Are You Asking for Website Feedback and Are You Getting It?

What resources do you have on your real estate website to solicit feedback from your site visitors? We're not talking about feedback to get positive comments to post for testimonials. The feedback we want here is specific information as to visitor experiences on the site and how it meets their needs.

Know Your Reasons

First, get past all of the "feels good" stuff. This is about generating business at the closing table. There is a place for the testimonial stuff, but this article is about feedback that results in more business. There is information you can get from studying website statistics, but there is no substitute for feedback from real people visiting your website.

Action: Note Why You're Doing This

If you're not providing some information your site visitors seek, they're going to go find it somewhere else. If your site isn't easy to use or making it easy to find what they want, you want to make changes so they keep your site at the top of their research list.

Your goal is to develop a feedback program that tells you what you need to do to improve your website. You want to do more of what your visitors like, and improve on what they find lacking. It all leads to more business.

The Information You Want

Improvement of your real estate website and many more qualified leads will come if you meet the needs of your visitors to build trust and then have calls to action to get their contact information.

Action: What You Want to Know and Why

Take some time to gather this important information so you'll be successful in building website traffic and growing your business.

• What do they like? No, not from a bragging testimonial point of view; instead, from a have more of it on the site perspective. If your visitors tell you that they like your market statistics or commentary, then you'll want to expand on that and have more of it on the site. Also, more important, you want to offer in-depth stats as a lead generation call to action.
• What questions do they have? They're on your real estate website for information about local real estate. You've probably created lots of content around topics that answer common questions about buying, selling, and the transaction process. Why not ask them what they want to know that they haven't found on the site?
• What have they seen on other real estate sites that they don't see on yours? If they're leaving your site to find something they want on a competitor's site, you want to know what it is. Add it to your site to remove any reasons for looking elsewhere.

Getting What You Want

How you ask for this feedback is going to influence how much useful feedback you get. People want to remain anonymous, and asking for feedback isn't going to get as much as you want unless you ask carefully.

Action: Asking Right

Place feedback forms around your site. Ask questions designed to get the information you want. If you can, offer something of value in return for their feedback. Another strategy that will guarantee more feedback is to keep them anonymous if they want to stay that way.

Your form can get the information you want without asking for theirs, but you can ask it as optional. Something like, "We would appreciate your email address so we can get more information from you to improve the site in ways that are of value to you." Then have an optional email box.

Follow these recommendations for helpful feedback and a more productive website.

To view the original article, visit the WebsiteBox blog.