Real Estate Website Design: How to Become the Local Zillow

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The All-In-One Real Estate Company
Website Design Handbook
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The design of your real estate company’s
website plays a significant role in
determining how many closed sales will
occur as a results of someone visiting your
website.
As a matter of fact, it maybe the biggest
roles in converting new clients as well as
keeping past ones.
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Phone: (855) real-WIT | e-mail: info@realWITS.com
 Attracting new buyers and retain past ones.
 Providing visitors with the ability to share your
content and help it go “viral.”
 Customer engagement and loyalty.
 Accelerate brand awareness and trust worthiness.
 Recruit and retain agents.
 Amplify creditability and authority with Google.
It is not fresh news, but important
to reiterate that buyers begin their
home search online.
As a results, you’ll need a website
that is purposefully designed so
those clients will be the most apt
to do business with your
brokerage.

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There are numerous real estate
company website design traits
that will inspire online exposure,
create meaningful conversations
with new perspective buyers and
sellers, grow your contact base
and close more transaction.
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There are two types of visitors that will
come to a real estate company website:
1. New visitors
2. Return visitors
It is important to have both.
A new visitor is someone who has come to
your website for the very first time. Therefore,
before a visitor can become a returning visitor
they first need to be a new visitor.
Creating an experience that captives and
makes each and every new website visitor
feel compelled to stay is important. And on
their first visit, the average consumer pays
more attention to the surface aspects of a
website such as layout, typography, and color
schemes.
Within just moments will take an action. They
will stay or they will leave.

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They immediately leave your website. I call it website abandonment.
Think about this. You work hard for each and every new visitor and losing them is costly. Especially if
they leave yours to only land on your competitors website.
We just established what you want new visitors to do. Stay on your website. When a new visitor stays
on your website, you increase the chance they will become a returning visitor. A returning visitor is an
encouraging signal they may do business with you at some point.
Having a balance of new visitors and returning visitors is a healthy mixture to generate more business.
So how do you encourage those first time visitors to stay on your website?

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A company’s website design affects its
credibility and professionalism.
This is universal and does not just apply to
real estate website development, but all
industries. Think about the last time you
landed on a website, and hit the back button
within moments.
Why did you do this?
Who is a home buyer or seller more apt to do
business with? A company whose website
commends professionalism or one that does
not demonstrate immediate clout?
A website has just moments to produce
creditability and these precious moments
begin with the design of a real estate website.
Only after a visitor consciously decides to stay
on a website do they take more time to interact
with the website. Therefore, establishing
instantaneous trust is a must.

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So how do you establish this instant trust factor? How do you know if your real estate website
development incorporated the necessary features? Luckily we can eliminate most of the
guess work by learning from the online real estate giants.
These companies spend millions of dollars to test and learn what keeps visitors on their
website. Why? A visitor is valuable to them. A returning visitor is more likely to make them
money.
According to Experian Marketing Services (formerly Experian Hitwise) 10 real estate listing
portals capture nearly “half” of all non-mobile traffic to U.S. real estate-related websites with a
total of 482 million visits in January, a 12-month high. These top 10 real estate websites
captured 42 percent of total visits in this space!

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 Zillow (9.17 percent market share)
 Trulia (7 percent market share)
 Realtor.com (6.09 percent market share)
Source: http://www.inman.com/2013/02/13/top-10-real-estate-websites-get-nearly-half-traffic
If these websites are the most popular amongst buyers and sellers what can we learn from them?

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Zillow Trulia Realtor.com

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1. Clean and non-cluttered.
2. Property search feature front and center.
3. Easy to navigate.
It is not a coincidence these top 3 online real estate destinations all have real estate website
design commonalities.
They have harmoniously integrated elements that instantly establish credibility, they make it
incredibly simple for website visitors to search for properties and they make it uncomplicated
for their visitors to quickly find what they are looking for using a clean site structure that
provides a good user experience.

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Use proven concepts to develop your own ideas and inspiration.

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The better you understand
your visitors behavior on your
real estate company’s website,
the more progressively you
can effectively enhance it’s
design to convert them into
closed transactions.

