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This Number Shows Why WordPress Real Estate Agent Websites Are The Right Choice

wordpress real estate websites

Want to hear a number that should make brokers and agents think about using WordPress real estate websites?

There are more than 1.1 MILLION new registered domains made every SIX MONTHS using WordPress. This platform must be doing something right when it comes to convenience and effectiveness to get that volume of usage.

As a budding star in the real estate business, you know that one of the first things you’re going to need is a slick, modern, and easy to navigate website that is simple to maintain and meets all of your clients’ needs for information.

There are dozens and dozens of website building platforms on the Internet. So it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the choices out there.

We’ll make it easy for you: here’s why we think you’ll agree that WordPress is the best website building platform for real estate agents.

WordPress real estate websites for agents are user-friendly

WordPress is a versatile and highly customizable platform built with advanced and constantly updated coding.

However, it can also be simple enough for anyone with basic computer skills to learn. Even if you hire a web developer to create the actual site for you, you still need to be able to log on to the platform and make changes and updates as needed, without having to ask for help.

Companies such as Home Junction provide ready-to-go, attractive real estate themes  so you don’t need to know coding to select an theme that works for your brand. (Anyone will tell you, if you create a custom theme from scratch, expect a long process that could be costly. Why bother? There are off-the-shelf WordPress real estate themes that provide all the relevant functionality an agent would need).

Pre-made themes allow you to have total control over the look of your website, and you can even switch to a new one if you get tired of the one you start out with.

This platform also boasts fast loading times, which increases the number of potential clients that stay on your site instead of clicking away.

This point is very, very important. One of the major factors that search engines such as Google and Bing use to determine rankings for search is site speed. If your real estate website is slow, the search engines see this as a negative user experience and will not reward your site with high rankings. Period.

Plus a pre-existing WordPress real estate theme should be designed to look great on every device from a desktop to a tablet to a smartphone.

That is a second, very, very important point. Google and Bing also know that most people use their mobile devices to search. Your site might look great on your laptop, but if it is all weird and jumbled on a mobile device, that will hurt rankings as well.

We are not just talking an iPhone 8 either. We’re are talking about ALL mobile devices and their various operation systems – iPhones, Androids, tablets. etc.

Although using a WordPress theme is fairly intuitive for anyone with basic skills, should you need any help along the way they offer a huge support system.

There are blogs, forums, and video tutorials that can help.

However, as most people know. Nothing on the web is as easy as it sounds.

As a broker or agent, do you want to spend your time selling homes or trying to figure out how to fix your website? If you use a company that develops WordPress real estate websites such as Home Junction, you will have the support you need.

WordPress is well-known with enormous market share

Tried-and-true is always a good way to go, especially if you’re not completely familiar with an industry.

A whopping 30%  of the Internet’s nearly two billion websites are hosted on the WordPress platform, and for good reason.

WordPress used to be known as one of the places to be to set up a blog and send your thoughts out into the void while running some flashy ads.

However, in recent years the site has made quite a household name of itself when it comes to choices for website development platforms.

From personal blogs to local businesses all the way up to huge globally known names like BBC, Harvard, and Mercedes-Benz, many of the websites you visit are built using WordPress.

The platform supports any type of site, from an eCommerce store, to a new social media outlet, to a local directory, to anything else you can dream up.

In the content management systems industry, WordPress is a juggernaut with a 60% market share.

They are great for any type of website, but especially for those using pre-existing content managing systems. Joomla, a competitor, comes in second with just 6.8% of market share: a stark difference.

Nothing does SEO like WordPress

Search engine optimization (SEO), is ultimately the whole point of having a website. When a potential client Googles “real estate firm in my town,” you want your site to come up on the first page – and ideally, in the first result!

Having your website optimized with search keywords and other tools will increase its standing with Google and other search engines.

Not all web development platforms are created equal when it comes to SEO. WordPress is a recognized leader in this regard and its founders specifically wrote the code to be search-engine friendly.

WordPress is also known for its staggering number of available plugins – 44,000 at last count.

These are types of software that can be installed onto your site to make it even more multi-functional.

There are plugins such as Yoast or All in One which help you optimize your website for search engines, and even analyze all of your content to give you suggestions on what to improve for better results.

Tools like this will help your WordPress website rise through the ranks and make it to the first page.

