5 Necessities You Want In A Real Estate Website [Video] #GLAMR

Real Estate Website

I was recently contacted by @RyanSteinolfson of Accelerate Your Marketing and asked to be an expert on Real Estate Websites.  We used Google Hangouts to create a video of the interview and posted the result to Youtube.

In the video I explain an acronym that I coined:  G.L.A.M.R.

G – Generate
L – Legitimize
A – Authority
M – Multiply
R – Residence

You can watch the video or read through the transcript to find out what the 5 necessities you want in a real estate website are and how they are coined GLAMR.

Real Estate Website Interview

Video Interview Transcript

Ryan:
Ryan here at business trends TV and today
0:03
I have Jason Fox not to be confused with Jamie Foxx, I have done that a few times. Glad to have you on today.  Jason I know that you’re an expert on building a real estate  website. 
0:16
We are going to learn a lot from Jason.
0:17
How are you doing?

Jason:

I’m doing good, Thank you.

Ryan:
You bet, you’re an expert in real estate web siteswhat’s are three things that you would look for in a great real estate website?  What are three
0:35
tips or things that you would make sure that
0:38
any really good real estate website would have?
Jason:
That’s a great question and, you know, I’m actually gonna have to answer
0:47
that with
0:49
an acronym that I’ve coined. I call it GLAMR.
0:52
Thats G.L.A.M.R. ,it’s actually five things but I think that there are 5 necesseties that every real estate website should have. 
1:06
The G is for generates.
1:10
I am going to put it this way, there’s really no point in having a
1:14
website if it’s not doing something for you, if it’s not working for you.
1:19
I mean 24/7, it’s like the AM/PM for real estate leads. By generating, I just mean some calls to action,
1:28
having some lead capture form,  some way to collect leads from your website.
1:34
L is for Legitimacy,  and what I mean by that is, when somebody comes to your site it should be
1:42
good looking, it should be user-friendly, it should have an
1:46
IDX Feed, it should have the things that people come to expect from a real estate website, so that we see the site as legitimate.
1:54
A is for Authoritative and we can do that with our content.
1:58
If you’re blogging and creating great content, when I come to your site I can see you as
2:06
an authority, especially for your area of expertise, and if you are doing a hyper-local real estate campaign.
2:10
M is for Multiply, and what I mean by that is
2:13
that  your website should be able to take your content, or your message,
2:17
and spread it all over the web pretty easily.
2:21
Finally the R is for Residence.
2:24
and can weave her maybe there’s a little bit but your
2:28
the website should be your marketing hub and a good word Press website
2:32
I’m kinda create a residence or home where you can drag all at your marketing
2:37
into I one localized spot.
Ryan:
Thank you for that that’s that’s really good insights.
2:43
Jason in regards to the five things, as opposed to three things, that somebody would want
2:50
in their website.  I mean, obviously, it’s gotta be generating some leads for the business.
2:58
I agree, it’s got to be authoritative. I think thats awesome
3:06
What about reputation, do you think it’s Social Proof from the website? Is that something you would incorporate?
Jason:
Absolutely.
3:11
On every site that I do I  build a review page or a testimonial page of some sort.
3:19
I add reviews in widgets or are different areas depending on the level
3:23
of reviews that our clients have right now.
3:28
I can tell you that I work with some of top professionals here in the Pacific Northwest,
3:34
and across the nation, and what I have found is that
3:37
there are many that are just generating a ton of business, because they have excellent 5 star reviews on the Zillow site.
Ryan:
Just on Zillow, or is that on other sites as well?
Jason
Zillow is a niche review site for real estate.  I know a mortgage broker that has 63,  5-star reviews, on Yelp
4:06
and they generate about 5 to 10 phone calls
4:10
a week, off of that page.
Ryan:
Powerful Suff.  That’s very very powerful.
4:16
Incorporating those same reviews, and pulling those Yelp reviews and Zillow reviews
4:20
onto their website would be something that would be advantageous.
4:24
I think you would agree to that?
Jason:
Absolutely.
4:32
We don’t believe in advertising, we’ve all seen Toyota and Coca Cola and
4:41
McDonalds on the television telling us that this is the best car, or the best cheeseburger.
4:45
People don’t buy that stuff anymore. What we want is, we want some proof, we want
4:51
social proof, and we want our friends, our family, and people that we trust telling us that yeah this is a good service.
Ryan:
There’s some data that I’ve heard that states that
5:02
80% of people that get a referral from somebody
5:06
out in the world, whether it be a friend or family member or whoever, that 80% of those people that get the referral will
5:13
actually go two places.  60% of those eighty
5:19
percent, will go to the website and the other 40% will directly to the review directories.
5:26
I think it’s imperative that those reviews are not only on the
5:30
website but also on the various directories.
5:34
as five star reviews as ours it’s imprinted
5:37
it’s imperative at those reviews or on the website and that they are as close to five
5:41
stars as possible,  and
5:43
the same thing is happening on the directory sites too.  Because that’s where
5:47
eighty percent of people, when they hear about your business from a brother a
5:51
sister or mother  or anybody else,
5:53
that is where they’re going.  They are going on their smartphones, they are picking
5:56
up their smart phone
5:57
They are typing in Jason Fox, they are typing in Ryan Steinolfson, they are
6:01
typing in our names and our businesses and they’re trying to find out what
6:05
other people are saying about us, is the bottom line.
6:06
The next thing is, you’re an expert on real estate web sites, what if somebody became your
6:12
customer what would they experience, what kind of experience can they expect?
Jason:
I have owned a one-size-fits-all business in the past
6:24
and I found that, what I want to do is be more of a
6:30
Marketing Boutique, if you will, specializing in real estate agent web sites.
6:37
There’s not a one size fits all solution,
6:40
but I do offer a lot a different suggestion.
6:45
All my web sites are built on WordPress Websites, I am a WordPress specialist.
6:48
I believe in it because I’m a huge fan of content marketing and SEO,
6:52
and just the power that content can bring.
6:56
What I will do is take somebody through
7:00
some different scenarios such as: different ID X providers,
7:04
different theme options, and looks and then I’ll help them figure
7:08
out, based on what they already have going, a site that fits into not just
7:15
being a website but also fits into their entire marketing campaign.
Ryan:
Awesome, so you have a system or a process there where you
7:32
treat everybody as an individual. You’re more hands-on, it’s not like
7:36
you just everybody as one-size-fits-all.
7:39
You have some really good tools that you would want to use, like IDX,  and all the other
7:43
tools that you want to incorporate in a real estate website.
7:46
It sounds like you’ve got a situation there where your
7:50
treating your customers as clients,
7:54
you really build a custom solution for them.
Jason:
Yes, I call it more semi custom because also understand that most my clients are on a strict budget
8:07
as, entrepreneurial real estate professionals.
8:11
I have found all the best
8:15
servers, and all the best IDX providers, the best WordPress Themes,
8:20
 the best plugins, then I just help to kinda put it all together and build out
8:25
a good, robust, user friendly, and  mobile-friendly website solution.
Ryan:
Awesome, it is very important to make it mobile-friendly also.
8:35
As you know, now we know that somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of
8:38
all searches are happening on a mobile device. That’s an  amazing statistic.