Real estate marketing & design blog

The Yahoo/Overture Keyword tool has been a go-to app. for many a webmaster. I am sad to report that the while tool is still live, it is merely a shell of its former self. Offering up no results at all. It seems that while the folks at Yahoo don’t have the heart to rip it down completely, the powers that be have effectively disemboweled it leaving only the cheery facade as a stark reminder of a by gone era. An era of super fast keyword searches, reliable results and openness rarely found amongst major search engines.

I have many fond memories of the Yahoo/Overture Keyword tool. It was one of the primary tools that helped me unlock the mystery of the internet; defining the hazy trinity of search popularity, projected traffic and conversion ratios. Being consistent and reliable, it helped guide some very key decisions to both start and scrap certain online projects. While my choices may have been less then perfect and in many ways falable, the tool never let me down. A true original, its form and function could not be matched by any who came after. It was simply the best there was. No fuss, no gimmicks, just reliable information time and time again. It was a pillar of strength and consistency in an internet determined remain in a jarring state of flux.

So it is with heavy heart that I bid the Yahoo/Overture Keyword tool farewell. You will be missed.

If you are just starting out in the real estate industry, you’re going to need to think about how you are going to go about building your real estate website. Who are you going to get to do it for you? Is it going to be open source or closed source? Will it be a custom built real estate website or an out of the box solution? Will you design it yourself or get someone else to design it for you?

These are only some of the questions you’ll need to ask yourself regarding your real estate website. We have compiled a checklist o things you should make sure your real estate website can do before choosing the solution that best suits your needs.

Does the website allow for opt in newsletter sign ups?

Does the website have search engine friendly pages?

Does it have easy meta tag implementation?

Does it have custom design capabilities?

Can you easily add new properties?

Do you have the ability for unlimited picture upload?

Can you upload as many pictures as you like?

Can you receive as much traffic as you like?

Do you have a stats monitoring program?

Can you change the font of your site?

Is the backend secure?

Is the admin panel easy to navigate and use?

Does it use the latest real estate technology?

This list should help you start the brainstorming process before choosing your real estate website design solution.

Key elements of a real estate website.

Not all real estate websites are created equal. Here are some key elements that must be in place to ensure that a site maximizes its lead potential.

Aesthetics: Having a site that looks ‘good’ is a highly subjective claim. One person’s eye sore is another person’s masterpiece. However, there is something to be said to appreciating the current trends in design and having a site that reflects them. This is not an excuse to be trendy, but it is important to have a site that reflects current design trends. Real estate websites share many elements with a business card. Every agent has a business card. Most agents go out of their way to ensure that their card is not only recognizable but that it stands out amongst a crowd. Why should a website be any different? Should there not be a cohesive theme between business card and website? It not make sense to present a unified, cohesive image. Basic rules of thumb are to keep your site simple, clean, organized and uncluttered.

Functionality: Simply having a website does not make it a marketing machine. For a real estate website to generate leads it has to be working 24/7. It needs to be easy to navigate, simple to use, and uncluttered. Trying to put as much information with as many gimmicks as possible on a single page is counterproductive. What is more, your visitors are smart people and don’t like to be bought with gimmicks.

Content: At the end of the day, the only thing your visitors are coming to you for is for content. You have content they want. Be it property listings, articles, useful tips on home buying or the like, they are there because of your content. Keeping your content fresh and up to date is critical. Having the means to organize and facilitate this is also key. Top of the line websites offer users simple, intuitive content management tools to streamline the process as much as possible.

Layout: Your website must be easy to get around. Getting lost wastes people time which guarantees people will leave. Having a logical and simple information architecture will help your visitors find what they are looking for and keep them coming back.

SEO: SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a much used catch phrase that essentially means building websites that search engines deem as quality. Search engines exist because they sort information and make sense of the millions of websites in existence. They do well because they give their clients –people searching- what they are looking for and spare them the plethora of cluttered, garbage sites that fill the web. Being able to build a site that meets their quality criteria ensures that the site will do favorably in search engines.

This post is really a link to another post on another blog. The news contained is frightening. 1,074 homes were foreclosed on in L.A. County - up more than 600 percent from last year.

Read More Here

Thanks again to CurbedLA for this one, scary though it may be.

Based on the trends indicated through out this report it is possible to draw up a picture of the next generation of real estate websites. Real estate websites that are built to deliver results both in the form of quality leads and in search engine optimization.

A real estate website of the future offers quality tools and information designed to build a rapport with its visitors; too keep them coming back time and time again, making them a touchstone for their property search.

In the near future, real estate websites will be search engine optimized to facilitate a quick and smooth rise up the search engine rankings. These sites will be able become the dominant force within their niche markets, drawing a substantial amount of traffic from their natural search listings.

For agents, real estate websites of the future will be convert more visitors in to quality leads and more quality leads in into sales. As the trend in website behavior increases, more leads will come directly from an agents online presence. Further, these leads will be educated, able to define their needs and understand the market like never before. This alone will allow agents to sell more properties in less time.

To further the impact of these trends, the cost of implementation will continue to fall making powerhouse websites affordable to all. Instead of becoming a burden or a necessary evil, these sites will offer up investment potential. That is, these site will return far more then their cost in both leads and sales.

There is a movement to push these changes into being now, rather then waiting for the future to bring them in. There are a handful of internet wise, real estate website design companies that are looking at these trends and launching the websites of tomorrow, today. What makes this so exciting is this forward thinking has already translated into great success.

PaperclipCMS.com is one such company. Born out of years of online marketing experience, our real estate website designs bring each of these elements to bare. Increased functionality, strong information architecture, and superior search engine optimization are all hallmarks of our work.

There are those real estate professionals who are content to ride the wave of complacency; to stick to what has always been around, simply because it is all they know. There is another group of real estate professionals who demand the best and are willing to invest in the future in order to see their business flourish. These real estate professionals are unwilling to be caught on the loosing side of the technology gap and are highly motivated to embrace powerful real estate website design. If you see yourself as a cutting edge real estate professional looking to maximize your return on your internet investment, PapeclipCMS is seriously worth taking a look at.