Then there are a large number of specific WordPress real estate plugins, many offered by Home Junction as well. You can use these real estate WordPress plugins to add School Data, Recent Home Sales and a Home Valuation tool to name a few.

These real estate plugins can make your website a powerful LOCAL resource for buyers. You can now compete on the same level as the big mega-real estate portals. But in this case, you keep all the leads. For free.

Numbers don’t lie. When you go with a widely-known content management system that is multi-functional, SEO-friendly, easy to navigate with a full package of real estate functionality already built in, it’s hard to go wrong.

WordPress Websites Give You Advantages When It Comes To Real Estate Lead Generation

real estate lead generationWhen it comes to real estate lead generation, hopefully you are not doing the following.

Somewhere buried on your website, is a little tiny box (or even worse) just a link, that says, “Sign up for our newsletter.”

No, no, no, no.

Let’s get real for a second when it comes to real estate lead generation.

Those email subscribers a broker or agent captures is one of their most valuable assets, if not the most valuable asset they own.

This is the digital age. People visit search engines looking for properties and then review real estate websites. The days of a hot prospect walking into an office are gone for the most part.

When that precious prospect visits a brokers or agent’s website, do everything you can to retain that connection. Start a relationship. And you can do that by capturing that prospect’s email (and contact information).

The key point is, there should be multiple points on an agent’s website for real estate lead generation.

One of the best platforms to maximize leads is a WordPress platform, the most advanced web platform in the world.

And the best way to optimize a WordPress platform is a company such as Home Junction that is experienced in creating websites with plenty of real estate lead generation features.

The big advantage of WordPress real estate websites is the ease in which lead capture forms can be added and moved around a site.

Real estate lead generation strategies

Here are some strategies provided by Home Junction that go beyond just the “Sign Up for the Newsletter” notice.

  1. Home Estimator Tool – Everybody loves this tool – it creates an opportunity for a homeowner to find out “how much is my home worth.” Who doesn’t want to know that? Now local agents can provide this tool just like the big national portals. Add an email capture box somewhere along the path for when a person uses the tool and checks out the value of their home.
  2. Save Favorite Listings – People come to the site. They search for the particular type of property they want to buy. They find several listings that match their criteria. Give them an opportunity to save their searches. (Remember, one important aspect of real estate lead generation is to offer something first to get something in return).
  3. Email Alerts – Offer to provide updates to prospects by integrating your IDX with your email list so that consumers can know when prices change on their favorite listings or when those properties are taken off the market.
  4. New Listings Notification – In addition, offer to provide prospects via email when your IDX detects new listings that match their search criteria.
  5. Social Sign-Ins – Allow prospects to sign onto your website and see the information they saved by using their Facebook or Google Plus accounts.
  6. Forced Registration – This option for brokers and agents allows them to require a web visitor to fill out a registration form before they can access pages or data. Maybe it’s to use the Home Estimator Tool, or its perhaps for some valuable real estate data (also provided by Home Junction) such as Recent Property Sales, School Data, Demographics, etc.
  7. Offer a Content Upgrade – another idea is to offer EXTRA content for an email signup. Again, real estate data providers such as Home Junction have access to tons of relevant content. Perhaps hold some of that precious content back and offer it in return for an email registration.
  8. Newsletter Subscriber – Offer to send them this valuable data on a regular basis if they become an email subscriber. (“Want Local Market Updates Every Month? Sign up here!”)

The best practice for real estate lead generation is to a) make it easy for people to enter their email without requiring them to answer a bunch of questions and b) make sure the real estate lead generation form is not an annoyance, but something that consumers want to fill out.

Everybody knows pop-ups are bothersome. So perhaps place an “exit” pop-up on the page that people will see only when they are about to leave the site.

Another option is to have an email registration box appear as the web visitor scrolls down the page.

It’s also very important to allay any privacy fears. Assure people you won’t be using their email for any other purpose or to sell to third parties.

Be sure to let people know how often they will receive an email if they do register.

And be sure to let them know how easy it is to unsubscribe.

Placement of the real estate lead generation box is key. Moving the signup box to the top of the page or on a popular data page can result in a big boost in email signups.

As we said, every signup is precious. These are your prospects. You worked hard to bring them to your website – either through advertising, or search rankings or your social media posts.