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We just established a real estate website needs both new and repeating web visitors to reduce
missed sales opportunities and lost company revenues.
 Brand awareness?
 Recruit & retain top agents?
 Allow buyers to search for properties for sale?
 Inform sellers why they should list their home with your company?
 Create exposure?
All of the above are good answers. But…

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What happens when a real estate website creates
brand awareness, aids in agent recruitment, helps
retain top agents, provides buyers with online
robust property search tools, informs sellers about
your superior real estate services and increases
exposure to the World?

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The purpose of a company real estate website is to generate quality sales leads for its agents.
More leads equal more closings. This may be obvious, but what might be surprising to most, is the
fact there is a direct correlation between online real estate lead generation and real estate website
design.
Frequently real estate websites are designed with standard pages such as our agents, about us, why
sell with us etc. that are cluttered with content that confuses the online visitor. Often little conversation
in the website development process is devoted to designing a layout based upon preferred lead
capture results.

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What are the goals of the web visitor?
When designing a real website the visitor
intentions have to be prioritized. After defining
these intents, an optimal real estate website
design will cater to visitors by making it easy for
them to quickly navigate to the section or pages
on the website that target their desired
information.
What are the real estate company’s goals?
Acquiring visitor contact information,
understanding where they are in the sales
cycle, enticing them to share your content,
inviting them to pick up the phone to inquire
about a home for sale or requesting a property
market valuation are all ligament website goals
for the real estate company.

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Incorporating suitable design elements into real estate websites increases lead generation by
eliminating confusion for the visitor.
1. is clean and non-cluttered.
2. incorporates property search front and center.
3. it is easy to navigate.
Use these proven best practices to encourage your website visitors to do what you want them to do.
Give concise call to actions with prominent placement and reduce unnecessary noise.

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Today real estate companies
need to masterfully design a
real estate website to draw in,
engage and convert web
visitors to buyers and sellers.
However, that is not enough
to effectively capture the
whole targeted audience.

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In early 2013 two industry leaders came together and conducted a survey to better understand the
evolving role of digital media in the consumer home search process.
NAR’S and Google’s findings are not surprising, but for those who need hard facts to justify investing
in real estate mobile web technologies, the results are in and they cannot be ignored if the broadest
reach is desired.
49% of home buyers and sellers used a mobile device at the beginning of their real estate search
according to the study.

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How much real estate
business is lost if a
company or brokerage
does not market to the
mobile user, when 49%
of those 90% who used
search engines in the
beginning of their home
buying process began
their search on a mobile
device?

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 89% of new home shoppers use a mobile
search engine at the onset and throughout
their research.
 Mobile applications are used by 68% of new
home shoppers at the onset and throughout
their research.
 Realtors® can employ various mobile
marketing techniques to make sure they are
discovered at the mobile zero moment of
truth.
The study states “mobile new home shoppers
offer an additional source of qualified leads for
Realtors®.”
The following graph represents a breakdown
of how home buyers used mobile devices as
part of their home searching process.
This data should help brokers understand the
financial benefits of real estate mobile apps.

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Gathering home information, getting directions, comparing property prices and features, searching a
real estate companies inventory, calling a real estate company, locating a local agent, reading
reviews, researching mortgage financing, starting a conversation with a brokerage, watching a
property video are all common home buyer activities.
Today, these actions are occurring on mobile devices at rapidly swelling numbers.
Interestingly, 77% of these mobile searches were conducted at home and 31% at work, locations that
a desktop or laptop computer are more than likely accessible.
Home buyers are choosing to use their mobile devices to research and learn about properties for sale.

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The Google study looked at all the screens consumers use over the course of a week and found that a
full 90% of all media interactions are now screen-based: they take place on a smartphone, laptop, PC,
tablet or TV. Radio and print now account for only 10%. If your real estate company still allocates
marketing dollars for radio or print, today it is time to change that.
Source: Real Estate Mobile Marketing NAR Google Study
On June 11th, 2013 Google published an article titled “Changes in rankings of smartphone search
results.” And when Google talks, brokers need to listen, learn and take action.
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…smartphone users are a significant and fast growing segment of Internet users, and at
Google we want them to experience the full richness of the web. As part of our efforts to
improve the mobile web, we published our recommendations and the most common
configuration mistakes.
Avoiding these mistakes helps your smartphone users engage with your site fully and helps
searchers find what they’re looking for faster.
To improve the search experience for smartphone users and address their pain points, we plan
to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured
for smartphone users.

