Creating a website to market a property listing can be as complicated or as simple as you like. Most real estate people are realizing the potential of their property listings having a specific website that allows for detailed information, photos and videos of the property available to enhance their online and offline marketing of a property as well as the website being a lead generator for future clients and referrals.

While most realtors may hire a professional web designer there are specific steps and online resources that can allow you to quickly register a domain, set-up and upload the content for a new website in a short amount of time and at a low-cost.

If you decide to do it yourself you will find significant savings in the cost (expect to spend between $50 and $100 dollars per property website) while amazing your client with your marketing prowess. Also, as the property website becomes part of your marketing initiatives, doing it yourself will give you the experience to take the creation of the website time from several hours to just one or two hours.

Steps for Preparing for the Website
1. You will need to register the domain name i.e. 12345street.com
2. You will need to arrange for website hosting, often available where you register the domain name
3. You will need to install WordPress or you may use a website builder template that is supplied by your hosting company (recommended)
4. You should have ready the property information, photos and videos ready to be published to the website.

The above steps will take just a few minutes of preparation, not including the actual taking of pictures and video, and your website is ready for content to be added.

The specific pages you should create on the website, besides the home page, are:
1. Photo Gallery (all photos)
2. Video
3. Kitchen
4. Bathrooms
5. Bedrooms
6. Living space (a page for each separate living room, rec room, den, etc.)
7. Basement
8. Front yard/backyard
9. Special property features
10. Local amenities
11. Contact

Each page should feature descriptive text and a photo gallery highlighting the specifics of the room/area. The “Local amenities” page should have a map of the area (Google maps is a good choice) and links to such other information as the “Walkscore”, local government services, schools, shopping areas, transit, etc.
Again, depending on the type of website you select as the template for the design, the page building process could take just a few minutes, or longer depending on how well you are prepared with what needs to go where and your fluency with the website builder you are using.

Tips to Remember

Keep in mind that you expect the property website to be active only as long as the listing, so register the domain name and pay for the hosting at the minimum length of one year. Do not select the auto-renew option for the domain registration or hosting services, as you don’t want to keep paying for it year after year.
I recommend using the supplied website builder from your hosting company instead of WordPress, the set-up time will be minimal and they usually feature a drag-and-drop design format that even a novice can master, so you can create the website with limited design knowledge as long as you have your materials at the ready. WordPress also requires a lot of updates, maintenance, selection of plugins and more than can increase the amount of time it takes to have the website “go live” and keep it “hack-proof”.

Website Extras

You will find it very beneficial to add Google Analytics to your website for tracking purposes, so you can later analyze your marketing efforts and where the traffic to the property website is coming from.

If you publish an email newsletter you should include a sign-up form on the contact page or across the bottom footer so interested people can opt-in to your list.
Include your social media links so people can follow you and connect with you in the usual places.

Offer to transfer the domain name to the new property owners or redirect/forward the domain to your main website once the sale closes and it’s time to take the website offline.

Final Word

While website creation and marketing are often thought of as “too technical” the available tools now make this possible. By investing a few hours and a few dollars your marketing reaches new heights and your capabilities will outshine the majority of other real estate brokers.

 

Posted by: Zia Abbas