Ryan Gervais
By Ryan Gervais
Do you suffer from ugly website syndrome? Does your website have a twin?
If you answered yes to either question, it is time to “get real,” as Dr. Phil would say, and develop a better brand image for your website. In my last article, I gave a bold statement: to try and help every reader get one more sale this year. Here is the first step in that process.
First, load up your current website. Now count the number of unique articles or stories you personally have written. If the answer is zero, that is probably the same amount of traffic you are getting from Google. If you are getting zero traffic from the largest search engine in the world, you are probably not converting too many online leads to clients.
Now, count how many calls to action you have on your website. A call to action is asking the visitor to do something specific on your site, such as sign up for a newsletter, give their personal information to receive listings, etc. If you do not give the visitor several different options to give up their personal information, you will not get many leads. Website users need to see variations, such as text links, banners, buttons, etc. If you are lacking calls to action, you will need to think about ways of adding them in so you can direct traffic to your conversion page.
Do you have a conversion page? This is the page that makes you money. If you do not have a conversion page, you should drop everything you are doing and create one. A conversion page is where buyers or sellers give you there personal information and allow you to call or email them.
If you have made yourself look like an expert by writing articles, you will be surprised at how many people will make an initial contact through your website. The main conversion page that most agents use is a “sign up for MLS listings to be emailed to you” page. Every person who signs up for this service should immediately be put into your contact system to start receiving emailed listings. These are the cream of the crop for leads, and it need to be harvested carefully (I will speak more about that in a future article).
Now that you know a few of the main things to look out for on your website, I will address how to create a unique website using a content management system in my next article, so stay tuned!
Ryan Gervais is a sales representative in Sarnia, Ontario with RE/MAX Sarnia. Connect with Ryan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/SarniaRealEstate LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/ryan-gervais/a/222/3b or on the Web at www.sarnialistings.com.
Ryan Gervais
By Ryan Gervais
The first thing almost every new REALTOR® is told when they get in the business is to get a website. New agents usually ask their broker or fellow agents where to go to fulfill this seemingly important task, and they usually choose an out-of-the-box template solution. These cookie-cutter solutions do offer the convenience of getting up and running fast, but does it separate your from your competition?
Industry insiders often throw around words such as search engine optimization, Google Analytics, bounce rates, and social media integration as a way to measure how effective your website is. I challenge everyone who is reading this to think about all of those things, but add the most important one of all: Lead Conversion.
Your website should be a place to convert visitors to clients. If you do not know how many visitors it takes to convert a visitor into a prospect or how many prospects you need to convert to a transaction, then what is the point of focusing on all the buzz words above? If you are just using your website as an infomercial for yourself, and not to directly engage visitors and give them many options to become a client, you are wasting a valuable opportunity to pick up another client.
REALTORS® should be benchmarking our websites with other conversion-friendly industries to learn best-practices when building a website that is meant for conversion. Users respond differently to colors, buttons, text links, pictures, white space, and generally need to be told what to do in many different ways if you want them to do something like give up their personal information.
My goal is to get every reader of my posts one new transaction this year by sharing some best practices on lead conversion and answering website related questions over a series of articles.
Ryan Gervais is a sales representative in Sarnia, Ontario with RE/MAX Sarnia. Connect with Ryan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/SarniaRealEstate LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/ryan-gervais/a/222/3b or on the Web at www.sarnialistings.com.
Recent Comments