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Not only do we know home buyers use mobile devices to search for real estate, Google will favor and
reward mobile friendly real estate websites or those that direct to a well-crafted real estate mobile app
more than those that choose not to cater to this rapidly growing audience.
Real estate companies that choose to ignore this information provided by Google will more than likely
suffer financially if they reply upon or desire traffic from the search engine giant.
Source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/06/changes-in-rankings-of-smartphone_11.html
A laptop or desktop computer website experience is much different than viewing or researching real
estate on a smartphone or iPad. The biggest difference, of course, is the screen size.
Real estate mobile apps must incorporate features that satisfy users on the go by offering an equally
superior experience on these popular smaller screens.

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Today, most real estate company
websites are responsive.
A responsive website is one that will
adjust its size based upon the device
being used. This type of website maybe
ideal for some industries, but not for real
estate companies.
Simply shrinking down the website size to
adjust to a smaller screen, most often will
provide a bad user experience.
Therefore, a real estate mobile app is
preferred over a responsive website for
maximum marketing outcomes.

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The previously mentioned “New Home
Shopper Activity on Mobile Devices”
graph (viewable in previous the How
Important is Mobile Marketing for Real
Estate Business section) tells us what
information, mobile real estate visitors
are seeking.
The best mobile real estate app will
masterfully accommodate these
needs, making it effortless for the
visitor to find and view this material,
no matter what size screen they are
using.

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The temptation to put too much into a real estate mobile app is tempting. After all, you want the
visitor to see all of the services and information you offer.
However, when someone has to scroll down on a real estate mobile app to find what they are
looking for, they are apt to go. They are looking for every specific real estate information, don’t
make them scroll or dig for it.
Remember, it is all about uncluttered, easy to navigate and intuitive property search functionality.

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People stay on the front page of a web app 7 to 15 seconds. For that reason, you have 7 to 15
seconds for them to find what they are looking for.
Buttons are innate and offer easy navigation. However, the more buttons presented to the user at one
time, the more difficult it is for them to make a selection, especially for the first time user.
Maximize the screen’s real estate by keeping to less than 7 buttons on your apps front page and
include the most useful ones such as a click to contact, directions, social sharing such as Facebook
(use one social button and link that to a page that has all social media links), property search, property
pages, save favorite properties and neighborhood highlights.

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Think of your real estate mobile app as
a communication channel.
The objective is make it effortless for
the app user to call, send a text or email
message and communicate to your
agents or company.
 Button sizes should be large
enough so without difficulty larger
finger sizes can click them.
 Make sure your real estate
mobile app communicates with
GPS. If it does not, the app will
be useless.
Take your smartphone out.
Open Safari or Chrome and navigate to your website. Is this a website or app you would use when
researching for property information on your mobile device? Now navigate to your competitors
website. Which one is more user friendly?

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It is an IDX vendor or
company that has the
technologies that allow MLS
property search functionality,
property detail pages plus
more that directly impact an
appropriate real estate
website design.

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IDX (Internet Data Exchange) uses a type of data feed provided by your MLS membership to display
information about real estate for sale on a website. This data feed typically mirrors the data available
on your MLS’s website.
If your MLS provides access to this data feed, you may use that access to promote all listings on your
website, not just your featured listings.

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As earlier discovered, property search is front
and center on the homepage of the top 3 most
popular online real estate website destinations.
Because every IDX vendor has its own unique
technologies that ultimately impact the visual
look and feel of property search features,
property detail pages, map search functionality
plus more choosing the right IDX vendor should
be an intricate part of your real estate website
design development.
Many brokers are unaware of this and end up
using the IDX provider their website developer
partners with.
 the layout of property detail pages.
 map search functionality.
 the ability to search by price and other
sorting capabilities such as waterfront,
subdivisions, neighborhoods, property
type etc.
 property showcases such as featured
properties or open house listings.
 contact forms.
 social sharing.
 lead registration and generation.
 lead management.
 extras such as mortgage calculators.

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Real estate website developers either use their own IDX technologies or third party IDX solutions to
bring property search and property details into a website. This facet of real estate website design
maybe the most important, but often least discussed when choosing a company to build a website for
a real estate company.
The property search functionality and property listing page design elements utilized by an IDX
supplier play a critical role in the overall usability of the real estate website design.
Equally important, when choosing an IDX vendor, or a real estate website developer is
understanding how they convert the MLS data feed onto a website.

