REALTORS: Do More With Your Website

One question that we often have brought to us by Idaho Realtors® is how do I get more out of my website?
In response, we often ask: well, what are you putting IN to it?

This surprises many people, as they have for a long time thought that just having a website online was enough to guarantee online success; unfortunately it’s just not true – and never has been.

Unlike many web development companies we look at our clients as valued individuals with whom we want to build a lasting relationship. We CARE about their success because in part it is a reflection on our work. It may cost us financially at times but we tell the truth and provide our clients with what fits their needs – not just what will pad our bottom line.

Because of this we are very straight forward about the fact that the website that performs the best is the one you promote the most!

Competition online is fierce, especially for real estate in Idaho, so your website has to be the very best; it needs to be backed up by an on-going marketing strategy to get you noticed.

If you are a Idaho Real Estate Agent or Northwest REALTOR® let’s talk!
We are happy to take a look at what you are currently doing, or not doing, and offer suggestions for improvement. As long time real estate technology leaders we are familiar with every aspect of the market as well as digital design trends and we would love to help you start moving more real estate today!

A New Site Is The Answer

In retrospect to our previous entry “A New Site Isn’t The Answer” we’d like to offer you insight into times when a new site is in fact the answer.

Not to contradict ourselves of course, we want you to understand all situations are different and some times not having a quality website can be at the core of your world wide woes. While just having a website on it’s own is no cure-all method for instant success the importance of a strong and highly visible central hub for your digital presence can not be denied.

If you’re not sure about if you’re in need of a new website here are some reasons you may want to consider:

Back In My Day
Yes, we know dancing animated gif houses and auto-playing midi music was all the rage back in 1997…but if it’s been more than a few years since you revisited your website design chances are it’s long overdue. Even without considering the obvious changes in design trends that effect how the visual aspects of your site are perceived the technical side of web design must be taken into consideration as techniques and functionality change often in the world of web development.

Not Mobile
50% of all online traffic is now on a mobile device; that’s HALF of all the potential clients in the world who may be trying to navigate your site. Don’t risk losing out on such a huge chunk of the market – especially millennials! – just because your site is out-of-date. Google has already begun penalizing non-mobile compliant websites by removing their visibility in mobile based searches, so if your site isn’t mobile chances are it’s already being found less often.

Brokerages Free Lunch
Got a page on your brokerages website? Maybe it’s even got your name as part of the address? They mean well, but sadly if it’s not a website you control, where the leads come to you directly, where you are the showcase agent on every page and listing, you’re missing out. A picture and a bio on your corporate site is better than nothing, but it’s not going to give potential clients the confidence to choose you as the agent for them.

Penny Pincher
We know Realtors have a reputation for being spend-thrifts, and hey, that’s fine, nobody likes paying more for something than they have to pay. If the cost of getting your own site seems a bit much just stop and think about what the value of that expense really is: the most cost-effective means of advertising your services available. You see your website, when used properly, is more than just a digital business card – it’s a sales employee working to market you online 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

In relation to the average costs of being in the real estate business ( licensing, fees, memberships, desk costs, etc ) your website is in most cases one of the least expensive parts of the machine that makes your success; by comparison is a tiny fraction of what you stand to make from each client you serve.

In the end it’s up to you to decide if a new website is the right way to go for you; there are certainly any number of places to get one built these days. Regardless of who builds your site it’s important to understand that a site alone is not a complete solution but merely another tool to help build your success. It’s easy to play the role of the barber and tell you that you need a haircut, but the truth is not every situation is the same and sometimes a new site is not the answer. We’d love the opportunity to speak with you about your current real estate marketing plans and how we can help make them even more effective!

A New Site Isn’t The Answer

It’s a story we hear from time to time having worked in real estate technology for over a decade: an agent who has had a website for some time calls to complain about a lack of leads or to cancel their service just because they “aren’t getting anything out of the website”. There are even others still who are happy with their website overall but are easily lured astray by fast talking salesman with an arsenal of buzzwords and pockets full of urgency. While we’re glad to real estate professionals in whatever direction they are seeking success but it’s hard not to ask them out right: “Well, what have you been putting INTO your website?”.

See, it’s easy to complain about a lack of results from the work you didn’t do, and unfortunately more times than not the thing not working…is the website owner. You see simply having a site and just being online isn’t enough – it never really was – and just having a site that no one knows about ( that you’re also not actively telling people about ) is the surest way to get lost in the online noise.

We understand agents want to be selling real estate, not pushing buttons all day, but as a website owner and businessperson having at least some nominal involvement with your digital presence is a must. There are any number of systems that promise “set it and forget it” solutions to automate your advertising – but their quality is sub-par to say the least. And while there are any number of things you can and should be doing to promote yourself online the topic we want to touch on here is some of the reasons you may have not thought about in regards to switching your website to a new provider.

