Question

A real estate website: key elements and web design

Answer 1

What are the advantages of having a website as a real estate agent?
Real Estate Websites: A Priority During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Create a real estate website: what options do you have?
What elements should a real estate page include?
Step by step manual: how to create your real estate website
Program your real estate website yourself
Hire a team of designers
Create your real estate website with a CMS
Design your real estate website with a website builder
DIY, agency, CMS or web builder: advantages and disadvantages
Step 1: choose and register the domain
Step 2: program and design your business website
Step 3: create the content for the website of your real estate office
Step 4: how a real estate agent publishes, advertises and optimizes their site

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A real estate website: key elements and web design

As for many other things, those who are looking for a property to buy or rent first go to the Internet. The classic portals and networks of real estate agents are therefore of vital importance for all active commercials in the sector. But to limit their dependence on the large portals and networks and keep an ace up their sleeve, many decide to maintain their own website where they present themselves as agents. Do you want to know what advantages having your own website could bring you? Would you know how to design your real estate website?

Index

1. What are the advantages of having a website as a real estate agent?
2. Real Estate Websites: A Priority During the COVID-19 Pandemic
3. Create a real estate website: what options do you have?
   1. Program your real estate website yourself
   2. Hire a team of designers
   3. Create your real estate website with a CMS
   4. Design your real estate website with a website builder
   5. DIY, agency, CMS or web builder: advantages and disadvantages
4. What elements should a real estate page include?
5. Step by step manual: how to create your real estate website
   1. Step 1: choose and register the domain
   2. Step 2: program and design your business website
   3. Step 3: create the content for the website of your real estate office
   4. Step 4: how a real estate agent publishes, advertises and optimizes their site

What are the advantages of having a website as a real estate agent?

Given the abundance and range of real estate portals, which present properties of the most diverse types, many real estate agents are not quite clear if their own website makes sense. The advantages of being part of a powerful platform are often clearer than all that it can bring to be presented in the market independently, among other things, not depending on the large portals and, hopefully, reducing or minimizing costs. But, for a real estate agent, presenting in person on the Internet can also have other advantages:

• In the real estate sector, the personal factor carries great weight. When it comes to making contact, having your own real estate website can be the decisive factor for success.
• Having your own website can help simplify administrative processes. In it, you can present current information to potential buyers or nurture your tenants with relevant data and addresses.
• Compared to large real estate platforms, a site of its own is more apt to present the agent's strengths and any local peculiarities that can be very useful to distinguish itself from the rest.
• Marketing also plays a central role in real estate. In planning and developing social media campaigns, the personal page of a real estate agent can take a key position.

As we can see, presenting yourself on the web offers numerous opportunities to optimize your position in the market. For this, it is essential to have a portfolio of assets adjusted to the agent's profile and regular maintenance of the website..

advice

Combine the website of your real estate agency with the Business Locator to register your company data in the most important directories, portals and apps in the sector and manage information and feedback with total ease.

Covid-19: how to continue your activity

IONOS supports restaurant owners, retailers and SMEs to make the leap to digitization or find the solution that best suits their business. Expand your reach to maintain and strengthen your online business..

Real Estate Websites: A Priority During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The global crisis triggered by COVID-19 affects all economic sectors, including real estate. The movement restrictions that affect the Autonomous Communities to different degrees, the reduction in income in large sectors of society and the general uncertainty have caused a certain setback in the activity of the sector in Spain. Thus, it seems more relevant than ever for a real estate or independent agent to appear on a website that can serve as an informative and interlocutor support, not only to arouse the interest of customers, but also to make and maintain contact with them.

Note

During the confinements ordered by the authorities, real estate agents can continue to exercise their profession, although with certain restrictions. Some affect property visits and contract signatures. Check what restrictions affect your Community to better plan..

Even when they have to add that visits could be restricted in their advertisements, real estate web pages become the ideal platform to present updated information at all times, as well as alternatives to the classic face-to-face visit: in addition to adding much more material visual to advertisements in the form of photos, many agencies offer video-recorded tours or 360-degree panoramic views.

At IONOS we would like to be by your side and your real estate business as a solvent partner more than ever. On this information page we have gathered the diversity of our offer for you.

Create a real estate website: what options do you have?

Content is not the only aspect that you should consider when launching your business website. At the same level of importance is its technical realization. Since you do not always have the knowledge and experience required to program and publish a website, it is sometimes necessary to go to some kind of technological support. Depending on the project or budget, the market offers different solutions, such as website builders, CMS or professional designers.

To make your decision easier, we will show you from here all the options with their pros and cons.

Program your real estate website yourself

If you have knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, nothing prevents you from taking charge of your project and designing your own web page (you could save a significant sum). But do not forget to calculate the time that you are going to dedicate to this work. And, to all those who have not had much contact with programming so far, we can only advise against this option, regardless of the time factor.