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Some IDX vendors use frames (aka iframes) to embed property details onto a website. Google and
others have problems reading content contained within a frame, making this content invisible to the
search engines. This means Google may not know about the properties listed on your real estate
website if frames are used.
Non-framed IDX cohesive listings are view-able by Google and other prevalent online reference
resources. Landing pages, such as property displayed page results, created by quick links or
predefined searches can be optimized and entirely detectable for the search engines to deliver
targeted traffic to the website for relevant search queries.

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Google supports frames and iframes to the extent that it can. Frames can cause
problems for search engines because they don’t correspond to the conceptual model of
the web. In this model, one page displays only one URL.
Pages that use frames or iframes display several URLs (one for each frame) within a
single page. Google tries to associate framed content with the page containing the
frames, but we don’t guarantee that we will.
Source: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34445

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If Google does not
know your website has
information about a
particular property
listing, because the
listing content uses
frames, Google is
probably not going to
display your website in
its search results.
Therefore, when a prospective buyer has driven by a property for sale or heard about a particular listing
and uses Google to search online for information about the property, a website using frames is most
unlikely to appear in the search results. This is a huge missed opportunity.

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The easiest way to determine if your real estate website uses frames to pull in and display properties
is to call your IDX vendor or real estate website developer and ask if they “use iframes, or frames” to
display property listings.
There can only be two responses, either yes or no, making this is a straight-forward discovery method.
Another is intuition. When a real estate website struggles to get high search rankings on Google for
active listings, this may be a signal frames are being used.

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 Visuals are processed faster in the brain than text.
 According to a research by 3M Corporation, we process visuals 60,000 times faster than text
because our brain deciphers image elements simultaneously.
 Text content is decoded in a linear, sequential manner which takes more time to process.
 90% of information that comes to the brain is visual.
 People respond better to visual cues.
 Visual content stimulates engagement.

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This one, or…

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this one?

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Amazon, Pinterest, Instagram, the wide spread usage of info-graphics, Google image search
and the list goes on of successful online marketing strategies that use imagery to engage web
visitors.
Remember “copy what works, ideas are less important than execution.
The best real estate website company design will incorporate takeaways from others who have
mastered the usage of imagery by providing visually appealing property display and property
search pages to engage their online visitors.

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To become the local online go to
resource a company real estate
web design must satisfy and
provide prospective buyers with
more than just the standard
property search functionality
most commonly associated with
a real estate website.

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To fully participate and offer
meaningful information a real
estate company’s website
must purposefully present local
information in such a manner
that keeps buyers connected
with the website.
This material must help them
determine if the neighborhood
or communities they are
looking for properties in
coincides with their desired
lifestyle expectations.

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How does this phrase impact a home buyers
buying decision?
Location influences housing pricing, but
location also speaks to the lifestyle
associated with locations.
In a perfect world your company real estate
website has been optimally designed to
become the online “go to” resource for its
locality. In order to achieve best results, it
must provide valuable content specifically
related to a vicinity that goes beyond what
every other real estate website offers.
Neighborhoods are the greatest shared and
most natural way for people to talk about an
area, whether having a dialogue about where
someone lives, outdoor recreations, the best
pizza parlor, social events, shopping, schools
and the list goes on and on.
The most popular mobile apps and websites,
such as Facebook or Zillow strategically
incorporate the usage of neighborhoods to
selectively target a specific audience and
cater results to what that audience cares
about most, their living environment.

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Boundaries make searching for a home easier by focusing on specific locations that fit a
desired lifestyle.
The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens are all different New York neighborhoods.
These well-known communities each have their own unique characteristics and a home
buyer could expect to have different living experiences depending on which
neighborhood a home is located.

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 Provides unique and useful
neighborhood information that
makes a buyer say, I want to live
here.
 Empowers neighborhood home
searches that take buyers to the
right listings.

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There are numerous factors
that ultimately determine
how Google and other
major search engines
conclude which web pages
to display when a search is
conducted.
To get free real estate leads
from Google, a company
real estate website must be
developed to be SEO
friendly.