Change of Branding
Let’s change their coffee to brand x and see if they notice….oh believe me, they’ll notice! A sudden change in look or layout can be a real shock to website visitors who have visited your site lately, and for long term users of your site a change in the functions that they’ve come to depend on can also be a big disappointment. If you’re changing web systems make sure to keep your brand looking as consistent as possible – this is no problem if you’re migrating to TourRE as we offer excellent custom real estate web design to accommodate any need.

Loss of SEO
The age of your domain, and it’s contents play a large role in your search engine visibility. Sudden changes to your content, loss of data or meta-info, changes in link structures and other technical items in the code that makes up your website itself can really knock your SEO for a loop. If you’re changing web providers be prepared to not only disappear from the radar for a short time but possibly even having to start from square one in gaining good position in search results. This is even more true if you change the actual URL of your site.

Learning Curve
Even if you are fairly tech savvy there will always be a learning curve when you switch to a new system. No matter how intuitive a website is there is always a little down time involved in learning how to use the new tools you’ve acquired. Things that were once fairly easy to do like adding custom pages or links may now be unfamiliar.

Over-promising and Under Delivering
So you’re excited about your new site, you’re learning how to use it….three or four months go by…and the honeymoon is over…and you’ve got this great new site that you’re still sort of excited about, that may or may not do what your old site did, and may or may not cost as much or more than your old site — and! it’s performing just as poorly as your old site. What gives?! Well, in some cases you bought the sizzle instead of the steak and the new website simply does not do what the nice salesman promised – in other cases it’s the unfortunate fact that: you get out what you put in.

You’ve got to work the market for your marketing to work for you – let us help!
It may seem like strange to hear us not yell from the mountain tops “OUR WEBSITE’S ARE THE BEST!!!” ( and we believe they are ) but at the end of the day the website that does the best is the website you use and promote the most.  We’ve seen basic html websites outrank sites that people have thrown thousands of dollars at and it all comes down to how much promotion the website receives. Ready to get started? We’d love to talk with you about your ideas!

 

The Modesto – Our Latest Mobile Responsive Real Estate Template

We hate to brag, but our latest template THE MODESTO is pretty great!
Mobile responsive and currently available in 4 different color themes this elegant, modern real estate website design is sure to please.

We’ve made sure to include all the features you want like easy searching, intuitive navigation, and great images combined with all the things the search engines love like fast load time and data rich content.

Even our templates stand out from the crowd! Get in the game and show them you mean business – seize your digital destiny and move more real estate!!

Not All Website Templates Are Created Equal

With the return of real estate we’ve seen an influx of up and coming fly by night website providers passing through the area – talking fast, blowing smoke; making big promises.

But fact is, we’ve seen the other templated real estate web designs out there; they simply don’t measure up.

When you have the same exact same website that a thousand other REALTORS® the search engines can tell; what’s worse your potential clients can too! Not all website templates are created equal! A picture and a paragraph won’t win you much visibility in searches, and while there are any number of cheap, or even free, website systems out there none of them offer the level of customization and content control that a real estate website from Tour Real Estate Inc. can offer.

We know the real estate industry – we’ve been working to help build it for over the last decade – and we know how important technology is for this industry because we’ve been part of it’s growth in prominence. We know agents don’t want to be pushing buttons, the want to be moving houses, and we strive to make technology something as approachable as possible.

All of our websites come with a powerful client side content management system that allows you to control nearly every piece of text on your website and to customize how search engines and clients will see you online. We invite you to talk with us about your website needs – whether you are looking just to get a template up quickly or have visions of a full custom design, we can help!

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REALTORS: Getting Online Doesn’t Have to be Difficult!

For most real estate agents, the understanding that you need to be online in today’s technologically focused market is a no-brainer. It’s a fact of being in business, much like having business cards, or yellow page ads once were. There are plenty of options out there, and while it may be a little biased of an opinion, we think our system is among the very best –  especially for those looking to get online quickly and without a lot of hassle.

In most cases we can have one of our templated real estate websites up and running within 24 hours!

What’s more with a real estate website from Tour Real Estate you get more than a set it and forget it web presence! Our website system actually consists of two site – one that the outside world see’s and a second Client Toolbox site that puts you in control of your content! Just some of our standard features include:

Automatic MLS updates of your listings and every property on the MLS.

Multiple ways to search the MLS.

Create an number of custom pages.

Create unlimited links to showcase partners and area vendors.

Multiple points of lead capture.

Social media link display…and much more!

Whether you are an agent new to the market, or an old pro who needs to get with the times, we can help you get online! More than just websites in a can, we provide you with a ready made toolbox of resources to create a dynamic website for your clients. Contact us today – or visit us on any of our social portals to get connected!!