Hire a team of designers

If, for you, the website of your real estate company should present you with professionalism and personality, the best option will be to entrust its design to an agency or a team of designers, because, when leaving the programming, the design and, why not, content and keeping the project in the hands of the experts, you can fully focus on your business. Depending on the contract you establish with the designers, you do not need to have computer skills or, if anything, very little. However, you should have the necessary budget, since, compared to other options, this is perhaps the most expensive.

advice

Do you want to capture your ideas on your real estate website while you do your business? With the IONOS MyWebsite Design Service, you will have an interdisciplinary team of programmers, designers and writers at your disposal.

Create your real estate website with a CMS

Modern content management systems (CMS) are packed with features that make it easy to create a project from scratch without deep computer and programming skills. Solutions as popular as WordPress are already in many respects comparable to the not less known modular creation systems, in which the design components are easily managed by drag and drop , so that it is very easy to add, place and also remove them. In addition, they include powerful WYSIWYG editors that convert plain text into error-free HTML code. Another great advantage of CMS is the strict separation between technique and content that makes it easy to make modifications in both categories. As most of the systems are open source and free, in this case the only costs to face would be those of web hosting.

advice

Are you thinking of designing your real estate website with WordPress? WordPress Hosting from IONOS provides you with the technical fundamentals you need for your business project.

Design your real estate website with a website builder

Managing a CMS may be an effort that you don't want to take on. In this case, web page builders might represent a suitable option. Here you have the possibility to move the elements of the page by dragging and dropping them in the ideal position and to convert the content into HTML, CSS, etc., using the text editor. However, unlike a CMS, you must use the manufacturer's software , which hosts it along with your finished project. Therefore, it requires a variable monthly rate.

advice

With MyWebsite Now and Creator, IONOS offers a tailor-made website builder for self-employed real estate agents and real estate offices that includes your own domain, email address and SSL / TLS certificate.

DIY, agency, CMS or web builder: advantages and disadvantages

The solution for which you ultimately decide to create the website for your real estate will be determined by your level of knowledge and experience, by the budget and by the time you have to do it. In the following table you will find a summary of the pros and cons of each option:

	Program	Agency or designer	CMS	Web creator
Ideal for	Professionals	Profane	Advanced	Inexperienced
Costs	Low	High	Low / medium	Media
Time required	A lot	Little bit	A lot	Medium
Advantage	Freedom of maneuver	Delegating in the hands of professionals leaves time for the business itself	Open source software; facilitates long-term maintenance	High usability; technology is at the provider's expense
Disadvantages	It can be very challenging; laborious, time consuming	High cost factor; great dependence on the designer	The CMS has to be updated regularly (not without problems)	Reduced degree of customization because templates are limited

What elements should a real estate page include?

For a real estate page to have the expected response in the market, it is essential to start from a well-developed concept. If a visitor finds on the page all the information they need and the contact details, everything points to a happy ending. If, instead, you are missing certain content, this potential customer could be lost forever.

These are the sections that cannot be missing on the website of a serious real estate agency:

• Homepage
• Presentation (? About us? Or? About me?)
• Services
• Real estate offer
• Section for sellers
• Section for landlords
• Contact information
• Legal Notice and Privacy Statement

Homepage

Being the first page that your visitors will see when they come to your page, it is evident that the home page contributes greatly to the success of your website. It fulfills the function of informing the user about the thematic orientation and the content that will be found in it and of prominently presenting the most relevant current news and events. In this section, images and texts serve to attract attention, therefore, they must have great graphic strength. The main menu, located here, constitutes the backbone of the site, indicating to users the completeness of the offer that represents you and making it easy to access each subpage with ease.

Presentation

In the real estate business, personal sympathies, trust and dialogue play a fundamental role. By introducing yourself, you and your team, with text and images (if provided), you go one step further to earn the trust of that potential customer who is visiting you for the first time. The history and philosophy of your company, as well as the references, also find a favorable place in this section.

Services

On the website of your real estate office, visitors should clearly show what your offer of benefits is, but, and in particular if your offer differs from what is normally found on the market, you should explain them in detail. If, as complementary services, you are in charge of preparing the homes for sale (what is known as home staging ), you offer a moving service or the completion of bureaucratic procedures or investment and financing advisors, this is also the right place to present it.

Real estate offer

The reason you design a web page and potential buyers visit you is that you have an offer of goods to present. And being your own page you have the advantage of being able to expose your objects based on your criteria. You have as much freedom when choosing what and how many images to include in each offer as when writing the descriptions.

advice

Do not forget to include the different contact options in the description of each object, either by email, by phone or by means of a form, even if the same contact information is always present and even if they are already present in the Contact section.

Sellers section

If in your situation you find it important to provide sellers with a direct way to contact you, you could set up a section just for them. In it, those interested in selling their properties could contact you and find out about your conditions.

