Are you a “me-too” realtor? Of course you aren’t. Don’t let your real estate website mistakes make your potential clients think you are!
Why do you have a ”me-too” website? Free/cheap sites from homes.com, websitebox.com and others are inexpensive, let’s be honest here – cheap. However, even a multitude of templates can’t disguise the fact that you are buying a commodity made to sell for the lowest possible price. You think that your potential clients can’t tell the difference. Guess again – home buyers and sellers are more tech savvy than ever and they quickly recognize generic sites or ones that haven’t been updated in years. Below are some actual examples from real estate websites belonging to LinkedIn members. My apologies to you if your site was selected but identifying information has been hidden. Don’t make these real estate website mistakes.
Check your copyright at the bottom of your site. Does it look like this?
real estate website mistakes – out of date copyright
It’s 2015. A copyright date of 2012 tells you visitor and prospective client that you are at least 3 years behind the technology curve.
How about an out-of date look or color scheme that is unreadable? Are you really providing value to your clients when they can’t read what you are saying?
real estate website mistakes – unreadable text
Or maybe you are using an outdated IDX that likes to use small images and doesn’t really integrate with the mapping features.
real estate website mistakes out of date IDX
I could go on and on but I think you get the picture.
We recently visited a local mall armed with an iPad loaded with three real estate agents’ websites – one of the ones “featured” from above, the generic homes.com site shown in the header and a modestly priced but customized site. We asked 50 people to rate the real estate agent on expertise and trustworthiness based on looking at the three sites.
The results were hardly surprising: 49 of the 50 surveyed rated the realtor with the customized site #1 in expertise and trustworthiness. 1 senior citizen went with the homes.com site because the fonts were large and easy to read.
Take a good look at your site. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot and waste potential visitors’ interest by making these real estate website mistakes.