With a WordPress website, as we said, it’s easy to relocate the real estate lead generation forms on a page. Making a move that increases a 5% signup rate to 10% is huge. That’s DOUBLE the number of prospects you will generate by just making a simple design change (and WordPress is all about simplicity).

Design is another key factor

Experiment with the form. Take colors for example. Red and blue are effective colors for email signups. Move the text. Change the headline.

If you have a form on one page that is not performing well, maybe change the color. Again, if the registrations jump from 3% to 6% you just DOUBLED your real estate lead generation strategies for that page.

Again, this is easy to do with WordPress real estate websites.

Since the internet started back in the 1990s, there have been a ton of gimmicks that have come and gone.

But one of the tools that has remained a staple for successful real estate marketing is email. In fact, building an email subscriber list has become a top priority for most businesses in all types of categories.

By the same token, the competition to capture a visitor’s email is as intense as ever.

Don’t take this strategy for granted. Get the best platform for making changes to a website- WordPress. (Here are some additional ideas for increasing lead sign-up rates).

Hook up with an experienced WordPress web company such as Home Junction to get the most out of your real estate lead generation strategies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WordPress Real Estate Themed Websites Are Made To Fix Listing Photos Fast

wordpress real estate themed websites photos

Listing photographs sometimes don’t come out as planned and WordPress real estate themed websites are the best format for not only displaying photos but quickly CHANGING them as well.

Let’s face it, taking photographs has made a quantum leap for consumers and business people.

These days a high megapixel iPhone or smartphone in your pocket can produce crisp, colorful high-quality photographs. Those images can be presented to consumers in mere seconds. There is no film to develop. No prints to order. It’s all instantaneous.

Incredible editing tools make it easy to fix even the crummiest photo in seconds. You can crop a photo, adjust the exposure, add contrast and saturate the colors.

A savvy real estate agent who takes a little bit of time to practice their photo skills and learn how to edit photos can become quite a decent photographer (of course, nothing beats a pro. Those smartphones and iPhones can only do so much and when it comes to illuminating a living room, pros still have the know-how and the lighting tools to make those photos pop).

That’s the good news.

Horrible real estate photographs happen

Then there’s bad news.

Some agents, for whatever reason, think because they have a camera in their pocket they can just snap a quick photo without any thought to composition, clutter or clarity.

In fact, there are websites out there devoted to showing really bad real estate photos. Pictures with weird toilets, homeowners asleep in their beds, pets sprawled out in the middle of the floor and rooms that have more clutter than the local landfill.

Those sites include:

https://www.inman.com/2017/11/14/12-real-estate-listing-photo-crimes-that-you-can-never-unsee/

https://badmlsphotos.com

http://terriblerealestateagentphotos.com/

Shooting a good photograph does take a time and effort. Sitting in a car and sticking an iPhone out of the window probably won’t produce an image that grabs a buyer.

Or taking photos of homes that aren’t ready to be photographed – for example, kitty litter trays in the living room, aren’t going to turn on buyers either.

Most agents know how to do shoot real estate photos. They know to make those counters clean, remove all knick-knacks, open up all the windows to let in natural light.

They also know to turn off the TVs, remove the remotes from the coffee table, get those toys out of the living room, remove old rugs, get the cars out of the driveway, take the magnets off the refrigerator door, etc., etc.

That’s only part of the checklist every agent should adhere to. There’s more. Much more.

WordPress real estate themed websites are perfect for updates

Which is one of the key points of using WordPress real estate themed websites as opposed to other platforms.

WordPress real estate themed websites can make the process of uploading images a whole lot easier. Web design companies such as Home Junction can set up a broker or agent with ready-to-go, easy-to-use WordPress website in a short period of time.

Here are a few reasons why this is the smart choice when it comes to real estate photographs:

  1. Loading photos – WordPress is the No. 1 content management platform in the world. It’s not designed for coders and programmers. It’s designed for the average person. The whole concept behind the site is to make adding content an easy task, not a week-long ordeal.

It’s very easy to add photographs to a WordPress real estate themed website. You upload the photo to the Media Gallery. Add a caption. Insert some tags. Adjust the photo to the size you want. Add a link to another page. Then insert the image onto the page and hit the “Publish” button. It’s now live.