Landlord section

And what is true for sellers is also true for landlords. In a separate section, you can inform about the conditions of a future collaboration, thus increasing the probability of growing your housing portfolio.

Contact page

We have mentioned that placing the different contact options in sections as central as the description of the offer or the information pages for sellers and landlords facilitates the contact of those interested, but it is also convenient to create a separate page, accessible from the menu main, showing all parties with different contact options. There are administrators who present this information already on the home page. This is also a valid option as long as the page does not lose clarity.

advice

The Contact section offers the perfect opportunity to show the location of the office by integrating a Google map that allows potential clients to get an idea of ​​how to reach you.

Legal notice and privacy policy

The website of your real estate is a commercial page, so that, in accordance with the provisions of the Law of Services of the Information Society and Electronic Commerce (LSSI or LSSICE) Spanish, is required to contain a legal notice that must be accessed from all other pages of the site. In this digital imprint ( impressum ), the personal data of the administrators, their contact details, the registration number in the corresponding Association of Real Estate Agents and the tax identification number must be present. In our article The legal notice of a web page we have summarized everything you need to know about the legal notice of a web page.

But your page also needs an equally central privacy statement. In it you must explain what data you will collect, for what purpose you will do it and what measures you will take to protect it. Like the legal notice, the privacy policy must also be accessible from any other page.

Step by step manual: how to create your real estate website

Regardless of the solution you use to create your real estate website, there are many steps to take to achieve the dream of having your own online business card . The most important phases of this process follow, from the choice of domain to the conception of the content and the publication of the project, passing through the design.

Step 1: choose and register the domain

Off to a good start, we find a first point on the agenda that, although in theory it seems easy to carry out, in practice it is responsible for many headaches. On the one hand, it is a not inconsiderable task of finding a name that, in addition to being precise and eye-catching, fits the company and its trade name. On the other, it must be available in order to register it as a domain address.

When you have found it, you must register this address. To do this, you must look for a domain provider that allows you to release the domain and offers you the best economic proposal. To learn more about this process, see our article Domain Registration: Considerations and Tips .

Check Domain

Check

• .it is
• .com
• .info
• .net
• .

advice

Have you already found the perfect address for your website? Register your domain with IONOS!

Step 2: program and design your business website

Once you have the domain secured, it is time to delve into the technical and aesthetic implementation of the web. We have already talked about the basic possibilities of programming in detail in this article, but of course, at this stage the work is not limited to writing the code (or commissioning it to someone else). Before you even start creating the page, you need to have a concept for the functionality and layout of the site.

On the one hand, you have to make sure that you offer the best possible user experience to your visits. Here, optimized navigation is of utmost importance. On the other hand, it is important to create visual attraction points that, together with the user experience, anchor users to your website.

advice

With many content management systems and website builders you have access to a selection of ready-to-use design templates. As a user of the MyWebsite offer, you have at your disposal a wide selection of design templates that, using them as the basis for your real estate website, you can customize to your liking.

IONOS Design Templates by Industry: These are just a few of our proposals for the real estate industry.

Step 3: create the content for the website of your real estate office

With the technical scaffolding raised, you can take care of the most important component of your online presence: content. At the beginning we detail which sections can not be missing on your real estate website, but in your hand is the way to put them into practice. For example, you can use individualized contact forms to reach all your target audiences (tenants, buyers, landlords, sellers, etc.), although it might also be convenient to design a separate section for current customers that is accessed with registration data .

The key content on a real estate agent's page is obviously the presentation of the objects that are offered for sale or rent. Along with well-written and informative texts to describe the properties, it is essential to present professional-quality images. Integrating videos, slides and interactive elements that allow, for example, to open a document with the floor plan, can also work as enhancers of the success of your business.

Done

In other sectors, a website is also part of the necessary portfolio to present itself on the Internet, as revealed by these articles dedicated to different professional fields: Physicians' web pages, Web pages for renovation services, Web pages for restaurants, Web pages for dentists, Websites for photographers

Step 4: how a real estate agent publishes, advertises and optimizes their site

Now is the time to launch your digital business card. Better than doing it when you are already online, take the opportunity now to review the last details, check the final product and check if all the elements that make it up (menus, buttons, links, forms, etc.) work as they should. It is always possible to make adjustments while the page is active, but if it is about major bugs, they can negatively reflect on the satisfaction of the visits and on the valuation by the search engines.

This, in fact, will be one of your great (pre) occupations in the long term because, the better positioned the web page, or the different sections, of your real estate is presented in the search results, the more users will know about your offer. A good keyword strategy, which is reviewed regularly, is part of your to-do schedule, as is:

• a good internal structure of links,
• SEO for images
• and a voice search optimization on your pages.

Ultimately, the website of a real estate agent also depends on an active marketing strategy: advertise your web address in printed magazines and include it on business cards and in your business letters and advertise the page on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, if you are an active user in them.

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