How do you figure which real estate website tools are best for your website marketing campaign? The search engine standing and maturity of your website as well as your market’s competition are critical determinants in your real estate website investment. Of the many website tools available to real estate agents, some are high priority tools - such as sales lead generation and brand reinforcement - and others are beneficial to add as soon as you can. Don’t lose money by finding the last step you took was the one that created the largest influx of qualified sales leads.

Using an experienced real estate web site design company is one of your wisest moves. Internet Marketing Consultants (IMC) has used the website tools listed below to help many of our clients to regularly appear in Google’s and Yahoo’s top ten keyword/key phrase organic search results (not pay per click) and stay ranked high for years. IMC has clients that are Number One in Google for their highly competitive keywords.

Your domain name is one of your most critical elements in establishing and keeping your internet visibility. If you don’t already have one, your website design company can help you secure one. If your developer also handles your hosting, webmaster duties of overseeing your email server, tech support and training, as well as continual reporting and tweaking your website’s search engine optimization, you reduce your headaches and are able to focus on what you do best - following up on all your sales leads. You website designer will also make sure each webpage is utilized for brand reinforcement with your logo, contact information and any sales motto.

The primary purpose of your real estate website is to gather qualified real estate sales leads. Foundational in any real estate website design is the guest pages that gather contact information and automatic email notification of your new sale leads. All your content-rich pages offering advice to sellers and buyers helps establish your expertise and the tantalizing carrot of the ability to view your online listings are the momentum builders to get the potential client to send their contact information.

Two inexpensive website tools you have are to 1) add helpful relocation and community links such as governmental, business and school links and 2) add testimonials from your (happy) customers. Search engines count updated or added web pages as a plus that helps boost your standing. Testimonials are a proven way to quickly increase your credibility and trustworthiness - key to building relationships.

Your website’s design should be able to easily add modules or upgrades that increase your presence to the search engines and to your targeted real estate markets. The following are real estate website tools that have been proven to attract more qualified sales leads.

Adding a real estate blog is by far the best step to boosting your website’s visibility. Making blog entries take some discipline and creativity on your part, since entries need to be written and posted on a regular basis. But these added postings are why your real estate blog is one of your key website tools. Your postings can quickly address emerging real estate marketing trends, answer basic real estate questions, and add informative keyword-rich entries. Any of these entries will boost your search engine standing, reinforce your real estate expert image, and build a larger base of “landing pages” where potential clients can find you.

A “neighborhood news” feature, your next real estate website tool, allows you to add articles, similar to your blog. These articles address various market niches as big as a county or city and as small as subdivisions, communities or a particular condominium project. These articles make use of your strategic keywords and your intimate knowledge of the area’s real estate trends. The neighborhood news does not need to be added to as much as your blog.

Of course as a “people person”, one of your key skills or time investments may not be writing, much less “advertising copywriting” geared to motivate your readers to action. Finding yourself a good writer is a blessing and your website developer may be able to give you good leads or provide that service. Again, your real estate website should lesson your headaches and increase your sales leads.

At the planning phase of your website, discuss your real estate website tools with your website designer. If you are not placing them in your site at the beginning, set up a tentative timetable to add the other features. Your real estate website is one of your most key tools and investments to reaching your lively real estate market. Don’t lengthen your years in the work force by neglecting this key asset and having it fall off the search engines’ radar. Better to have a website build-out plan of what key website tools to add and when - that is what we are here for!

With computers and the Internet, real estate technology has an amazing array of tools for real estate agents. Real estate websites are the primary tool, but contact software and the ease of making audio and video clips has multiplied the avenues to finding real estate sales leads.

A real estate web site usually contains the means of capturing contact information, automatically sending reply emails, offering content-rich pages of buyer and seller guides and checklists, area relocation information and links, and the ability to see an agent’s listings. With the spread of high speed internet connections as the norm, broadcasting audio and video clips has entered the mainstream.

The ability to send video images is used by real estate agents in several ways:

• Offer video tours of homes for sale,
• Film short self-introductory clips, and
• Attract attention by posting videos to heavily trafficked websites like YouTube.

The YouTube technology can also be used to inexpensively add video clips to your PowerPoint presentations and Blogs:

MP3 players and iPods have helped create the podcast technology. By creating short audio recordings for broadcast on the internet as podcasts, a real estate agent can create an audio blog. A potential real estate sales lead can download and listen to your podcast at any time.

