Real Estate Web Design – Make the Right Impression

With Real Estate going online, and deals being struck on the web, it has become imperative to have a good web layout for Real Estate Websites. Due to increased competition, the faster you adapt to change, the more the chances there will be of your success.

Today’s Real Estate Web design services focus on cutting edge technology. Emphasis is given to a very lean search engine friendly code and markup, properly formed URLs, access to content, along with high end graphics and presentation.

The idea behind creating a simple Real Estate Web Design is to have the right mix of great design and easy to comprehend content. That’s not to say that all web sites should be minimal. You should use as few features as are necessary to achieve what you need to achieve. Besides it has loads of advantages. It appears that websites have goals and all web pages have purposes. Since the users’ attention is a finite resource, It’s the designer’s job to help them find what they want, or notice what you want them to notice. Also remember, stuff on the screen attracts the eye. The more stuff there is, the more different things there are to notice, and the less likely a user is to notice the important stuff. So we need to enable certain communication, and we also need to minimize noise. That means we need to find a solution that’s does its stuff with as little as possible. That’s simplicity.

Real Estate websites should always be designed with your target audience in mind, not your own personal preferences. Colors too, have meaning. Professional designers understand the psychology of color and the use of white space to best project the image your audience wishes to see. For example, the color red is generally not used on a financial site. Your target audience is the one who will ultimately determine the success or failure of your site.

There are different designing tools you can use for real estate web designs. An entire site might be a Flash site. Or there might even be some beautiful drop-down menus in the design. However, the main purpose of creating a website is to make it search engine friendly, and this is served best by the simplicity of HTML. The code needs to have apt keywords, without coming too strong on the reader. Remember to always have a pretty design, but the message is clear – style with substance. The end result is always to bring in business.

The reality of an ineffective website design begins to hit, usually around 3-6 months after the initial launch. A site will typically get rejected by many of the major directories, not be indexed by the major search engines, or not get the traffic or sales that were projected based on the various types of marketing strategies used. That is when real estate agents realize they need to hire a professional online marketer to promote the site.

Typically, real estate website owners will bring in a usability expert to analyze potential problems and present various solutions. Bringing in a search engine marketing expert to help with search-engine friendly Web Design for Real Estate templates early in the design phase, can save a company thousands of dollars in online marketing costs.

Understanding the products/ services/ information that your target audience is searching for, is paramount to designing and maintaining an effective web site. When you launch a site, you might have to make an educated guess as to what your target audience wants. After that, tools such as site statistics software and reporting from site searches tell you exactly what your visitors are looking for. Then content and marketing strategies can be adjusted accordingly. Also, keep in mind that unless the advanced technology clearly benefits end users, do not use it on your site.

Marketing Tips For Real Estate Agents

 Marketing is expensive. More accurately, marketing is expensive when it doesn’t work. Many people in real estate avoid any form of marketing or advertising because they are unsure of what their results would be should they launch a new postcard campaign, magazine ad, or even a new website. Avoiding marketing is a sure fire way to put your business in trouble, so what is the best way to not waste money and still try something new?

I invite you to take into consideration the following marketing tips for real estate agents to help you get the most from any marketing that you launch.

1.      What is your marketing message? – This is not a slogan, jingle, or clever saying, this is a marketing message. A marketing message should separate you from your competition in less than 10 seconds and communicate how you can save someone time and money should they pick up the phone and call you. The most powerful messages will be so over the top and obvious that the consumer would feel crazy for not calling you. Let’s examine the following:

“I will sell your home in 39 Days or I will sell it for FREE…Guaranteed”
This message saves someone time and money should they be willing to take advantage of the guarantee. The entire point of the marketing message is to get your phone to ring and a message such as this will have your phone ringing off the hook.

2.      Stick with the 7% rule – Because marketing can be expensive, when you make a mistake, set a budget. As real estate prices fluctuate across the country, use the rule of not spending any more than 7% of your commission on any single form of marketing. With every 7% that you invest you should be able to get at least 1 transaction back. When you start off with a marketing piece that would already put you above 7% of a normal transaction it will be challenging to make money from that marketing piece.
 
3.      Match your marketing to your personality – Take a few moments to consider who you are better suited to work with (buyers or sellers). Understanding your strengths in this section will allow you to select the marketing that will get you more of the business that you are best at! Often real estate agents say they will “take anything” and this leads to launching marketing that is ineffective.   In order for marketing to be effective it must be focused on either buyers or sellers and taking just that little bit of time to understand your strengths will save you time and money.

With the above three marketing tips for real estate agents you will be able to get results every time you launch a marketing campaign. Keeping a tight focus on instant results for all of your marketing will enable you to hit your goals monthly.