I work in a business where I am constantly dealing with real estate landing pages and let me tell you, I have seen the whole gamut – the Good, the Bad and the Horrible. Granted I realize that taste is a matter of personal perception, yadda, yadda…but the facts are pretty clear and you can find blogs and articles defining them across the internet. What I don’t understand is how so many agents still choose to discard them.

The facts:

• A cheap website is almost certainly a dead site – as in “I’m not stopping there!”

• A website without a clear sense of “self” is a website without any friends. Keep in mind why you have this site, what you are offering and who your audience is.

• Relevancy – you have the ability to see where they came from and what they were looking for before they got to your site. Now, deliver them relevant content using that information. This is easily handled through custom landing pages especially when managing any PPC campaign, but can also be done using dynamic code on many organic pages as well. More on this later.

• Encourage interaction but don’t demand it. Statistics show that the more information you request, the more leads you lose.

• Make sure your landing page is uncluttered. I don’t say this lightly – I can’t count the number of pages I have come across that look like they have barely survived a hurricane.

• Keep your copy clear and to the point, refer to “relevancy” above.

• Use easy to read font on an easy to decipher background. Leave the pastel pink and comic sans for your personal blog (if you must).

• If you use graphics (and you should have your logo visible), make sure they are clearly related the key terms and don’t overwhelm the page.

Attention spans vary and when someone is searching for a relevant page, they take perhaps seconds before making a decision if this site is worth checking out – or not. Keep it simple, neat, readable and relevant.

Here is an excellent source for marketing information: Marketing Sherpa.