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I am not going to quote numbers and tell you why it is important to be found on Google when a home
buyer or sellers searches for real estate for sale or a real estate company in your local marketplace.
We all know online search is where people go to for information and services. Being listed on the top
of Google for search terms relevant to your business can have a tremendous impact on the number of
closings or sale transactions that occur.
As a SEO expert, I can tell you there are numerous factors that ultimately determine how Google and
other major search engines conclude which web pages to display when a search is conducted.
Did you know the design of a real estate website can play a major role in search rankings?
A great real estate design accomplishes much more than converting new visitors into returning
visitors. It also is intensifies real estate SEO (aka search engine optimization).

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 Lowers bounce rate: a bounce is when someone
comes to your website and immediately leaves.
 Increases page views: a visitor navigates
different sections or pieces of content on your
website.
 Increases time on site: a visitor shows
engagement by staying longer.
 Receives more links: people will naturally share
your website by creating links to your content.
 Earns online mentions: a mention can occur
anywhere online, such as Facebook or Twitter.
 Establishes Google trust: signals authority to
Google.
Google knows your websites
bounce rate, how many pages
or how deep into your website
visitors go, how long they stay
before they leave, how often
others refer to your content with
links and how popular your
website is due to mentions and
social likes.
Trust me, Google uses this data
to establish “website authority”
and all of these factors directly
affect your ability outrank online
competitors.

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.
Much of the data necessary to discover ways to
evolve your relationship with Google can be found in
your website analytics.
I suggest you take time and regularly view these
reports to learn how visitors interact with your
website. Use this powerful information to identify
areas that need improving. And because data
doesn’t lie, you will know what your website visitors
think about your real estate website design elements
and content.
More than likely if your online visitors like you,
Google will too.

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But what does
actually mean?

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But you do need to know what makes
a “smart” website and change
accordingly.

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 Property pages that can be found and indexed by Google.
 Usage of SEO friendly URL structures.
 Optimized and unique meta tags for all pages including property and agent pages.
 Fresh content with integrated on-site blog.
 Google analytics in dashboard (be proactive, not re-active!)
 Fast loading web pages
The real estate website takes advantage of on-site real estate SEO best practices. These features are
built into the website and not an after thought.

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 Ability for visitors to save and share property searches.
 Leads are viewed and tracked – you can “spy” on or view visitors activity.
 Leads can be auto forwarded to appropriate agents in real time.
 Auto email generation alerts when a similar property hits the market, or a saved property has a
price change.
 A well thought out website design integration with strong call to actions.
Generating closable leads for your sales agents should be your number priority.

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Pictures sell homes. No matter how well written a property description is, it will never grab the attention of
a buyer better than a picture will.
The visual emphasis of any real estate website should be on imagery that tells a story and conveys “I
want to see more” from buyers.

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 It incorporates best practices that satisfy both online visitors and your objects.
 A/B testing is conducted to learn what your visitors like and change what they don’t respond
favorably to.
 Website analytics are reviewed monthly to look for trends and opportunities.

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 Customize. Separate yourself from others.
 The ability create custom landing pages for
neighborhoods, or just condos, or waterfront properties,
or featured properties or foreclosures etc.
 Agent pages should auto-populate their listings.
 The capability to pull in specific properties to create
slideshows and showcases.
 Property display and property details page layout
options – don’t be limited.
 On-site SEO built in.
 Crawl-able an index-able property pages for search
engines.
 Engagement with web visitors.
 SEO friendly URL structure for property pages – get more clicks.
 Get found online for highly targeted search queries – such as high
rise condos or waterfront properties and short sales.
 Offer customizable and multiple property search functionality
options.
 Use interactive maps searches – custom and unlimited – very
popular with online home shoppers.
 Ability to narrow searches by any field offered by your MLS.
 Subdivision property searches.
 New listings updated every 24 hours (or sooner).
 Social sharing – encourage visitors to share listings on Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest and more.

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 It takes hours or days verses weeks for
updates or change requests.
 Technology is updated regularly.
 An online WYSIWYG editor to make it easy
to update, change or create pages and
posts.
 Minor tweaks should be the norm, not the
exception
While I did not devote a section of this EBook to
this topic, it is imperative you control your website.
After all, it is your website. You should control it,
not your real estate website developer or vendor.

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(855) real-WIT
realWITS.com
info@realWITS.com
twitter.com/realWITS
facebook.com/realWITS

Real Estate Website Design: How to Become the Local Zillow

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