  1. Changing photographs – here’s one of the unwritten truths about photography. After you shoot a bunch of photographs at the property, go back to your office and load the photographs onto your website, you realize then the photo could be better. Much better.

It might be the angle. Or it might be the lighting. Perhaps the home was well lit and then the sun snuck behind some clouds for one key image. Maybe you missed an important feature in the kitchen. Perhaps a cat snuck into the frame at the last second and his eyes are lit up like a beast from outer space.

Whatever. You know the photo could be better. You know the buyer won’t be impressed. And you know the seller will not be happy.

No problem. Go back and shoot the photo over again. Come back to your office, open up the Media Gallery in your WordPress real estate themed website, delete the old photo and add the new one.

No big deal. You don’t need to wait for the company IT person to load the photograph. You don’t need to know HTML coding to load an image. It’s simple as 1, 2, 3.

  1. Updating photographs – the flexibility that comes with WordPress real estate themed websites is also great for adding more up-to-date and current photographs.

Perhaps, a home is listed in January when there is a foot of snow on the ground. Now its May. The snow is gone, the grass is green and the property looks more appealing.  Maybe the owner upgraded the kitchen cabinets. Or perhaps it was time to stage the home with different furniture. Or, the owner finally got around to painting the living room with a fresh new look.

Shoot the photo and quickly update the listing on your WordPress real estate website.

  1. Increase the number of photographs – the great thing about iPhones, smartphones and digital cameras today is that the number of photos you can take is almost limitless (although it is amazing how you can have accumulate 5,000 photographs on your phone in no time).

Nevertheless, it’s certainly better than shooting a roll of 35mm Kodak film that is limited to just 24 photos.

However, consumers also know this is the age of digital photography. They expect to see numerous photographs of a property, not just the front, back, living room, kitchen, and bathrooms. They want to see multiple angles of the front, back, and side yards. They want to see dozens of photographs of the interior.

With WordPress real estate themed websites, this chore is much easier. In fact, there are many plugins available for WordPress that provide off-the-shelf photo galleries that display those images in a big, bright format that is easy to browse.

Studies show that more than 60% of consumers report they just study the photographs for a listing and pretty much totally ignore the text.

In other words, those photographs are your sales tools. They will sell the home. They will make the owner happy as well.

Are you getting the big picture here? WordPress real estate themed websites are the best in the business for changing and updating photographs and providing formats that make those listings pop with beautiful images.

 

WordPress Real Estate Websites And Real Estate Data Feeds Help You Win The Fresh Content Game

wordpress real estate websites searchWordPress real estate websites are a game changer when it comes to fresh content.

This is the story with many brokers and agents. A few years ago he or she created a website. It looked nice at the time. A neat little package of home listings and information about the company.

The site ranked decently on Google and Bing for the neighborhoods they were farming. Not so much for the local market in general, but still showing up on the second or third page for searches.

Life seemed good. The agent felt good about their website and ready to move on to other projects.

Unfortunately, the internet does not work that way.

For one, there are quite a few people watching your website. Not only people, but robots (search bots as they are more commonly called).

Used to be in the old days, if you had content on your website that was relevant to certain keywords, say that neighborhood you are farming, your website would rank high in the search engines for those target keywords.

However, things have changed significantly from the old days of search.

Now Google and Bing have hundreds of factors they use to evaluate websites.

And one of those factors that continues to receive more emphasis is what’s called a “recency” factor.

In other words, how recent was your last update on the website?

How fresh is your content?

WordPress real estate websites offer advantages for fresh content

Web partners such as Home Junction Inc. offer several tools you can use when it comes to competing with others for the “freshness” factor.

Google and Bing know that consumers want to see new, updated and current content. These are consumers raised on finding quick answers to their questions. Those consumers will reward the most current sites with more visits and time spent on those sites.

The search engines know this. So they push those sites with fresher content closer to the top of the search rankings (although as we said, there are hundreds of other factors, including how many other websites link to a site and also the quality of those websites that link there).

In the past, many websites gamed the system by stuffing their pages with target keywords to gain ranking positions on Google or Bing. Many of those sites weren’t built by companies in the local market.

Then the owner of those websites moved on. Either to create similar sites in other markets for target keywords. Or to capture leads for businesses in those markets.

But how helpful are these sites to consumers?

