How to Lose a Real Estate Website Visitor (in 10 Easy Ways)

So. You have a real estate website. Congratulations. Did you realize though that many of you are probably sending website visitors away, without even realizing it? Too many real estate agents think their website is perfect - but often they are making key mistakes that can send their web visitors away and thus lose potential business. Here is a check list of 10 things to see if you are in fact losing website visitors too.

1: 'Thanks for the info, bye!' If you have no lead capture on your website, how are you going to know who visited your website, or how to contact them? Worst still, if you provide the visitor with great information, but no lead capture, they are simply just going to take your good content to another Realtor's website who is clever enough to have lead capture on it and end up being contacted by them instead of you. Not good.

2: A homepage that is longer than your arm. A homepage has to grab the visitor's attention within 5 seconds, or they will simply go to the next Realtor's website on the search engine they were just on. And having a long 'texty' page is going to do you no good here. It may be the best content in the world, but people don't 'read' online, they 'scan', especially on a homepage. Use bullet points and small sentences, and above all, let the visitor know why they should use you, and not another Realtor! Otherwise you can wave them goodbye.

3: A homepage with colors picked by a 5th grader. You know who you are. Website owners that use blue text on a black background. Or yellow text on a white background. It's hard to read just in case you didn't realize, and it's a sure fire way to lose your website visitor.

4: No picture of you. Everyone wants to see what they are going to be buying, before they buy. Doesn't matter if you don't look like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie either. A picture of you is worth a thousand words and it's way easier for them to form a 'bond' and a potential working relationship with you if they know what you look like.

5: 'I'm the #1 agent in town'. A personal favorite at Z57. We see so many Realtors make this mistake with their website. Think about it this way, it's not a popularity contest - just because you have maybe won some award, doesn't mean that people are going to use you. You have to explain what's in it for them and just HOW you are better than other Realtors - i.e. your unique value proposition.

6: A website that has too many different pages to navigate to. I have seen some websites that have about 20 different pages to click to, all very similar. This just serves to confuse the website visitor. Research has shown that the more choices you actually give people, the less likely they will be able to make a choice. Chances are they will just leave your website and find another website that offers what they want in an easier to find way. Better yet - don't try and appeal to everyone on your website - focus on a niche and you will have way better results.

7: 'Umm, where are your home listings?' A real estate website that has no listings is like walking into a car dealership that has no cars. Now you wouldn't stick around at a dealership that had no cars would you? The number one thing a real estate website visitor wants is listings to look at, preferably on an interactive map.

8: Speling Mystakes. You may be surprised, but spelling mistakes can often turn a great website into an unprofessional website - and Realtors need to be professional. Some people really notice small things like that. It's pretty simple to cut and paste your content into Microsoft Word and run a spell check.

9: Your website is the same as everyone else's. Did somebody say cookie cutter? Even if you use a template, that doesn't mean you can't customize it. If your website looks exactly the same as other Realtors in your area, its not going to look very impressive to a website visitor is it? Make good use of photos, use a good interesting website layout. That helps for sure.

10: A website that has no interesting content. No one likes to watch paint dry or watch grass grow. Neither do website visitors like to arrive at a real estate website and be presented with nothing original, even if you have plenty of listings. Write some original content. Interview someone. Run a contest. Start your own blog. Get thinking.

Most of all, remember this. Always think through the eyes of your website visitor, and what your website 'experience' would be like to them. Many of you might be a little surprised when you do this for your own website...