Behind the Curtain: JamesPallister.ca

by justsellhomes | Jul 31, 2015 | Uncategorized

Today we are taking a look at JamesPallister.ca. Thank you to James Pallister of RE/MAX West Realty Inc., for submitting his website to be reviewed as part of the Behind the Curtain series.

James has something in common with me from my time selling real estate. We both used Wix to build our own website. Wix is a DIY platform that makes website building easy. There are a lot of options like that out there, for example this website you’re reading this blog on was built on SquareSpace.

So let’s take a look at JamesPallister.ca

As I’ve mentioned in a few past posts in the Behind the Curtain Series, the contact info should be at the top of the screen when people come to your page. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to contact you.

When someone visits your website you want to be able to include a call to action above the fold and this is where you can see some weakness in this site right off the bat. The banner is very large, taking up a large portion of the screen. When you get here the closest thing you see to a call to action is “more information” under the part about the Featured Home.

Now what happens when you actually click on the call to action? It opens up your default mail program on your computer or device and prompts you to email James. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that this generates little to no leads. On my original site I tried something similar. “Click Here to Email me for more information” because early on I didn’t know how to embed contact forms. I got precisely zero leads. Then I learned how to embed contact forms using 123ContactForms and within 24 hours of making the switch from click to email to contact forms I started getting leads.

Back to the featured listing, when they click on it, I’d have them go to a page where you feature the listing. People are used to just seeing the information that is provided on Realtor.ca. If they come to your website they are expecting to find something different. So give them more. Write a long blog post about the property giving them more information than they can find anywhere else. Then you’ll start seeing your bounce rate lower and that you have more returning visitors because they are having something of value come out of showing up to your website.

The main page definitely could use a redesign to create a better call to action and declutter a bit. As well, I’d personally remove the Google+ link. It’s a dying platform and nothing has been posted on that account in a long time so no point in promoting something you aren’t using.

The blog is also a great idea. I’m a big proponent of blogging. However I would keep the blog on the website and not have it go to a different website. You can blog through the Wix platform and I’d recommend doing that. The content in the blog is also a little confusing. Scrolling to the bottom quickly it appears all but one post is about wine and then one random article about understanding credit reports. Keep a blog consistent and on a particular theme to actually see results. Wine and Credit Reports are very different topics and generally shouldn’t be in the same blog.

I like the idea behind the About Page. Clearly showing who you are more than just someone who happens to sell Real Estate. This is a great way to build rapport. Although you may want to link the word geocaching to an explanation of what it is since most people have no clue. Basically goes for anything on your website that isn’t in peoples everyday lexicon. Link to an explanation of what it is.

The Seller and Buyer both have similar issues. Its good that they are concise and to the point but no call to action really stands out on the pages. I’d replace the link to the contact page with an actual contact form itself. I’d also offer some sort of resource on those pages for buyers and sellers to help them. Since you don’t have IDX/DDF on your site you should offer them another reason to come back. So provide them with something valuable that will help them in their journey; not just a simple description of some of the things you do.

It’s good that you have testimonials as well. I’d move that up to the main tabs as opposed to a sub page under contact so its more prominent. You may also want to include some visuals to make it easier to digest for the reader.

Overall the website does have some nice pictures on it and is clean which is good. I think the general layout and call to actions need to improve and some contact forms would go a long way to generating some leads. With that though now you need a reason for people to come to the site. So provide them with something of value that will help them in their journey of buying and selling homes.

If you’d like your website featured in a future post in this series let me know in the comments below!

Behind the Curtain: BarrieHomeNet.ca

by justsellhomes | Jul 28, 2015 | Uncategorized

Welcome to the second edition of Behind the Curtain! This next instalment is taking a look at BarrieHome.net, the website of The Trevor Shaw & Heather Beauschesne Team. Let’s not waste any time, let’s get right to it. Here is the Home Page:

The home page certainly has some things to like about it. At the top it very clearly states their contact information. This makes it very easy for people to get a hold of them if they want to. Your website should always make it easy to be contacted. While many won’t contact you on the phone straight off your website, you do want to make it easy for those who do.

They also link to their social media. What I like here is that they just have Facebook and YouTube which is nice to see them only linking to sites they use and not all of them just for the sake of having them. The only comment I have here is that the YouTube link goes to the YouTube channel of their photographer. The problem is their photographer isn’t exclusive to them so their competitors listings show up when the link is clicked on.

Judging by the look of the home page and the information presented their primary focus is on relocations. Its the main call to action above the fold and immediately below the fold is another call to action for military relocations. After having spoken with Heather Beauschesne I know that relocations aren’t their primary source of business. They do them and do them well but its not where the majority of their business comes from at the time. So I’d recommend not putting such a heavy focus on relocations and more towards whats working most of them.

Floating on the ride side of the screen is a red calculator logo. These types of add-ons can be useful but this one is lacking in execution. It’s the right idea to help visitors but there should be a button to collect a lead off the form. As well, it may be more effective for lead generation purposes to include a live chat feature instead of a mortgage calculator. I’d make the mortgage calculator a standalone page under the Buyers Tab.