Google and Bing determined that if these sites are not updating their content with fresh information, then they aren’t very relevant to consumers today. They don’t like stale websites.

Fresh content? Sounds easy. But like baking donuts, we all know that a baker has to get up early every day to keep his products fresh.

This is where Home Junction comes in. There are ways to make the process of creating fresh content easier.

WordPress websites for real estate

Let’s start with the website itself. How outdated is your web platform? Was the site created a few years ago? Is it clunky? Difficult to change?

Do you need to contact a web developer to add fresh content? Is there a long, cumbersome process involved in adding text, photos or videos?

If there is,  it’s time to ditch the platform. Switch to WordPress real estate websites.

WordPress is the leading content management software on the planet. It was designed for bloggers to make it easy for the average Joe and Jane to add text and images to their website. (As a side note, the website code was written for those bots to easily decipher the purpose of the website, which both search engines love. If a bot was capable of love).

The platform then evolved into creating full websites for businesses but with still all the efficacy and ease of the original blogging platform.

Many top brands use WordPress for their content. They include Bloomberg, Disney, Variety, The New Yorker and thousands of others.

With WordPress real estate websites, you can easily go into the administration panel, cut and paste some content into the text box, or write an article or blog directly on the website.

There are controls there to make the text bold, italic or underline it. You can easily add hyperlinks to other pages on your website or link to relevant outside websites as a resource for your readers (which by the way, is another factor Google and Bing use with their ranking algorithms).

Bottom line – WordPress is the fastest way to add fresh content to a website. A task of updating a website requires consistency, and a person certainly doesn’t want to jump through hoops to do it. In fact, it’s human nature. The more difficult it is to accomplish a task, the less likely that task will be repeated on a consistent basis.

But consistency with fresh content is a big factor for Google and Bing. They don’t just want to see you update your content every so often. They want to see a website that updates their content on a regular basis and will reward that website for their efforts (assuming of course, other ranking factors are being met).

Real estate data feeds provide reservoir of fresh content

Ease of updating is one of the keys to providing updates on your website.

The other is finding a source of new content.

That’s where Home Junction also makes this task easy.

Home Junction is a national and recognized provider of national real estate data that can be customized down to the local level.

That real estate data includes: Property Sales, Market Trends, School Data, Business Listings, Demographics, Crime Data, Cost of Living Indices, Boundaries and much more.

For brokers and agents, that data can be tailored to their specific markets – their counties, cities, zip codes and even further down to the neighborhood or subdivision level.

That content is constantly updated.

Talk about a resource for fresh content?

By just adding a few lines of code, a broker or agent can embed a feed of this hyper-local data onto any page of their website. Got listings in a certain neighborhood? You can order all this data, charts on recent sales, trends in prices, etc., just for that neighborhood.

A broker or agent can also use that updated content to blast out information on their social media sites – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

That relevant content will be liked and shared by people in those markets or seeking to move to those markets (social signals by the way, are yet ANOTHER factor that Google and Bing use in determining rankings. We told you things have changed dramatically).

Those Google and Bing bots are hard at work every day scanning millions of websites on the internet. Give them something fresh to report back when they come to your evaluating your website.

By switching to WordPress real estate websites with the right data and the latest plugins, brokers and agents can turn their old, outdated websites into powerhouses of fresh content.

 

 

 

Real Estate WordPress Websites Help Maximize Those Precious Share Buttons

real estate wordpress websitesSuccess is in the little details and that’s why real estate WordPress websites can easily help you maximize every little detail of your website.

Take social share buttons for example.

Those are the little icons that go at the bottom (or top) of a web page and encourage people to share or like the content on that page.

Seems like a simple matter at first.

But for a real estate broker or agent, these buttons can be extremely important. And that’s another reason why using a WordPress real estate WordPress website, developed by WordPress experts such as Home Junction, are incredibly important.

Here’s why.

Those social buttons are ubiquitous. They are everywhere on the web. Too many people take them for granted.

Their value depends on who is posting the content that is hoped to be shared.

For a mom who writes a blog about a recipe for pecan apple pie, someone hitting one of those buttons and sharing the recipe can be kind of fun. Gives that mom a satisfying feeling that someone cared enough about her recipe that they decided to share it with their friends.

That’s nice.

