marcus Sheridan talk about the topic in this video (What Gary Vee and Marcus Sheridan teaches is the driver for what I do here at Agent Redefined): https://youtu.be/bINmMQ5_XTc
Hi,
I am thinking about revamping my girlfriends website. She is using someone that she haves to pay versus doing it herself. I already know a little bit about wordpress and web development. My question is, for someone with little computer or web developing knowledge, like her, would she have to start learning the HTML and PHP to run her wordpress site? Are you actually coding or just using the simple stuff already provided by WP?
Hi Albert, thanks for your comment. You don’t need to know how to CODE, you don’t need to learn HTML, or PHP to run a WordPress site. There are a few tech things you will need to learn, but it is nothing that you cannot handle. I run all my own WordPress sites here at http://www.AgentRedefined.com and http://www.AgentRedefinedMedia.com, and http://www.redefinedagent.com. I manage them myself. I don’t know how to code, I don’t know PHP I only know what it is. For all of my sites I used WordPress Themes from Studio Press and Agent Evolution.
I am a real estate agent trying to decide between the curb appeal theme by agent evolution (I believe it is a genesis them?) and the thrive theme for my wordpress site. Do you have a reference for both themes to compare them and provide your reasons for selecting one or the other? Which is easier, cheaper, most compatible, best looking, best customer service, etc…?
Hi Cheryl, and thank you so much for your comment.
So I love Agent Evolution, the only thing that kind of sucks is that I believe they switched over all of their themes to the “Equity” platform for WordPress. I don’t know much about the Equity platform, but it looks like it’s very similar to a Genesis platform for WordPress.
I’m also not familiar with Thrive, their themes, and their Customer Service. Agent Evolution has typically been pretty good about CS. Ever since they have switched from Genesis over to Equity we stopped using the Curb Appeal Theme for a lot of sites.
Since I really love Genesis and WordPress I’ve been suggesting and using themes from http://www.StudioPress.com. My main two websites http://www.AgentRedefined.com and http://www.AgentRedefinedMedia.com run on StudioPress themes and their hosting from Synthesis.
I still use the Curb Appeal theme and the listings templates from Agent Evolution for all of my Non Branded Virtual Tour Pages that we add to the MLS. You can see these at http://www.redefinedagent.com.
This is a StudioPress theme that I’m working on right now, it’s still under construction but you can see how I’m taking a regular theme and adapting it to real estate.
http://jeannedominguezhomes.com/
Check out the StudioPress themes and look at adding a listings plugin from StudioPress or from Agent Evolution. In this site mentioned above I’m using the a plugin called AgentPress which is from StudioPress.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for sharing this article. I agree that online marketing is now the most popular strategies to endorse your website. That includes social media and adds.
Thanks for the comment Mike. I checked out your website and it looks like you guys are doing some cool down in Texas. Very awesome.
Hi, I am a newly licensed salesperson and am looking at working with a broker who does not have a website nor is she not interested in setting one up. Can I still create a website for myself doing RE? Of course, I would make sure that clients understand I am not a broker. Is that something I can bring up with the broker? And do I even need her permission? Thanks for your advice.
Check with your state rules and broker first. But you should not rely on your broker for your website. Your website is the hub for your entire business online. It’s your storefront and the place where your brand, business, and listings are available for prospects and clients to check out and be able to experience everything that your about. The big decision you have to make is deciding how far you want to take it. For some agents they want just a basic generic webpage or simple website that just acts as a sort of online business card. That’s ok if that is what you want, but don’t expect that to generate leads, business, or impress anyone. If you want to seriously have an online presence and generate leads from online, then you’re going to be going down the WordPress road.
Hello George, I’m a new salesperson, and I have two questions, 1. If I want to advertise my listings on my personal website do I need to site the brokerage I work for? I am just not sure about how much I can represent about myself without having a brokerage listed on my site?
And 2. Can I use a moniker last name that is not my legal name but sounds way more catchy?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
– Gina
Hola Gina. Whatever state you are practicing real estate in, you’ll want to make sure you are following all of the advertising/marketing guidelines there are. Do not try and short cut that. Get some council from your Managing Broker and refer to your state board. I would try and make sure that your name is at least in bigger font than the brokerage logo. You want the brokerage referred to on your site, there should be no reason to hide it.
Monikers can be good and bad. Make sure it’s something that you honestly believe you will still like in a few years.
Ultimately, it’s your name that is most important. Your name is your true brand. I would stick with that.