G-G-G-G-Goal!!!

What is the goal, or shall we say OBJECTIVE, of your website?

Seems like a simple question with a simple answer. Most people will instinctively say, “to build my business”.

While that is a good objective of any business website, it leads to yet another question, “How will your website build your business?” To get to the answer to this question, we need to go a bit deeper.

As with most website strategies, we must first identify your target audience. Who are these people? What are their needs? How can they help you with your general goal of building your real estate or lending business?

The intriguing part of identifying your audience is that you will most certainly find different groups of people who you are targeting. Each of these groups will have different needs and will benefit your business in different ways. You may find that unique objectives are required for each group.

Let’s take a look at several potential audiences of your website and how they differ.

Potential Clients (Prospects)

These are people with whom have no prior relationship with you. They found your website through a search engine, a referring link from another website or from one of your offline marketing channels.

NEEDS: Potential clients are usually looking for information. They are trying to become as informed as possible as to make the best home purchase or get into the best home loan for their situation.

OBJECTIVE: Convert these web visitors into clients. This means getting them to call or email you.

GETTING TO THE OBJECTIVE: This group is looking for information, so provide it. This is where blogging on the market, community and other relevant is very effective. If you come across as an expert in the field, people will be inclined to conduct business with you.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I sure hope my… (fill in the blank with an profession you choose) …knows what they are doing.” If your site shows that you know what you are doing, it is bound to pay off.

Past Clients

I heard a statistic a couple of years ago that 67 out of 100 people surveyed 60 days after the close of escrow couldn’t give the full name of their real estate agent.

When it comes to home loans, the numbers are even worse for people using the same mortgage broker for subsequent refinances.

How can someone who doesn’t remember you refer you to friends and family or use you for their next transaction?

NEEDS: For those who have recently moved, they are looking to become acclimated to their new neighborhood. Mortgage brokers, your past clients want to stay informed as to when they should refinance to save money.

OBJECTIVE: Continue to provide value to your past clients, so that they will use you for their next transaction and will refer you to other potential clients.

GETTING TO YOUR OBJECTIVE: Once again, information is the key. The difference with this group is that you already have a relationship. Leverage that relationship.

Send your blog content to past clients via email (a service that Draven Creation can provide). Use surveys on your website and via email to find out what your past clients need and then fulfill those needs. Provide a way for your past clients to refer people to you, right from your website.

Referrals

I ask a friend if they know a real estate agent they could refer. I could take that referral on blind faith or, more likely, I will take that recommendation with a grain of salt and will research that agent on my own.

That is where your website comes in. My friend could say, “I recommend XYZ agent, but don’t take my word on it, check out their website at www…”

NEEDS: Determine that the referral of an real estate agent or mortgage broker is a good recommendatio.

OBJECTIVE: Convert the referral into a client.

GETTING TO YOUR OBJECTIVE: Show your knowledge, professionalism and track record on your website. A bit of personality coming through doesn’t hurt, either.

Show your past transactions, your marketing plan or graph out how you have saved past clients on their home loans.

Current Clients

You’ve got them. You are listing their home, finding their new home or are getting them into a home loan.

NEEDS: Find the perfect home or home loan, or insure that they are getting the highest offer in the shortest time on their home.

OBJECTIVE: This is where your website can save you time and effort. Just as a good corporate website can lower the customer support needs of a company, a good agent or broker website can service your clients without additional time and effort on your part.

GETTING TO YOUR OBJECTIVE: Home searches, homes by email updates, mortgage rate updates and market updates articles can provide the information that satisfies your current clients’ needs. Best of all, you won’t have a dozen voicemails to return to answer what homes have recently hit the market or what did rates do today.

Information is the Key

By now, you realize the common thread for each of these groups is value-added information. Be the source of information and people will be compelled to do business with you.

Have you identified your audiences? Do you recognize their needs? How can your website satisfy those needs while advancing toward your objectives?

I say, write all of this on a piece of paper and keep it next to your computer. It will keep you focused on obtaining your objectives.

The Blog Evolution Continues

I was blown away this morning by a single paragraph. In his monthly rant in PC Magazine, John Dvorak solidified the future of Wordpress as a content management system and created a moniker for the new breed of blogs hitting the web.

