4 Ways to Build a Lead-Generating Website

Tips and best practices for REALTORS® who want to build a website that generates leads.

By Gwen Moran

Sometimes building and maintaining a website can feel like a full-time job. Whether you hire a designer, use a template or try to build one yourself, how do you make sure that the time and effort you put into your site is going to reap rewards? After all, REALTORS® invested an average of $70 to maintain their sites in 2016 (down from $80 in 2015), and they averaged a single lead from the site and a paltry 1 percent of business, according to the National Association of REALTORS® 2016 Member Survey.

At the same time, more than half of all prospective homebuyers are looking for their next home online. Fifty-one percent of buyers found the home they bought online in 2016, according to NAR. How can you bridge the gap? You’ve got to know where to focus, says Kyle Alfriend, managing partner of the Alfriend Group at RE/MAX Achievers in Dublin, Ohio. The Buckeye State REALTOR® closes about $10 million per year from leads generated through his website. Ready to up your website game? Here are four places to start.

1. Get Current

If your website looks dated, “people can spot that right off the bat,” says Eric Huber, chief operations officer of Blue Zoo Creative, a Fayetteville, Arkansas, creative agency that builds websites for REALTORS® and other businesses. Old content, outdated photos or websites that aren’t “responsive”—in other words, sites that don’t automatically adapt so they can be viewed on any device—all signal to viewers that you’re not serious about your business image or attention to detail. “If your site design is older than about three years, it probably needs to be updated,” he says. “And if content is more than a few weeks old, it’s time to add something new.”

2. Target Your Sites

Al Cannistra, CRS, a REALTOR® with Texas Premier Realty in San Antonio, uses several websites to target different audience segments. His primary site—mySATexasHomes.com—is hosted by Superlative, Inc., a firm that provides website solutions to REALTORS®. It is a comprehensive Internet Data Exchange (IDX) website that includes information for buyers, sellers and people who are just curious. In addition, he has sites targeted to buyers and sellers. Some are generic and some include his photo. The goal is to create sites that speak to different audience segments with the targeted information they are seeking, he says.

3. Choose the Right Content

When people visit your site, they’re usually looking for information in an easy-to-use format, Alfriend says. On his site, the neighborhood search tool is the most popular feature, he says. His business is roughly 40 percent new construction, and neighborhood search tools let buyers compare homes in different areas, regardless of where they are.

For Cannistra, timely, engaging blog content featuring local information is popular with visitors. His site—SanAntonioRealEstate.blog—is organically ranked high in search results for San Antonio real estate blogs. The blog feeds visitors to his website.

To optimize copy for various devices, stick to short sentences and paragraphs, which are easier to read on small screens, Huber says. Video and photos are the best way to share details. People want to visualize themselves in the place they’ll call home, he says.

Cannistra says, “stay fresh,” not static. The key is to keep testing content to see what works with your audience. He recalls when he had neighborhood-specific content pages on his main site and to his surprise, “they bombed.” He uses Google Analytics to find out what pages people are reading on his sites and much more. He also has social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and others, and promotes his websites and blog there to drive more traffic, he says.

4. Be Easy to Reach

Today, real estate is an immediate business, so letting email or online leads languish for a day or two isn’t going to fly. Alfriend says his company’s website has been so successful because he makes it easy for online audiences to find his contact information. In addition, he has trained his staff to prioritize incoming leads from the website. While office hours are from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the week and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekends, if someone calls the office at other times, they can press “1” and reach a buyers’ agent, he says. “The phone is answered 24/7.” 

Gwen Moran is a freelance writer based in Wall Township, New Jersey. Find her on Twitter @gwenmoran.

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