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Lead Capture Counts: New Counted Logins!

As you may already know, your Tour Real Estate website comes pre-built with a few different login options: None, Soft (which allows users to skip registering), and Hard (which forces visitors to register). Each of these allows you to control how strict your registration access is when a visitor goes to view listing details.

Now you have one more option to choose from! Counted Logins! This great new feature acts as an in between for our other great choices. Basically it allows visitors to view up to 4 listing details pages before it forces them to register to view more. This is a great option to allow visitors time to navigate around your site before they must provide their contact details.

One more powerful tool added to your online arsenal to give you greater control over your website and it’s lead capture abilities — all at NO extra cost to you!

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REALTORS: Create Your Own Listing Tour

Did you know you can create your own attractive photo tours for your real estate listings through your TourRE Toolbox – for FREE ?

That’s right! We’ve made the decision to go ahead and release the alpha version of our upcoming new virtual tour window early so that you can begin showcasing your listings now!

This early release is a very basic example of things to come. It currently includes a nice slideshow of your listings photos, property details, and quick tool links that allow visitors to request more info and get in touch with you!

Future features will include: multiple file uploads to save you time, audio and voice over capabilities, youtube movie creation, custom looks for your tour window, automatically publish tours to MLS, and MORE!

Want to start creating your own tours now?  Login to your toolbox and go to the Photo Tours link on the left. Once there, click Add Photo Tour at the top. On the page that opens enter the address, then mls number for your listing and begin browsing to the photos you want to include. You can upload up to 36 photos. Once done, click submit. Once your files are done uploading you will be taken back to the main photo tour section where you can click View Photo Tour URL to retrieve the branded and unbranded links to your new tour!

NEW REALTOR Website Template – The Goods

Pssst! Hey, hey you, yeah you with the winning smile and stunning real estate knowledge…

You want the best in REALTOR websites? You need to talk to Tour Real Estate Inc!

They’ve been providing the best online real estate technology for over a decade and are only continuing to grow stronger and better every year! This year alone they’ve made Realtor Lead Capture websites even more affordable, created graphical real estate craigslist ads, developed an amazing real estate map search, and launched one click REALTOR social network publishing of listings!

As just one more part of that stellar innovation we’ve just launched a new REALTOR website template: The Goods! This new simple but highly functional website template comes in 4 basic color themes: red,blue,earth toned, and emerald. The Goods template is one of over 50 available website looks for real estate professionals to choose from with TourRE.

This template comes with all of our great standard functionality, including search engine optimized code, the ability for you to control nearly ever piece of text content on the site, and more. In addition if you are a real estate agent active on social networks you can enter those links; they will appear near the top of your page, making it easy for prospective clients to connect and follow you!

Are you ready to get SERIOUS about your online presence?
Print is dead, phonebooks are good for little other than door-stoppers. It’s time to get with the 21st century and setup a real estate website that can be showcasing your services and listings 365 days a year — all for about the cost of what a one time print ad might run.

Contact Tour Real Estate Inc today to get started moving more real estate!

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It’s Not News: Print is Dead!

There was a time when anyone who was anyone could be found in the Yellow pages. If you had a business and you weren’t in the big yellow book you might as well have not even in been in business – after all if they can’t find your company in the golden pages of knowledge how would they ever find you or even know you were in business!?

It has become very much the same with websites these days. Today over 80% of all potential home buyers look for a REALTOR and a home online before they ever even start looking around in real life. To reach this huge audience of potential clients you must be online and your website must be the very best it can be.

Tour Real Estate has been providing the very best in REALTOR websites and online solutions for over a decade. We have help revolutionize the way real estate is found and sold online. Our REALTOR websites contain powerful tools and functionality to help you market your brand online and showcase your listings for an international audience.

Why pay hundreds of dollars for a print ad to run once, that may or may not even be seen by your intended viewers when you could have a website online 24 hours a day seven days a week showcasing your services and listings for less than the same cost?

REALTOR websites from Tour Real Estate allow you full control over your digital presence:

Create unlimited custom pages!

Capture leads from multiple pages!

Buyer/Seller Tips and Area Info pages built in standard!

Control Search Engine Visibility!

Create graphical Craigslist Ads Easily…and much more!

In this day and age, no matter how big or small your business might be you simply can not afford to be without at least a nominal web presence. As standard as business cards and yellow page ads were in previous decades, so are websites in today’s market.

Are you looking to create a powerful online presence to showcase your services and move more real estate? Do you already have a website but are finding it to be a bit lacking in providing leads or generating business? Tour Real Estate can help you strengthen your digital presence or help you get started in creating a website that will get results. Contact us today to find out more about the best in REALTOR Websites today!