Having a web site is like having a pet. They each take a tremendous amount of attention and you can’t leave either of them alone. Don’t expect too much from them and you won’t get disappointed.

You’ve seen dogs that can do tricks and are obedient and wished your dog could do that. You might have said, “Next time we get a dog, we’re going to get that breed.”

However, it is neither the type of dog nor how much you pay for it; it is how much time the dog's owner spends with the animal. Dog trainers can take mutts from the pound and teach them tricks and turn them into movie stars in a relatively short period of time. And the same is true with agent Web sites.

The only trick that most agents’ web site will do is to roll over and play dead. If you want your web site to “fetch” Internet consumers, it going to take time and effort to make it happen.

Just like a pet, you have to feed your web site every day with information that will help consumers grow as successful homeowners. The informational diet should be balanced with financing, first time buying, taxation, and maintenance tips.

Most of the major providers of websites to the real estate industry do a good job in supplying the basic content but the sites need personalizing and individual touches. REALTORS® need to reflect their mission statement and objectives to distinguish themselves from the hundreds of thousands of other agents.

Dog food companies would like you to believe that if you feed your pet their brand, they’ll be just like Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, and Benji. And similarly, as an intelligent adult, you know not to believe that simply having a web site is going to double or triple your business. It is basically just advertising in an electronic media.

Unfortunately, too many agents thought that once they got a web site, their income was going through the roof and they weren’t going to have to participate in any other form of promotion. I firmly believe that personal websites are necessary but they’ll never take the place of the relationships that are built with past customer and clients and friend, relatives, and neighbors.

Compared to newspaper, radio, or TV, a web site is in the market 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year long. There is no practical physical limit on the amount of content that it contains and the creativity employed can be limitless.

A good dog can be a wonderful pet and companion. When you are in public with a good-looking, well-behaved dog, people will want to pet it and it gives you an easy opportunity to meet them. For the little bit that they eat, I just wouldn’t want to be without one. I feel the same way about websites; that may be why I have three of each.

Suggestions to Improve Your Web site’s Effectiveness

1. Promote your web site address on every printed piece and advertising.
2. Offer distinct services on your site that will appeal to buyers and sellers.
3. Add as many additional pictures to each of your listings as possible.
4. Offer services and suggestions that will help homeowners maintain their property to build on-going relationships.
5. Promote your site to the search engines and make changes to the meta-tags and keywords to increase your positioning.
6. Change the look and feel periodically if you have multiple templates available.
7. Change the stock text that came with the web site
8. Every important service or document you offer should be on your web site
9. Link to your preferred web site not away from it
10. Follow-up on leads in a reasonable period of time.

Published: August 1, 2002

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