While most agents are not even on the web yet, the ones already there perhaps fall into two categories:

1. Those who went out and bought or took advantage of a free minimal, entry-level, off-the-shelf template web site and say, "Whew! Now I can finally tell my prospects that have a web site, too."

2. Those who paid extra money to get a custom web site; one that looks different---not a rubber stamp image---from all their competitor agents in their marketing region.

The value to the custom site is that you can add valuable content that will attract prospects like sticky paper and keep them glued to your site. Adding valuable links are not only easy, they give your prospects reason to stay, and more important, to come back and visit again. You become the valuable resource in their minds.

Let’s say that you and three other agents are being evaluated by a buyer who’s moving to your city. During your meeting with the buyer you wisely choose to be interested instead of interesting and as a result, he ends up telling you his entire life history.

In fact, he saw that you were so interested in him (not in yourself and your fabulous accomplishments) that he ended up meeting with you not just for a half-hour as he’d indicated, but for an hour and fifteen minutes. Later, you find that he spends only twenty minutes with each of the other agents he interviewed.

Knowing this, you’d feel pretty good about yourself and your chances of being chosen to be his buyer’s agent. Right? And why? Because you equate the excessive time you were granted with some magical chemistry that occurred. And you’re probably right. We typically give more time to people we like. People who are interested in us. In fact, we "stick" around them.

A web site works the same way. If your site is packed with content and links that overtly demonstrate that you’re on the web not merely to just be interesting, but to actually be interested in your visitor’s needs, your visitor will stick around in your site far longer.

How do you make your site sticky? You include stuff other agents don’t. Yes, your site needs basics like various mortgage, moving and salary, calculators; weather, map, school and crime info, and links to city information sites, but these city-related links usually don’t go far enough. To be sticky, your site needs to zero-in on local info beyond these.

Don’t just send visitors to some big community web site in your city and expect them to drill down to find the specifics. Drill down yourself, find the exact URL of the page the specific info is on and put that link on your site.

Here are some ideas for links to add: Let's start with golf courses. Add a subhead called "Local Golf" that links to a directory of all local courses, and then below it, individual links to each course by name.

Include links to a number of hospitals, fire department, local emergency plans (tornado, hurricane, earthquake), clubs, museums, tourist attractions, non-profit groups, city history and the official city government departments, phone numbers of each utility, a link to each local school’s web site beneath a heading such as "Yournewcity School District. Have that heading be a hotlink leading to the district’s very own web site.

Include links to specific categories of business and professional sources that relate to moving and/or relocation: storage, truck rental, handymen, concrete work, carpet and drapery sites, etc. For a great example of a sticky site, look at the local information for the Lake Tahoe area on Schaller and Schaller.

More than anything, buyers want to look at homes on the web. So add a link to an MLS search site such as HomeSeekers or HomeStore. If possible, link directly to the exact page in the national MLS search site that covers your own marketing area. This will save your visitor work in drilling down to find it.

And that’s mainly what being sticky is all about. A sticky web site keeps the visitor in your site longer because the site reflects the visitor's areas of interest, not just information about you. And the more time he spends in your site the more likely you are to gain a buyer. You are your site.

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Published: June 7, 1999

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Bill Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to web-proficient agents nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the Prentice-Hall books, Internet Marketing in Real Estate and Internet Marketing. Bill is also webmaster of Orange County Real Estate, among the most-awarded known Realtor® sites. Visit his website, Koelzer.com or e-mail him at .