Tag Archive for: wordpress Realtor sites

WordPress Realtor sites can give brokers and agents a BIG EDGE when it comes to using neighborhoods to sell a home.

In a recent blog, we talked about how some agents are using the latest apps to help educate and persuade prospects about a particular community.

Using an Uber or Lyft app, agents are arranging for drivers to take prospects on a tour of a community, making sure they view all the top amenities.

A real estate agent shouldn’t take the chance that when potential buyers drive around a community, they will miss a key amenity, like a school or a park, that could influence their decision.

They are doing the same with apps such as Open Table to make reservations for prospects at popular local restaurants, to give them a flavor of the town.

After all, neighborhoods sell.

We also talked about being sure to tap into hyper-local public data providers such as Home Junction that gather and store massive amounts of information that is important to home buyers – school databases, market trends, graphs showing changes in home prices, demographics, boundaries, crime statistics, etc.

WordPress Realtor sites are best for uploading photos

But here’s another key fact- neighborhood images sell.

In addition to home listing images, why not add a bunch of photographs about key neighborhood amenities on your website?

And one of the best platforms to do this quickly and easily is with WordPress Realtor sites.

Why are WordPress Realtor sites such a big deal?

Three words – ease, speed and SEO (search engine optimization for rankings).

Let’s start with ease.

WordPress is the most popular web platform in the world.

Why? It’s not because it’s a big complicated thing like a Facebook or Amazon website.

It’s because it’s easy to use. No coding required. Ready right out of the box.

The platform was first designed to make it easy for the average person to start a blog.

All they had to do was sign up and they could start loading content.

Today, that sounds like a given. But when WordPress first started, it wasn’t.

As you can imagine, such an easy tool like this caught on like wildfire.

WordPress became so popular, that the developers decided to provide the basic coding in their platform for businesses.

Boom. Millions of business adopted this platform. Some of them include Bloomberg, Variety, MTV News, The New Yorker and Tech Crunch.

Naturally, something this popular and effective should be adopted by the real estate business as well.

That’s why companies such as Home Junction have created WordPress Realtor sites specifically for brokers and agents.

They can set up a broker or agent in just a week with a fancy real estate website with an incredible amount of bells and whistles – lead generation forms, massive photo galleries, neighborhood data, etc.

The beauty of a WordPress Realtor sites is that once they are set up, it’s easy for the broker or agent to add information. They don’t need a coder. A webmaster. They can do it all themselves.

Agents can upload new listings, photos, etc. with basically the same ease as loading a post on Facebook.

Load images quickly on WordPress Realtor sites

But back to selling the neighborhood.

With WordPress Realtor sites an agent can easily add a bunch of images on their website that sell the neighborhoods they are targeting.

Maybe XYZ neighborhood is located near an incredible park. Put those images up on the website.

Maybe the Happy Caddy Golf Course has a prestigious clubhouse. Put those images up on the website.

When talking to home buyers, don’t just send them a link to a property. Send them a link to a photo gallery showing all the neighborhood amenities. That’s powerful.

Research shows that when people look online for homes, they spend more than half their time looking at images.

Now let’s talk about speed.

Things change in neighborhoods. New schools get built. Cool restaurants open. Old retail areas are knocked down and replaced by exciting new stores.

All of these amenities are great tools to use.

With WordPress Realtor sites, a broker or agent can be one of the first in their marketplace to display photos about neighborhood changes.

Say a Whole Foods is under construction down the street. Take a photo. Put it up quickly on your WordPress Realtor site.

Blast a link to the page with that photo out on social media – Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Many,  many people are going to be interested in a new Whole Foods, Dick’s Sporting Goods store, or even a new yoga studio.

The big advantage here is that you are the first agent to get this information out to home buyers.

Its’ like being the local newspaper or TV station that breaks a story.

People are going to be interested in your particular social media posts more than others (which is not easy since 91% of agents report they use social media).

Let’s talk about SEO. If an agent keeps loading interesting posts about a neighborhood, that is going to attract the attention of people in that neighborhood.

Attracting people to your website gets the attention of Google and Bing. Their algorithms are set up to measure this. The thinking behind this strategy is that if this website is posting relevant information that is attracting visitors, then it must be a good website. Google and Bing will then reward that website with higher rankings.

It gets even more complicated.

Say for example a Whole Foods is opening up in your town. An agent posts some photos of the Whole Foods store under construction with some text about the new store. Google and Bing will index that story in their search engines.

When local people start to hear about this Whole Foods store opening up and they do a search on Google and Bing, guess whose website is going to show up higher in the Page 1 rankings? That’s right. That agent’s website.

Same goes for the Happy Caddy Golf Club. If many people visit those pages with those clubhouse images on there, then Google and Bing will push that website higher. Many of those visitors are likely prospects to move into that golf community. An agent has the advantage in that they are going to visit their website FIRST before any others.

Amazing how a few images can possibly result in a million dollar sale. (Conversely with listings, think about how you can show a seller how you market their golf course community better than others).

If an agent is able to do this on a regular basis, people are going keep looking at their posts for new updates. Over time, that’s going to give that agent top of mind awareness as the agent who knows the marketplace.

Talk about local knowledge.

As a broker or agent, you need all the help you can get in selling homes.

Use the easy image capabilities of a WordPress Realtor sites and put those pictures of neighborhood amenities working for you as well.