These new “neo-blogs“, as Dvorak coined them, utilize the Wordpress software for more than blogging. Through the effective use of template design, plugins, widgets and pages, a website built on the Wordpress software can become a full-fledged website and not merely a blog.

This is a real turning point for blogging.

For the past 6 months, a slow change has been happening. Blogs were becoming more robust. No longer are all blogs simply linear, chronological posting sites.

Blogs now have supporting pages of content and content organizationed based on topic, age of the content and reader value.

In fact, the best of the new breed don’t feel like blogs at all. They feel more that magazine websites.

I am so in favor of this new trend of what I have termed “blogsites”, that Draven Creation hasn’t built a traditional blog format site all year. It has purely been extending the Wordpress system to create content centric websites, even when the client isn’t going to blog.

Choosing to use Wordpress as a content management system for your website or blog is a strong choice because:

• Website maintenance is easier. Updating content is much more difficult without a content management system.
• Traditional, chronological blogs only showcase recent content. Using advanced techniques, past content can be highlighted. Groups of posts can be combined to create featured content.
• There is no need to have a website and a blog. Search engines love blogs, so why not add your traditional website content as pages to your Wordpress blog? Maintaining and promoting 1 website is much easy and cheaper than doing the same for a website and separate blog.

Draven Creation builds exclusively on the Wordpress platform, using the latest techniques and trends. This strategy provides our clients with custom, value-added websites that are easier and less expensive to build and maintain. Call for more information, 209.679.5801 or send an email.

Answer Reader Questions For Success

Why do people visit real estate agent and mortgage broker websites and blogs? Unlike YouTube, people don’t surf these sites for entertainment. Nor are they looking for the local weather forecast.

When someone visits a local real estate agent or mortgage broker website, they have questions and are looking for answers. The better job you can do in answering those questions, the more valuable you are to that potential client.

When I reference answering questions, I am not talking about the ability for site readers to post questions for you to follow with an answer. While this can work when done properly (a great example is Trulia Voices), I am actually talking about the overall content on your website.

When writing any content for your site, you must first consider the audience. Who are they? What is of value to them? What questions might they be seeking answers to? Read more

Staging Your Website

Take a moment to think of your real estate agent website and envision it as a home that you are about to list. Go through each page on your website as you would each room of a home. Identify the selling points, as well as, the low points.

There are many similarities between a home for sale and a real estate agent website. I think the most important commonality is that of the effective use of negative space, known as whitespace in the web design world.

If you, as a real estate agent, go to list a home, do you not make suggestions to the homeowner on how to make the home look more appealing? If a room is full of clutter, knick-knacks and too much furniture, do you suggest that items be placed in storage while the home is listed? The goal is to make the space to appear larger and more inviting. Read more

Right This Way

Like thousands before me, I worked my way through college in the restaurant industry. Possibly a precursor to my current role as a consultant, I found myself in charge of training duties.The most important point that I could instill in a new hostess was that of leading the patrons to a table.

For a busy restaurant, there is always a plan or strategy involved in with seating guests. It is up to the hostess to implement that plan in a way that allows the guests to feel welcomed, yet not corralled like cattle.

In a way, the patrons are looking for guidance. No one goes to a fine dining restaurant expecting a sign saying, “Sit Anywhere You Like”. That is for fast food and truck stops. Instead, patrons expect someone to greet them and let them know that, “We have a wonderful table prepared for you. Right this way…” Read more

Does Your Real Estate Agent Website Portray Your Business Properly?

What type of real estate business do you specialize in? Do you sell high-end homes? Are you the king of first-time home buyers? Do you focus on a specific geographic area, like a neighborhood?

Now that you have answered that question, does your real estate website represent your business niche? Could a new visitor to your website identify that niche easily?

Try this little test. Ask people in your life that know you are a real estate agent, but aren’t familiar with your business niche, to visit your site. Ask them to identify what you type of real estate transactions you specialize in. If they can’t, you have some work to do. Read more

What Is “Remarkable” About Your Website?

Why would someone bookmark your website? Is there something on your website that can’t be found on any other real estate agent or mortgage broker website? How does your website differ from those of your competition?

These are questions that you should be able to answer.

If you are seeking return visitors, inbound links and viral marketing for your website, it is crucial that you give the public something different. No one is going to be compelled to tell their friends about a real estate website with a canned buyers and sellers guide, a dated About page and an antiquated home search. There is nothing special about that type of a site. Read more