Real estate WordPress websites make it easy to optimize

Now, take a page of content on a real estate website.

Using a real estate WordPress website, an agent can easily post a chart about real estate data on their website about recent home sale trends in a particular neighborhood. The data shows property sales are heating up.

The agent posts information about that chart (with a link back to their website) on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.

The post catches the attention of several people. They visit the site.

A few of those people like the information so much, they decide to hit the share and like buttons at the bottom of the page. The chart now appears on their Facebook page and is seen by all of their friends (on average there are about 155 friends per Facebook user).

One or two of their friends are interested in that chart. One of them lives in that neighborhood and is thinking of selling their home. They contact the agent who posted the chart.

Another Facebook user knows someone who has thought about moving to that neighborhood. They share the chart with that friend. That person views the chart and contacts that agent about purchasing a property in that neighborhood.

Here’s an important point most people don’t realize. Humans like to share.

According to research:

– 49% of people say they share to inform people about things they care about and to encourage some sort of action

– 78% share because it helps them stay connected to other people

– 68% say they share information because it gives them a better sense about themselves and what is important to them

– 69% share information because it gives them a sense of involvement

As anyone can see, there’s a big difference between a mom sharing pie recipes and people sharing real estate market trends that result in hot leads and contacts for an agent.

A gigantic difference.

Constantly test position of buttons to increase shares

So why just take those social media shares and like buttons for granted?

Optimize them.

And one of the best ways to optimize anything on the web is with the leading web platform in the webiverse – real estate WordPress websites.

WordPress has a super easy back-end for brokers and agents to manage.

In fact, WordPress was first created to be the easiest platform for people to start a simple blog.

The superior coding caught on so well, that the developers of WordPress decided to offer it to business people as a way to build out a full website as well.

That decision resulted in WordPress becoming the leading web platform in the world.

Many brokers and agents might think, “Well, I have a website now, that shows my listings and descriptions, why change?”

Let’s go back to those little social share buttons.

With WordPress real estate websites set up by Home Junction, a broker or agent has the ability to easily experiment with the placement of those buttons.

For some content, place them at the bottom of the article.

For other content, place the buttons at the top of the content.

Place the buttons at the top and bottom.

Experiment with the look of the social share buttons. (Most plugins for social share buttons offer several variations to choose from).

Add more social share buttons for social media sites like Tumblr.

Delete some of the social share buttons if you just want to focus on say Facebook and Instagram.

Add an email share button for someone to send that content by their personal email to a friend, or even to themselves as a reminder to read later.

Like any marketing program, monitor the progress. Measure the number of shares and likes (they are counted).

Did your chart on Property Sales in My Target Neighborhood generate five shares one month? But the next month when you posted the new chart on Property Sales and you moved the social share buttons to the top of the page, you generated 12 shares on Facebook.

Here’s the point of owning real estate WordPress websites.

All this moving around is easy to do. You don’t need to hire a coder to rewrite the HTML code on your page to make the change. You don’t need to wait two weeks for that coder to find the time to make the change. You don’t need to wait for your web developer to return your phone call a week later.

A broker or agent can experiment with these changes on their own.

People like to share photos and information with friends and family. They like to help out people they know.

Researchers report that psychologically when web users share something important, it gives them a positive feeling. They get a warm buzz from being a helpful resource for their friends or family. In their mind, it elevates their status in the minds of their acquaintances. That’s their emotional reward. And they relish that feeling.

And as we pointed out, unlike the mom’s recipe for apple pie, one move that generates more social shares that reach out on the web could result in a buyer for a $550,000 home with three beds and three-car garage or a listing for a $750,000 home on WeWantToBeThere golf community.

Any successful business person will admit, it’s the attention to the little details that make a big difference.

Fortunately for brokers and agents, those little details can result in a big payoff.

Get a WordPress real estate website that helps you maximize those little details.

WordPress Real Estate Websites Make It Easy To Build Referrals and Resources

wordpress real estate websitesWordPress real estate websites create several strategic advantages for brokers and agents because of their versatility, ease of use and speed.

That’s why WordPress is one of the most effective website platforms in the world and the most user-friendly for busy real estate professionals.

Let’s just give one example.

One web strategy that brokers and agents can use to build up a business is often overlooked. That strategy involves “outbound links” or basically links that you place on your website and in your blogs that link out to other websites.

