When it comes to designing an eye-catching and highly converting website, many realtors are left scratching their heads.

You see so many eye-catching and successful websites and brands that seem to be doing well, but how on earth do you build that for yourself? Web design tips for realtors isn’t easy to find on the web, so we’ve brought them together for you.

As a realtor, it’s no longer acceptable to just have a website that acts as a brochure. You need engagement, quality content and much more.

With more Google searches taking place on mobile devices than on computers in over 10 countries including Japan and the US, you need to be thinking about mobile optimization as well.

Rather than combing through countless blogs, this article will give you the top web design tips, all in one place to save you time.

Let’s get started.

Why Is a Quality Website Important in the First Place

In 2018, if you’ve not already got a site setup, you’re behind. Some people already have a site, but it acts as little more than just a brochure.

Having a high-quality site is hugely important for realtors as it’s an incredible way to show your customers all of your pro’s and also to convert and acquire new customers in the process.

78% of online local searches result in offline purchases, and as most realtors are location-based, it’s a huge opportunity to get a wider reach.

the Top Web Design Tips for Realtors

With that in mind, these are the five best web design tips for realtors for optimizing and building your site to be the best it can be.

1. Fast and Responsive Web pages Are Crucial

The more information that gets loaded onto your site, the higher chance you have of slow loading web pages. This can include everything from the theme you are using, your hosting provider and the images and videos you upload to your site.

You can optimize each of these parts of your site separately and it’s worth investing time just into this area alone. Many people think it’s important to have a web design that is eye-catching.

However, most users expect a site to load in 2 seconds, and 79% of web shoppers who have trouble with website performance won’t return to the site again.

It doesn’t matter how pretty your site design is if people don’t stick around long enough to see it load.

2. Optimize for Photography

Realtor sites are all about the pictures. That’s why it’s important to make sure that you are optimizing your website for photography.

Winter Park real estate is a great site optimized for photography to use as an example. By building a site around a great theme that can showcase your homes, without sacrificing performance you can ultimately convert more customers and give a much stronger first impression.

Some more web design tips for realtors is to use photoshop to enhance your photography. Creating amazing photography for your site can be challenging so using all the tools you have at your disposal is essential in creating the best performing site.

3. Search Engine Optimized

SEO is hugely important for driving organic traffic to your site. This organic traffic is free and you’ll often find if you can convert these visitors to join your mailing list you can keep them coming back for more.

Both on-site and off-site SEO is important to make sure you are maximizing the amount of exposure your site has to certain keywords and markets. Optimizing your site for SEO is one of the more general web design tips for realtors but that doesn’t make it any less important.

The benefits of an optimized site far outweigh the benefits of a pretty looking site, although if you can get both you are in business.

4. Offer Value in the Form of Content

One of the best ways to build organic SEO is through blog posts and content. It also happens to be one of the best ways to provide value to your audience, convert browsers into leads and generally making your website feel like it’s providing something of value.

So many websites give you very little usable, helpful information and after less than a few minutes of browsing, you’re already clicking off the website to find new information.

Many sites offer free content in the form of downloads and offering something like an e-book for free to their customers, as a way to provide value but also to get them opted into an email list.

Building a site that has amazing conversion can go a long way in helping you expand your business.

This leads us neatly into lead capture.

5. Lead Capture

One of the most undervalued and yet most effective parts of any website design is the conversion. Many companies spend millions of dollars trying to improve traffic and the number of website visitors they get. However, most of these companies spend just a fraction of what they do on gaining traffic, on improving their conversion process.

The lead capture portion of your website is crucial to make sure that you retain as much traffic as possible that comes to your site. Designed your site around good conversion and lead capture can be one of the most effective methods to reaching a wider audience.

What’s the point in having 100,000 website visitors in a month if only 1.5% of them actually come back again or have any interest in speaking to you? You’d be far better off having half as many visitors and an optimized page which converted at 6% as this would give you more leads.

Make sure to focus on providing great value content but then leaving a little information back to share in exchange for an email address, and make sure you’re converting visitors into leads.

Time to Build a Gorgeous Website That Converts

By following these five tips, you will be able to not only create a memorable, good looking site, you’ll also be able to offer amazing value to your customers and convert them into potential leads for your business.

For more tips on how to optimize your site as a realtor, check out our blog.