Content Checklist Prior to Launching a New Real Estate Agent/Broker Website
I can tell you from experience that client content is the biggest challenge to launching websites in a timely fashion. Yes, strategy, vision, wireframing, design, and development takes time — but so does content. And great content is an absolute requirement to an amazing website that buyers and sellers will return to over and over again.
After speaking with one of our Geek Build 2012 participants, Greg Fischer, I realized most agents and brokers don’t really understand what is needed for a website from a content perspective. Hence, I thought it would be a useful exercise to produce a content checklist for a new brokerage or agent website:
- Comprehensive bio for yourself and every member of your team
- Professional bio photo for you and your team members
- Unique descriptions of every city within your coverage area
- Photographs of each city within your coverage area. Ideally, several photos per city. These should be photos that you own and have full copyrights to.
- Unique descriptions and photos for each neighborhood, ZIP code, or HOA that you cover.
- Listing photos – ideally, high resolution. You don’t want to show your sellers a website that showcases THEIR property with crappy, low resolution MLS photos, do you?
- List with Us – a page detailing why someone should choose you as a listing agent/brokerage rather than the dozens of others a seller could pick. What’s your UNIQUE value proposition?
- About – for a brokerage site, you need an about page that details the history of the company
- Blog posts – you should always launch a website that includes at least 5 blog posts. You don’t want someone visiting your site for the first time, and all they see on the blog is the default “Hello World” blog post that comes standard with every instance of WordPress.
- Landing pages – there is no simple answer to how many landing pages you need. It depends on how much time you have, and what your specific areas of expertise are. For instance, if you are a short sales expert in Seattle – a page dedicated to “Short Sales in Seattle” that gives a buyer everything they need to know about short sales and direct access to see short sales listings makes sense. You can always add landing pages as you go, but it’s good to create your most important ones first so the pages are given time to “age” in the search engines.
- Testimonials – the more testimonials from past clients you have on your site, the better. If you can get video testimonials? Even better.
- Bonus: MORE community content for all cities, neighborhoods, ZIPs, HOA’s that you create pages for. What to do, school information, local parks and amenities, recommended weekend trips, local festivals, etc
- Bonus: A professionally produced video for your about page (both for yourself and your company)
- Bonus: A professionally produced video such as the one seen here for Scripps Ranch
Remember, you can always outsource the content to a professional writer. Frankly, if you aren’t a great writer, finding a freelance writer (I know a few if you’re looking for one) is probably the best route to take. Same with the video content. I certainly do not recommend you try to shoot, edit, and produce your own videos.
That should give you a good start producing some content for your new site. Anything I am overlooking?
Greg Fischer
Posted at 12:44h, 16 MarchOK geeks. Let’s see how this question goes. What are the rules for linking out (from your internal community pages to external examples ie: restaurants, nightlife, museums). Do you or do you not link off of the site? If yes – how do you enable the link to open in a new window (something I’ve never figured out). Disclaimer – I’m not 100% geeky. Thanks for insights…
Drew Meyers
Posted at 12:53h, 16 Marchwithin the ahref tag, use this – a href=”http://test.com” target=”_blank”
Greg Fischer
Posted at 10:27h, 18 MarchNice, thanks. Getting geekier by the day.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 12:53h, 16 MarchLinking out to trusted, authoritative pages is not bad. linking out to crap is.
Ben Fisher
Posted at 09:03h, 17 MarchI typically don’t link out to external sources on any of my pages except for the “resources” page. Just personal preference here really as I’d rather keep their attention on the page they are visiting.
Greg Fischer
Posted at 12:45h, 16 MarchGreat post Drew. Thanks for this. Does anyone want to link to any really good examples of the above?
Drew Meyers
Posted at 12:51h, 16 MarchTake a look at the community pages on sueadler.com
mikec
Posted at 13:48h, 16 MarchThanks Drew. I especially like the example video highlighting the community from San Diego Castles Realty. A must for every real estate company
Drew Meyers
Posted at 07:48h, 18 MarchThe formatting is really funky in Chrome. Have to scroll horizontal to see the whole page.
Jillian Cariola
Posted at 00:17h, 19 MarchVery comprehensive list, Drew. Just one question: how valuable do you think content curation is to a real estate website?
Drew Meyers
Posted at 21:28h, 20 MarchContent curation can be very valuable. The key is it needs to be done right, which means not letting crap in just for the sake of adding more “content” to your site.
Manhattanscout
Posted at 07:57h, 21 MarchThank you so much Drew. While so many people just talk about SEO etc. most of them forget that content is king. You can have the best website ever but if the content is useless your website will never perform well. Best wishes from NYC
Macrolancer
Posted at 11:46h, 21 MarchIt makes it difficult that even if a friend mentions an agent’s name to a friend they won’t even be able to find their website and contact them.
Macrolan
Posted at 11:50h, 21 MarchYou can always add landing pages as you go, but it’s good to create your most important ones first so the pages are given time to “age” in the search engines.
mortgages
Posted at 11:51h, 21 MarchI realized most agents and brokers don’t really understand what is needed for a website from a content perspective. Hence, I thought it would be a useful exercise to produce a content checklist for a new brokerage or agent website.
mortgage advisors
Posted at 11:52h, 21 Marchgreat content is an absolute requirement to an amazing website that buyers and sellers will return to over and over again.