Many people might think, “Why would I ever put a link on my website that would give people the opportunity to leave. Are you crazy?”

Don’t be afraid to link to other relevant websites

But that mindset is not how the internet community thinks.

There are three important reasons to consider outbound links from your real estate website.

  1. Recognition as a Valuable Resource: one of the great facets of the internet is its interconnectivity. In fact, the web was originally designed by the military as a way to connect various bases and government departments.

People can find your website on the web by searching on Google or clicking on directory listings, yellow pages, links from other sites, etc.

You can find just about anything in the world by visiting search engines or Wikipedia and following the link trails to find the answers you want.

Same goes for your website. People look to real estate professionals to basically know ALL the answers about a particular market or neighborhood. Those are BIG shoes to fill.

To show consumers that you are truly a valuable resource, it’s smart to provide valuable links on your website to important destinations – local schools, hospitals, chambers of commerce, city departments, etc.

Sure people might leave your website and go check out one of these locations. But chances are, they will shoot right back to your site once they see what’s offered.

The sites you should link to are not competitors, but helpful aides for consumers to find the answers they need.

Even if the web visitor does not return right away, you will have established in their minds that your real estate website is the go-to-place for local questions.

  1. Recognition by the Search Engines: as a segue from the resource factor listed above, adding outbound links has valuable implications for how you rank on search engines.

Google and Bing have hundreds of factors they use in their algorithms to determine the relevance and value of a website when they make their rankings.

One of those factors they consider is how valuable is the site as a resource for consumers. They calculate that value by how many outbound links the site provides to other relevant and useful websites.

In fact, an internet marketing company called Reboot conducted an extensive study on outgoing links and found: “Outgoing relevant links to authoritative sites are considered in the algorithms and do have a positive impact on rankings.”

(Note: Did you notice how we linked this blog to the Reboot page for reference?)

Now, who do you link to? Warning: not just anybody.

Educational sites such as schools or colleges that have a .edu in their web address are considered valuable. So are government websites that have a .gov in their URL.

You don’t need to worry too much about trying to figure out which sites would be considered valuable by Google and Bing. They already have that figured out.

The best strategy a broker or agent can do is just figure out the sites to link to that they know would be valuable to consumers looking to buy a home in that area. Google and Bing will do the rest.

The one thing you don’t want to do, is just put up a bunch of links for the sake of having links. Too many links to sites that Google and Bing don’t like can be harmful to a website’s rankings. Choose carefully and sparingly.

  1. Referrals and Goodwill: you can also use links to help you connect with other people who might be helpful to you for referrals or to spread the word about your brand.

For example, perhaps your town has a really cool museum. You decide to write a blog about that museum. You add an outbound link to the museum’s website.

Next time you visit the museum, perhaps you might mention to the director about the blog you wrote and the outbound link you provided

Any entity looking for publicity will love this and be truly appreciative. Perhaps one day, that museum director will refer you to a friend who just moved to town and needs a house. Perhaps one day that museum director will list their house with you.

Or, perhaps that museum director will be so thrilled that they will blast a note out on their Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest accounts about the article you wrote about the museum. That could be quite a few eyeballs seeing your brand name and visiting your website. All for free.

WordPress real estate websites are built for simplicity

WordPress makes it easy for the average person to add links. (Actually, it makes it easy to do a number of functions).

A broker or agent might think, “Oh boy, here’s yet ANOTHER task I have to do.” As if you already didn’t have a list a mile long.

Here’s the great thing about WordPress real estate websites.

Adding outbound links is easy. (“Easy” is another word for user-friendly and that’s a phrase you will see constantly associated when WordPress real estate websites are mentioned.).

Many of you probably already know how to link to another website.

All you need to do is go to the website that you want to link to and copy their web or url address in the browser’s address bar on the top of your screen. For a shortcut, just hit the Control button and the letter “C” on your keyboard.

Then open up a WordPress page. Type in some text in the content box.

Run your cursor over a word where you want to insert the outbound link.

Go to the menu at the top of the page. Look for the icon that shows what looks like a chain and click on it. (Similar to the one you use for hyperlinks on Microsoft Word pages).

A window will appear. Paste the url address into the window (hit the Control button and then the letter “P” on your keyboard.)

