The last couple of weeks have been spent at meetings which have panel after panel of guest speakers on the stage speaking about how sites today need to be more with the times and how you need to embrace mashups, widgets, google maps, and all the other cool crunchy toys of the internet. However I think that there is something missing from that list, selling your services.
It is true that the vast majority of Real Estate facing sites be they agent or broker owned all seem to be lacking the features and tools which users today demand to see when they visit a website. However, what many of these sites are also lacking is a offer of services.
Even on the best of sites in the Real Estate space there seems to be a complete lack of ads that state what service or benefit a consumer has with working with the company or agent who owns the site they are visting. On many sites there is a search and some biographical information and on a growing number of sites there are blogs with information about the market and homes and what prices are doing now and what prices are expected to do in the future. However it seems that many agents and organizations in developing their content forgot to sell their service.
Let me take a step back…
First let us create a site in our heads for the purposes of this post. Let us call the site Joe Realtor Realty. On the Joe Realtor Realty site there is a blog which has information about the market place and it is clear that Joe Realtor is positioning himself to be the local market expert for his neighborhood (your neighborhood). There are tools that let you search for homes and speak to Joe Realtor in real time using a chat window. He has articles that talk about the benefits home staging, how the market is performing and a guide to local events and points of interest. He even has a nice google map of properties in the area and directions to his office.
So what is wrong with that?
Joe Realtor Realty is doing everything right he has a blog he has widgets and people are visiting his site yet to date his site is a cost center not a profit center. People are finding Joe Realtor Realty through Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines and the articles are answering their questions. What is even better these articles are well linked to and the Joe Realtor Realty site is sitting on the top of Google for their primary neighborhood (your neighborhood) however something is lacking on each of these articles, a call to action an offer to engage the services of Joe Realtor Realty.
Ask yourself is your site like Joe Realtor Realty or is it clear that your in business to sell homes and help people find their dream home. If not is the site an informational well that people can drink freely from? At the end of each article, story, analysis, or page you labored over is there a call to action to use your services?
I am sorry it took so long to get the point, but here it is. When creating your site make sure that every page on your site gives the reader the opportunity to retain your service and that your articles not only generate potential visitors to your site but potential clients as well.
So what do you think is your site a Joe Realtor Realty site or is there plenty of chances for people to engage your services through your site?
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