Does Your Website Suck?
Picture your website. Does it make you cringe? Are you almost happy no one visits it? While we hope this isn’t the case, the fact is a lot of people are struggling to get their businesses noticed because of bad websites. Your real estate website can be a goldmine or your greatest disappointment, but either way, you know you need one–and there’s a good chance it’s not the one you have now. To compete in today’s market, you need a website that’s easy to use, multifunctional, professional looking, and built using the latest technology.
There’s one small issue, of course: You don’t have the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to hire a top notch design team who’ll take care of the entire process. That means you’ll need to be responsible for some portion of the planning and construction of your site. If this is starting to make your typing hands cold and clammy, fear not: the Placester team is here with some advice.
Why Your Site is So Important
By now, we’re sure you have some idea of how important the Internet is to running your real estate business. But just to drive the point home, here are a few quick statistics on the subject.
- 78% of Internet users research products online. That number rises to 88% for households with incomes over $75,000. (Sources: Pew Internet)
- More than a billion unique users visit Google every month (Source: Mashable)
- 83% of all property searches start online. (Source??)
- 88% of homebuyers in 2011 used the Internet to find their home (Source: NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 2011)
- 40% of homebuyers in 2011 first learned about the home they purchased on the Internet. (Source: NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 2011)
Your job has always been to help people find a place to live, and usually that just meant hanging a shingle and waiting for people to call. But opening a fancy office in a prime location isn’t going to cut it anymore when it comes to growing a real estate business. As these statistics illustrate, search is the new real estate. That being the case, it’s imperative that you take steps to control or own the online search for properties in your region and niche. Placester’s guide to redesigning your website will show you how. Let’s start with a closer look at what a website does.
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