Real estate blogs can be added to your real estate website. By combining the blog with the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology, the content of your blog entries can be automatically sent to your subscribers. Yahoo has created a tool called Yahoo Pipes that lets you combine your blog entries with other sources (news or other real estate blogs) and send that information out to subscribers.

Software has greatly improved real estate agents productivity (except for Tetris). Contact management software allows agents to keep track of emails, contact information and set contact reminders so hard won sales leads don’t fall through the cracks. There is even software that scans in business cards to a virtual Rolodex-type file.

The fax machine has largely been replaced with email and Adobe’s Acrobat software. With Acrobat, an agent can quickly scan legal documents into the computer or save a Microsoft Word document as a PDF document. A PDF document can be attached to an email and sent to clients for review or signature. Since a PDF is platform independent, anyone with a PC or Mac computer that has the free Adobe Reader software can download and open your real estate documents.

Last, but not least, the cell phone and the laptop computer with a wireless interface allows real estate agents to take their real estate technology on the road. Emails can be checked and replied to from airports with wifi connections, internet cafes allow meetings with clients to turn into PowerPoint presentations or an instant review of your listings, and you can also keep tabs on what your competition is doing on their website! Add to this the ability to receive faxes on your computer, real estate agents can now be on the move and not lose touch with the office - they can take the office with them.

Effective real estate marketing on the internet causes a real estate agent’s time to be used more productively. By making available real estate listings, as well as real estate market news and tools, a potential client can narrow down the home search online. Often real estate agents only take clients to see one to three homes before closing on a sale. The ratio of number of showings per closing lowers with internet marketing that uses a proven website design.

Traditional real estate marketing has relied on referrals, print and radio/TV advertising, post cards, and getting out and finding potential buyers and sellers. Real estate marketing trends have changed due to changes the way buyers and sellers get information. First cable TV eroded and fractured the traditional TV market. In car tape/CD players and increasingly satellite radio have knocked out a large portion of the radio audience. Radio and TV stations as well as newspapers have found that in order to stay current with information gathering trends they need an internet presence.

With the increased use of the Internet, beneficial real estate marketing ideas include a review of your traditional avenues, such business cards or print ads. These are better utilized by adding your real estate web site address to them. Before a sales lead calls you, they can visit your website to become better educated on the real estate process and view your available properties.

Referrals take on a new aspect in internet marketing. “Viral marketing” is a way to maximize your visibility on the net by utilizing your clients’ social networks. George Silverman in his book Secrets of Word Of Mouth Marketing points out that satisfied customers pass on your information about a product or service they like to three people on the average. With a web site, your happy clients aren’t limited to passing out your business card, but can recommend your site to anyone they know who is in the market. The viral aspect is that the referral traffic to your site generates better search engine standing thus driving more leads to your site.

The purpose of your marketing campaign is two-fold, to attract clients and weed-out the tire kickers. The content attracts the search engines that direct clients to your site and captures their interest. The quick contact registration process captures those leads for your follow-up and also serves as a deterrent to those who are not serious in their property search. Your website fulfills these two key purposes.

Real estate web sites are fast becoming the most effective business card for generating solid real estate sales leads. With the ability of web sites to broadcast information that was once hard to find, real estate web sites have shifted the driving seat to the client.

In 2007, an article CNNMoney.com noted the major shift due to real estate web sites:

“Now, information that once was closely held by high-commissioned professionals is just a mouse click away. Want to access the multiple-listing service without seeing an agent? Check. Plan a dream home without hiring an architect? Check. Find out the value of every home in your neighborhood (or any other)? Yep, you can do that online too.”

Internet Marketing Consultants’ (IMC) web designs for real estate include all the traditional tools as well as customized areas to enhance your clients experience using your web site. Web sites can be customized to target those interested in commercial real estate markets, markets, such as the California real estate market or Florida real estate market, or a particular type of vacation home.

IMC real estate web sites can also be customized with your virtual video tours of properties, a real estate blog, and a neighborhood news articles page. Each of these additions help your site’s visibility with both the search engine and your potential clients.

The two key features of the web site for a real estate agent are:

1. Its ability to send email notification of sales leads in a protected manner and
2. Provide a secure way for registered sales leads to do an online property search and view your featured listings’ photos and information.

Your web site’s content is aided by your knowledge and research of local buying and selling trends, neighborhood news, and community links to schools and government web sites. IMC real estate web site designs include along with the listing viewer: tools such as mortgage calculators, business, government and schools relocation information, links for local weather and news, and free buyer and seller reports and checklists that clients find very useful to their move.

In today’s competative marketplace, you can no longer afford to be without a real estate web site.