Bazinga, you are done. Hit the “Preview” button at the top of the page to check out how the text and link appear. When you are finished posting content, always click the outbound link to make sure it works.

With WordPress real estate websites you don’t need to be a coder. You don’t need to call up your webmaster to get him or her to add a link. You don’t need to know how to program HTML code or Java script. You don’t need to take a half hour to add one link.

With WordPress real estate websites, this function is fast. In fact, that’s the basic idea. All WordPress functions are built to be fast. And simple to do.

Sure we get it, how does a busy broker or agent find the time to add outbound links, photos, blogs, videos, etc?

Well, WordPress real estate websites, compared to other platforms, will give you the time and the tools to get it done, quickly.

 

Recruiting Real Estate Agents

The Best Broker Tools For Recruiting Real Estate Agents

Recruiting Real Estate AgentsAs any real estate broker knows, it can be a battleground out there when recruiting agents and one of the best weapons they can deploy are state-of-the-art WordPress real estate websites and real estate data.

Sure, some brokers chant the usual mantra when talking about how they go about recruiting agents. They tell the newcomers how their brokerage is top in the marketplace. How they have outstanding brand reputation in the community. How they have a great training program with seasoned veterans willing to help them out.

Here’s the challenge. Right now, according to the National Association of Realtors, there are fewer people under 30 in the real estate business than there have been in years. In 2010, there were 42,000 agents under 30. Five years later in 2015, there were an estimated 23,000.

Why? One reason is massive student debt. Graduates today on average are saddled with $30,000 in student loans. Tough to take on a commission-only job that far in a hole.

The other reason why you don’t see many millennials in real estate is that many of them have attended college (remember the reason for all that debt?). In college, you don’t see many real estate or even sales majors.

Luckily, many baby boomers are waiting longer to retire, so there is still a well to draw from for new recruits. But what is going to happen as those boomers start to retire? Millennials are the largest generation in the workforce. Brokers will need them.

WordPress real estate websites help recruit new agents

There is one solution. It’s something a brokerage can use in addition to all those accolades about being a leader in the marketplace with a top-notch mentor program, etc., etc.

The sweetspot with the millenials is that this is the generation that was raised on technology. Baby boomers can remember when their parents brought home their first color TV. Millennials are the generation that creates their own TV shows (YouTube) and communicates on TV (Facetime).

These people are plugged in.

So for a brokerage to gain a competitive edge when recruiting millennials, use technology.

First of all, get rid of that archaic website. Build a high-performance, stunning real estate website with a mobile responsive WordPress platform. WordPress—the top content management system in the world—gives you so much more versatility as far as publishing stunning photos and videos, giving people the ability to upload content quickly, adding a huge number of helpful plug-ins and adapting to different devices, i.e. tablets, smartphones, etc.

In addition, WordPress is one of the best platforms out there for enhancing rankings on all the search engines.

Most millennials are familiar with WordPress. They’ve blogged on this platform. The brand is very well recognized with this generation.

Secondly, you could almost say that Google is integrated into the brain of just about every millennial. They don’t ask other people questions, they ask Google. (To them Google is a verb that is as common as the walk or speak).

So when it comes to recruiting agents, show them how you are using the latest web technology on the market (supplied by WordPress real estate website developers and data providers such as Home Junction), and you will get their attention.

Real estate market data gives agents more tools

There’s more. Not only should you provide a stunning WordPress real estate website platform with spectacular photos of listings, but you also need to show how your firm goes the extra mile and loads that website up with big data (another term millennials are very familiar with).

You not only have a photo of that million dollar property, you also have massive data sets showing Recent Homes Sales, Local Market Trends, Home Values, School Information, Demographics, Boundaries, Local Businesses, Points of Interest, Maps, Statistics, etc.

That’s impressive to a 30-year-old. If that young person is split between joining your brokerage or another one down the street, roll out the technology angle. It will close the deal.

To be honest, the same goes for any generation. Boomers are immersed in technology as well, and they will immediately be attracted to any brokerage with enhanced web tools.

If a brokerage is going to grow, it’s going to need bodies. This is 2017, the old recruiting techniques are important, but you must be No. 1 in your marketplace on the tech side.

If you want to appeal to the plugged-in generation and start recruiting agents, your firm must be plugged into a WordPress real estate website with the latest big data real estate tools.