Common Website Mistakes for Realtors | Real Estate and Rental ...

These aren?t necessarily the most common for Realtors, but pretty common overall. However, I have been hired by many real estate agents for SEO and I find this stuff all the time. First, I will cover design errors and then I will cover the SEO errors.

Website Design Errors

The biggest design error that people make, without a doubt, is not hiring a designer in the first place. A good designer will cost you between $50 ? $100 per hour, depending on their portfolio. I use a gal in Knoxville by the name of Melanie Drouhard. You can spend hours looking at design portfolios before you find a designer that?s a ?good fit.? Ms. Drouhard happens to be a good fit for me.

Some more reality about website design:

• Your high school aged niece, as adorable as she is, probably isn?t qualified to design your website- just because she ?knows Photoshop.? The same rule generally applies to website developers as well. The best designers aren?t usually the best code experts and vice versa. Never hire a ?one man team.? As an SEO person, I work with a designer, a programmer and a copywriter. Each person contributes equally in our efforts. Does your team look like this?
• Don?t do it yourself! Ugh. It seems odd that I would even have to go here, but please don?t make this mistake? unless, of course, you have a fine arts degree from an accredited university. Otherwise, let the experts handle it. A formally-trained designer carefully considers page layout, understands heat maps, and is well-trained in color theory. (Do you know what colors convert best?) You wouldn?t fix your own car or pull your own tooth; don?t get too big for your britches when it comes to design. It?s not as simple as it looks.

Common SEO and Marketing Errors

I could write an entire book about common SEO mistakes and marketing mistakes, but I?ll stick to three, in order of what I find the most on Realtor?s websites- in order no less!

• Slow page load times: This is very common with a lot of real estate agent websites I look at, and it?s usually because the agent uploads very large photos. Be sure to shrink your photos (in resolution, not necessarily physical size) using Photoshop or another image editing program. There is also a plugin for WordPress called Smush.It, that will help reduce your image size.
• No lead capture in place: If you have an IDX system on your website, you probably have some kind of built in lead capture system. Maybe a pop-up that asks them to register on the third MLS search? But what do you have for people looking to sell their home? If you?re like most Realtors, you probably let hundreds of these listing leads slip away each year. Consider an eBook (nothing more than a PDF document) as a free download. The book could be titled: Ten Things You Must Know Before Selling Your Home, or something equally enticing. They enter their email and you send the book- and capture the lead.
• Ten Different Cities on the front page: So you work in Detroit, but you want to be sure that your web visitors know that you also work in every nearby suburb. Realtors will often try to cram every local city into their page title and description. Don?t do that! Make your front page more general:

Detroit Real Estate | Oakland County Home Listings

Then, you can have individual pages for your suburb cities. You should have a unique page for each one: Rochester Hills, Troy, Birmingham, Sterling Heights, etc.

If you have your front page diluted with too many cities, you will likely won?t rank well for any of them. Keep your front page general and use blog posts and individual pages to drill down into the suburbs and then, even the neighborhoods.

Stay tuned, next week I am writing about my favorite WordPress plugins. It?s a top-secret list!

Source: http://www.zillow.com/blog/pro/2013-01-11/common-website-mistakes/

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