Agent Website Makeover: 8 Winning Ways to Boost Consumer Appeal

One of the easiest ways to spoil the potential of a good agent website is to keep the default content that it came with. Never change it. Never personalize it so that visitors understand who you are and what you offer.

Fortunately, this fate's easy to avoid. The trick? Just customize your templated website in a few key places.

To hone in on what these key places are, let's look to the winners of IXACT Contact's recent "Best Realtor Website Contest." Each of the winning agents took the time to tailor the pre-written content that their sites came with--and it paid off, BIG!

Here's a look at the 8 places that the top three winning agents customized their website's content.

1. The Homepage

First-place winner Flint Adam caught the judge's eye with the customized homepage of his site, Nolensville Realty. Adam transformed the front page with a custom bio, mission statement, and a even a welcome video of himself to virtually introduce himself to visitors right from the get-go.

2. Business Directory

Second-place winner Birdy Perry offers something visitors can take with them when they leave her site--a free download. Perry compiled the contact information of her most trusted homes services providers in a PDF. Visitors can download it and refer to it when looking for lenders, contractors, home inspectors, and more.

3. Pop-up lead capture

Birdy also uses pop-up forms to capture more leads from her site. But she doesn't use the pop-ups to ask prospects to sign up for her newsletter. Instead, the pop-ups ask buyers if they want to sign up for listing alerts. That way both parties get what they want--the consumer, timely market info; and Birdy, the lead's contact info.

4. Team Member Intro Pages

Third-place finishers, The McMonigle Team, impressed judges with their detailed intro pages for each team member, Matt and Russ. If you're not on a team, you can still set up your own "About Me" page. Just be sure it's up to date and more complete than the bio blurb that's on your front page.

5. Your Blog

Both the first and second-place winners write their own blog posts. However, they intersperse them with pre-written articles from IXACT Contact. While this may relieve the pressure of keeping up with blog, using canned content isn't great for SEO or for impressing clients. If you can't dedicate much time to your blog, we recommend removing it from your site altogether. Save your time and energy for marketing activities that you actually enjoy!

6. Neighborhood Information

Two winners offered differing approaches to teaching visitors about the neighborhoods they serve. First-place website Nolensville Realty offers customized a community page for each area they practice in. The pages include a neighborhood photo, a searchable map, and listings in the area. 

Third-place finishers The McMonigle Team really show off their local expertise by creating a new page of their Favorite OC Places. Visitors get their recommendations on a very extensive list of the best local dining, shopping, and more.

7. Testimonials

The McMonigle Team and Nolensville Realty are on the same page again--both added a Testimonials section to their site. This is a great way to put prospects at ease and highlight your customer service strengths.

If you've already amassed a number of reviews in places like Zillow or Trulia, check for a widget that you can embed on your website to automatically display your testimonials.

8. Social media feeds

Finally, all three winners integrate social media into their website strategy.

The McMonigle Team embeds a live feed of their Facebook account into their website's right sidebar. First-place Flint Adam does this, as well, and also embeds his live Twitter stream. This shows the audience that you're active on the platforms (if you're not active, don't embed your social stream onto your site!).

Second-place winner Birdy Perry takes the reverse approach--she pulls listing data from her site onto her Facebook page. That means visitors to her Facebook page don't ever have to leave to search or view listings.

Those are the top ways that winning websites customize their content to make the site seem uniquely theirs. What are your favorite ways to customize your agent website?