Wishes, Luck, and Your Point2 Agent Website We've all received them. Those emails from friends and family requesting an "update" on your current life and interests that contain fifty questions and border on the edge of being spam. In receiving one the other day, one of my immediate answers to a question caught my interest and gave pause for reflection. The question: "Do you wish on stars?". Wish on stars?  The whimsical side of me that has been conditioned by Disney's Jiminy Cricket wanted to type "yes", but my actual response was "If I want something done, wishing won't make it so - only hard work will." Apparently fathers have more influence on their daughters than previously realized! Ralph Waldo Emerson seemed to be of the same mindset: "Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect". Being a successful online realtor, then, isn't so much wishing that the site will get more traffic, and it isn't a matter of luck when a site does start generating leads for the real estate professional. So, if we are doing away with wishing on stars and hoping to have luck showered upon us, what are we to do? The first step: getting the website. If you don't have a Point2 Agent account, you will need to sign up for one to begin having an online presence. Registering a domain and setting up a domain-associated email will provide us with the professional branding we can use in our marketing efforts through signs, postcards, business cards, etc. Next steps: designing our site and adding content, listings, and search engine information to that site. Online visitors looking for real estate want information, and they want it quickly and easily. They don't want to work for it, but they are willing to invest time in searching for a website that has what they want. So, let's give them what they want, and in giving them what they want, we will also be providing information to search engine crawlers about ourselves and our website, so that we can be found. Search engine crawlers have never heard of luck or wishes. Content: crawlers and online visitors love content, and the more original it is, the better. Taking the time to customize the information provided on our websites will please both parties, and also provide us an avenue for starting a dialogue with people. Plus, the flexibility of the Custom Content Modules gives us the option of not only including text, but also photos, links to other areas of our website, as well as to external websites. Listings: the core of a real estate business is listings. Online visitors want to see potential properties, so providing this information is essential. The sooner those listings are visible to the visitors, the better, as they will then stay on our websites, thus increasing the potential of them becoming a lead. There are multiple ways that listings can be provided: the Listings module, Featured Listings, and Listings by Map. Some of us may choose to also include an IDX feed to our sites, or iFrame in an MLS solution. Using multiple options can increase the chances of the visitor staying longer, as viewing preferences may differ. Search Engine Information: search engine crawlers do need to have specific information about our websites in order to find them, besides being able to access the content and listings. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will be a key activity that will help us be found, as will be using our Google sitemaps. The more we can be found, the more we can generate leads.
After having optimized our website with further content, our listings, and having completed our preliminary search engine tasks, we now have a website that includes our branding, our company information, and our offering. We're not "completed", though. Websites are dynamic entities that require a time commitment to keep the content, listings, and search engine information relevant and current. Much like your vehicle needs regular maintenance, so does your website. Right there, that statement, is going to take us from wishing for a great site to actually having one. You don't continually wish you had a full tank of gas, you go to the station and purchase it on a regular basis to ensure the vehicle continues to work (although you likely wish that the prices were better!). Websites don't run on wishes or luck either: they run on maintenance and regular work. Keeping things fresh can be as simple as having dedicated pages to local events, an Announcements module, Coming Events section, or a Blog. Blogs are great for creating dialogue with online visitors on topics that may or may not relate to real estate. What did you think of that new restaurant? How did you like that latest movie? Consider information you access on a regular basis and include it in your blog. Chances are, if you are wondering it, so is somebody else! If you get the same spam email that I received, hopefully your response will also be a resounding "No", as you have taken steps to achieve the results you want to see, rather than relying on wishes or luck. Thomas Jefferson said it best: "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." - Tanya D. Spilchak, Education Coordinator |