Web Design & SEO for NY Real Estate Market
New York State has it’s fair share of Real Estate Agencies, Brokers, and individual Agents. Available to them is the ability to place their client’s properties onto their respective Regional MLS service website so home buyers and other Realtors may conveniently view them online from their own homes or offices. According to the National Association of Realtors 77% reported they use of the Internet to search for homes (Source: 2005 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers). This is a staggering statistic that has left many Real Estate offices questioning the need for an individual Real Estate Web Site to stand out from the crowd and to showcase their office. Since selling Real Estate NOT web site design is a Realtors specialty, agents are often left not knowing where to begin or whom they should they call to do it.
The Design of a Real Estate site is a process that involves many stages; including planning, building databases, content management systems (CMS) for self updates, design, layout, usability, testing and more. Like most individuals Real Estate agents use the Internet daily, but most Internet users are not aware of what is involved in building a web site, and do not understand the jargon/terminology or the technologies powering the web. A good design company should sit down and explain these features to you and help you get a decent understanding of the processes involved in the development of your Real Estate web site. Research your web design company, make sure you feel comfortable NOT intimidated or uncomfortable. Request that you meet one on one or in a small group, not with their crack team of web commandos, likewise do not include your whole office, only principles. Sometimes less people can often lead to better more focused discussion and understanding of your goals for your project.
Building your Real Estate website is just part of the process, and if your goal is to capturing leads and being found in search engines, it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with Internet Marketing. Look to a web design company with an SEO specialist that can provide Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services for your web site. It is very important that your website be built with SEO in mind, from the ground up. You will need to budget a healthy amount for this service, it is highly specialized and requires many hours of research and experience to provide a level of results that you may expect. Remember this tip, No one should offer you a guarantee of #1 ranking in Google, Yahoo or another Search Engine, a qualified SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) can obtain 1st page rankings but there are factors that are out of their control that would not allow ANY ethical Search Engine Optimizer to boast this with a guarantee.
When considering the cost of your SEO campaign, you should understand the potential return from a lead generated from your Search Engine Optimization, in marketing terms this is referred to as ROI or Return On Investment. If just one lead is a result of your SEO’s marketing efforts this may justify the associated costs depending on the commission. If your competition is hiring a Search Engine Optimization company to make sure they get positioned high in search engine results, one of their primary goals will be to out do their competition, and this may very well be you.
A web design company with an experienced designer, programmer, and search engine optimizer will prove to be a winning combination. Your website is a representation of your product (your Real Estate services) and well designed products are easier to sell when marketed to your consumer (home buyers and sellers). If you would like to hear what a NY web design company with these qualifications can do for your Real Estate company, contact enginesofcreation.com web design & development to set up a Real Estate web site or SEO consultation.
