Aug

These days most estate agencies have a website or at least have a web presence on a real estate portal. But in my experience, many estate agents are unhappy with the return on their investment in online property marketing car donations have little interest in striving to maximize their property websites. Yet for others the Internet has brought sales and networking opportunities that would have been impossible without the great reach and the 24/7 visibility of the Net.

I have no doubt that estate agents who want to tap into the great opportunities of online property marketing, will benefit if they observe the following 5 golden rules:

1. Good site structure

A clear, simple site structure with a few easily understandable menu links ensures that people can quickly and easily find the category of property they are looking for. There are many choices on the Internet and if homeequity loans do not make it easy for people to find their way around your site, they will simply try another site. Common mistakes are trying to put too much stuff on the home page, with the result that visitors are uncertain where to look or click. Another common error is to confront your visitors with a complicated search tool with numerous options and steps or just plain "glitchiness". After several unsuccessful attempts at using such a tool, most visitors will move on. If in doubt, ask friends to search for property on your site and advise you how easy it was to find what they were looking for.

2. Good content
Informative headlines and informative, well-written property descriptions supplemented with a generous number of good photographs will keep visitors on your site and will keep them coming back again and again. Conversely, poor grammar and spelling and skimpy information will create a poor impression of your professionalism. It is important to remember that many people who view property on websites are from far away and are hungry for information and photos that will help them in their search for properties to shortlist. Space is cheap on a website and as the site owner you should make the most of the opportunity to promote your properties effectively, thereby increasing the chance of your listings being added to shortlists. It is surprising how many property descriptions run to a few terse words accompanied by one poor photograph!

3. Search optimization
Search optimization - the science and art of getting noticed by search engines - is a big subject and I do not intend to go into it in depth here. But I am amazed that from time to time I see quite sophisticated websites that do not even show any awareness of the need to say "hello" to the search engines. A dead giveaway of this sorry state is a failure to optimize the "Title" tag. Here is how you can check your website: look at the bar at the top of your Internet browser screen. The text that you read in that bar is the "Title" for that page, and if it is optimized it should contain keywords that people might type in a search engine in order to find a page like yours. Your home page "Title" should certainly be optimized and ideally so should the other pages on your site. If this is not happening on your site you should get expert help.

4. Good replies
An overseas client who bought several properties through our company told us he had originally sent email enquiries to several websites and we were the only website that had replied! This seems amazing and highlights the need to ensure that your online marketing efforts do not break down at this critical point. The first precaution you can take is to make a test email enquiry on your own website and confirm that the email is sent to the designated recipient. Another pitfall with replying to emails is "email overload". It takes time and effort to reply to emails and if you are at the receiving end of lots of mail you may not get around to addressing all enquiries from your website. One solution is to assign somebody the job of sending the first polite reply to all emails and assisting in the process of identifying which enquiries require your further attention. Prompt and helpful replies boost your image as a professional business and pave the way for building lasting relationships.

5. Realistic expectations
An estate agent colleague told my partner that her website had been running for two years but had not delivered. My partner questioned her further and found out that she had made "only one sale" through the website. He asked her how much commission she had earned from this sale and how much the website had cost her. It turned out that she had earned about $15 000 in commission from her sale and had spent about $1 500 on her website. Even she was quite impressed when she thought about it like that. Because of the relatively low cost of Internet advertising compared with advertising in other media, even a modestly performing website can deliver a significant return on investment. Perhaps you will appreciate your website more if you revise your expectations!

Andre Viljoen is a registered estate agent who specializes in online property marketing. He is a partner in Skilpad.Com Property Portal www.skilpad.comhttp://www.skilpad.com South Africa's new real estate portal and African Showcase Realtors www.afshowcaseprop.comhttp://www.afshowcaseprop.com which markets game farms and tourism property in South Africa. Before joining the real estate industry he was active for many years in the journalism, media and advertising fields.