Primary marketWhy Are There So Many Bad Broker Sites?
Is it just me, or are most of the sites owned by the local area offices of national realty chains and independent regional firms really bad sites? The Web has moved beyond the Web site as brochureware, but many of these local brokerages don"t know that yet. In fact, if your broker"s web site isn"t producing hundreds of consumer leads to you and other agents in the firm, it is a sub-standard Web site.
Why are most brokers" sites so bad?
One clue that something may be amiss with many of these sites is that they rank incredibly low on search engines. In fact, even though I do about a thousand searches a week to check on which Realtors are ranking high for certain cities, I believe I have never seen a realty firm’s local site come up number one. Individual Realtors often have far higher ranked sites, but more importantly, pound for pound the better Realtor sites---even most template ones ---are worlds better than most local area realty company or local office sites.
Why is that? I suspect that it’s partly because of the NIH factor---the “Not Invented Here” factor. The NIH factor springs from what I see as being the almost maniacal drive by some realty firm managers to use in-house or volunteer services in order to avoid hiring and paying for outside consultants. I know of many regional firms who have let their sites be designed by allegedly “Web-savvy agents,” rather than go outside the firm for much more capable talent.
The problem with hiring an amateur instead of a specialist is that you get what you pay for. In a case near me, a couple of Realtors® from several branch offices took more than a year to built a corporate web site for their regional chain. These were top professional salespeople, so the broker/owners went for their pitch, and let them build the site. But the site is so non-sticky, it is almost repellent. It was also unimaginative, including the same stuff 98% of all business sites include - the old tired and trite basics of Home, Search, Agent Profile, About, Relocation and a link to their default mortgage service. How underwhelming, how un-novel, how typical of most realty firm sites, considering the exciting alternatives that could be offered.
Another clue is that once the consumer has found the broker"s Web site, they have to jump through hoops to find the information they want. In many of these sites, you cannot search by city first which is where most consumers begin. You have to start with the brokers" offices (located in just one city) and then guess which office serves the possibly unnamed city that you want.
Also consumers want to look at content, including an MLS search for homes. They don"t want to see just the brokers" listings, that"s not a service to consumers. But they aren"t alone. There are plenty of other bad sites out there, too.
Some brokers try to obscure the mediocrity of their sites with beauty shots of local scenery, but most are too tiny and jammed together to see very well. You"ll also find no interactivity with customers. No live chats such as those available with Humanclick.com or LivePerson. There"s no stickiness whatsoever because the brokers don"t know what stickiness is or how to get it or what it accomplishes. Most lack any original content, or even good links to content concerning the several dozen cities the firm serves in their county. There"s no homebuying or selling information, or news that affects the homeowner. There"s no custom news such as the well-written consumer-oriented content available from Realty Times. And where is the local market information? Isn"t that why consumers choose local brokers for their knowledge and experience with the local market?
Gee, why would someone interested in buying or selling a home want to spend time in such a site?
Where these sites really fail their agents is the way they introduce the agents. The agent locator section in the “home-grown” site is always lacking because they are just like 95% of the ones that you see in all the realty chain sites. In one site, the in-house designers let you drill down in the “Agent Profile” (Not “Realtor” profile, mind you) to find Realtors by office location. Then, when you find that, you click on the Realtor’s name to go to his or her web site. That would be great - if the consumer knew all their names.
Worse yet, clicking on many of the agents’ names takes you not to a complete Realtor® web site, but to a crummy little half-page that just gives agent contact information and shows an e-mail address, all in plain text.
What about some good content for the agents that gives consumers a reason to e-mail or call the agents? Few have a link to online newsletters that can serve to capture new leads off of listings or agent profiles. A local market newsletter should be accessible from every link that goes to the Realtor so it gives the consumer something to sign up for and a way the agent can stay in touch with the prospect.
Managers of regional realty firms and independents should ask themselves why they are willing to settle for having such crummy sites. With a marginal site, they can still say they are supporting their Realtors by merely having one. After all, many regional realty offices and regions don’t have sites yet.
And they get away with it because few Realtors are likely to hassle them about getting a better site to support them in their sales efforts. That"s because they don"t have any idea of the business they are missing.
The regional or local independent firm’s Web site should exist to serve you and if it doesn’t, you and you peers need to get up your courage to tell your management so. You can start by getting together a cadre of the more web savvy Realtors® in your firm to talk nicely to your managers about getting a regional or individual office site that serves you by helping produce leads.