As an online real estate veteran I cannot help but notice the constant evolution of real estate business on the Internet. We’ve come a long way from the early days of online classified ads, brochure ware, and online calculators to… virtual tours, and broker reciprocity. The phenomenon of this change has not gone unnoticed by others in our industry or by consumers.

We must also keep in mind that as the number of real estate agents and brokers participating online has grown exponentially. What does that mean? For those of us who are already online, that translates to the sobering reality of stiffer competition, more choices for the consumer and less market share. It is also joined by the race to gain and maintain Web placement and position. For those of us that currently hold a greater market share of online business from our Websites, we may lose or have our presence diluted if we do not stay ahead of the curve!

So how does one make their Website stand out from the rest, continue to close business, and grow our share of online closed deals? The answer is simple; we have to be different not only in the content that is provided, expand our information, but we must also make changes in appearance and presentation!

As we move away from the early brochure sites that we all embraced, we must acknowledge that with the advent of broker reciprocity that our business is now more than ever consumer driven. If the consumer does not find what they are looking for on one site, they will go to another until they find it. Most consumers still search for homes first, but also are researching neighborhoods, education, local history, traffic, commutes, and places of worship, local arts, entertainment, and dining.

If you live in an area where there is a lot of relocation traffic, then it would make sense to have links for airfare, travel, hotels and dining. Local weather links, highway cams, voter registration and moving tips are also very beneficial. Such embedded information will allow the consumer to get a feel for the area and market that you serve without ever physically visiting. It’s not wise to disappoint them when they come to your site. So, if all of the above is already in place on your website then what is the next level? How do you keep those visitors at your site longer, keep them coming back for more information, and how do you win them over? How do you make your site a bit stickier? The answer is simple; your website has to subliminally convert your viewers into potential clients! It must be a good experience!

Here are a few ideas to make your Website different from others:

• Place a small video of yourself on your site! We recently placed one on our main page of Atlantabesthomes.com , and the feedback is extremely positive! It allows the visitor of your site to see you as you really are, and bond. I personally believe this is the most beneficial addition to any site. I am very satisfied with the quality of the video and audio, because quality has a direct impact on the viewer.
• Employ the Use of Favicons. A Favicon is short for a Favorite Icon. When a person visits a site that they really like, and want to go back to the site and visit again they’ll store it in the “Favorites” or “Bookmark” it for future reference. A Favicon takes this one step further. When a site that is scripted for Favicons is saved, the next time the site is loaded a small-personalized graphic will appear in the address header. In my case I have added these to my main sites: AtlantaBestHomes.com and RealEstateCoach.com site. Favicons are graphic files 16x16 pixels and saved as an .ico file. (To visit either of my sites on main page, save as a favorite, close and revisit) This is branding at its best! Instructions can be found on Microsoft. A free ICON creation program can be downloaded here: Icon Studio
• Have live links to your personalized Realty Times newsletter on your Website! This newsletter is also customizable and has information for both buyers and sellers! Also, put your Market Conditions Reports on your Web site. One of the key pieces of information consumers want is local market conditions. Realty Times helps you put your report into a professional format and helps you publish it to the leading real estate portals. More info click here!
• Use Send-A-Link.com in your page header. This is another scripted link that allows the viewer to save your page as a Favorite, make your page their start page, or forward and send you page link to a friend. The new script actually creates a scrolling banner with your page title It can also be modified for the colors shown to match your websites color scheme
• Include an internal search engine in your website. I’ve been using Atomz.com for several years now! It is incredible! Not only is the consumer able to search for content within your website, you also obtain a weekly report for the words and key phrases that they are actually using! Why is this important? It’s important because it allows you to actually accumulate realistic keywords and phrases to use in your Meta tags! You will probably find that the terminology that they use is much different than those you assume they are looking for.
• Internal scripts for translating your website text into other languages are also very beneficial to include in you site. Both Google, and AltaVista are great free sources to this. While AltaVista offers more choices for languages, Google is much faster, and navigates forward. (If they choose Spanish on your main page… each subsequent link they choose within your site is translated in that same language!) Critics may claim that the translations are not perfect, but the consumers that use it have informed me they love it!
• Local map links from Yahoo.Com and MapQuest.Com are an extremely helpful tool. Use them for directions to your office and listings. Also I can personally attest that links to Mapquest have closed deals for us when consumers have plotted out the distance and directions to work for their daily commute from the new home they planned to buy!
• Local weather links will also give incoming buyers an idea of what to expect from the local climate. A great source for local weather embedded graphics can be found at Wunderground.com.
• Provide free current sports headline news stories (Golf, baseball etc.) embedded into your website by Moreover.com. Moreover provides real-time headline links on your website. Viewers click on the headline to access the full text story. ( ex. http://www.AtlantaBestHomes.com/golf.htm)
• Provide free mortgage information, calculators from Mortgage101.com

There are many items that we can ad to a real estate website, but we cannot allow ourselves to become complacent in our online marketing efforts. Complacency allows stagnation in our Internet marketing, and that will lead to diminished returns. We must acknowledge that the Internet is still evolving at the speed of light! We must weigh out carefully the content and ideas that we place on our websites, and provide to the consumer a product that is different in appearance and content from our competitors that will meet their needs. It is the difference, and personal branding, that allow one site to be successful and another not. Creativity of the author differentiates one site from another and the consumer or viewer will give the nod of approval to the winner… and the winner will close the deals!