Under the current listings section I’d remove most of the paragraph, if not all of it, describing why people should move to Barrie. If they want to come look at Current listings they have probably already looked at reasons to move to Barrie. This type of page, a “Why Barrie” or “Why ANY SERVICE AREA” would be better as a standalone page

The section at the bottom out ready for the next step and help for first time buyers are great to include at the bottom of the page. The further people get through your site and more time spent on it the more likely they are to convert so having that is a good attempt to boost conversions. It would be interesting to see the numbers on how many times these are actually clicked on though.

As a general note for most of the website, the written copy is often too long. It gives off the impression that the page is just trying to be filled with as much as possible and not necessarily including just what is important. I’d put some effort into saying less and making it more interesting for the website visitors.

A few other notes about the website:

• Love the section with the multiple downloadable guides. It would be worth making the switch though to have them leave their contact information in exchange for accessing these guides though so they act as a form of lead generation.
• First Time Buyers page is good because it links to actual resources that can help them and provides value of those coming to the page. Still a little heavy on copy though. Make it simpler and you will see more conversions most likely.
• Don’t need both the home worth and home evaluation pages. This splits the traffic. It would be better to include them on one page and then in the contact form for the home worth page include a checkbox for “If you’d like a more accurate report on the value of your home check this box for an customized in-person evaluation”.
• Regular posting to the blog is good but I’d add some images to it.
• On the contact page I’d flip the contact information to the top and move the map down. Most people coming to this page want to see the contact information, not the map.

This website has a lot of potential but I think would need some improvements to start generating consistent leads. It has a lot of things to like and needs more of a tune up than a full rebuild necessarily.

If you’d like to have your website featured on a future Behind the Curtain post then let me know.

Behind the Curtain: StuartSinclair.com

by justsellhomes | Jul 27, 2015 | Uncategorized

This is a new series I’m debuting today. Here I’m going to take someones Real Estate website and critique it. I’ll highlight both the good and the bad. I’d like to thank everyone who submitted their websites to be reviewed and they will be going forward.

The first look behind the curtain is of StuartSinclair.com. The Stuart Sinclair Team is with RE/MAX West Realty Inc., Brokerage, out of their office in Bolton, Ontario.

So let’s start with their home page. When you go to the website you see this:

Visually, it works, it’s clean and not overly cluttered. It’s pretty quick to be able to see what your options are and no cheap sales gimmicks on the page. Another great feature that they have here is the chat function you can see at the bottom right corner. Website visitors are able to instantly connect with them when they are online. How often they are online I’m not sure but it is a great option to have. If you want to add chat to your website you can use Zopim. I would guess they do have a fairly good conversion rate compared to the industry average on this page.

There are definitely some improvements that can be made to this site though. For instance, you have to scroll down to see their contact information. You always want to make it as easy as possible for someone to contact you  so I’d move the contact information opposite the logo at the top of the page on the right hand side. If you’re willing to have the cell phone displayed (assuming the number listed as Direct is a cell) I’d also say “Call or Text” because many consumers today are more comfortable texting. The email in the contact information is a clickable link but doesn’t look like a clickable link so the colour should be changed slightly from the other font colours so that its obvious to the average visitor that it can be clicked on.

Below their contact information is the link to their social media. The first thing to take note of is the fact the when you click on the Facebook link its actually a dead link. It takes you to a error page on Facebook. You always want to go through the links on your website from time to time and make sure they are still active and working. I did let them know about this so hopefully by the time you’re reading this its been fixed!

When you scroll past the fold you also see a video. Great use of video, its well produced and video does great on websites. The only improvement I’d make here is to add the videos into a playlist on YouTube so that when one video finishes it starts another one. Right now when it ends you get a list of other videos that YouTube may think you like and its possible that your competitors listings show up. When you embed the playlist it will just play your next video. Keeping the attention on your business and not someone else.

Since the Stuart Sinclair team is using video they should also be highlighting it more. It’s a huge competitive advantage. One of the tabs across the top should say something along the lines of “Video Channel” or similar.

When you look at the tabs you can see that Web Strategy is one (picture below). When you click on it there is a lot of great information for the consumer but its not SEO friendly. What’s been uploaded is a .jpg file with the text embedded in the file. Google and its “spiders” aren’t going to read that and index it for search engines. Anytime you are uploading information its better to upload it as text and then just include images alongside the text. This will help you rank better in the search engines. Right idea with this tab but be mindful of how Google searches it when uploading content.

I won’t go through every single tab for this post but lets take a look at a few more to highlight what’s being done well and how it can be improved. For instance, look at the Sellers tab, and go to the first option “Sellers Value”. This page is better optimized for Google in the sense that it can be read by the Google spiders but I’m willing to bet without asking them that they aren’t getting many leads from this page in particular. At the bottom of the page instead of telling people what questions you want them to answer, have a contact form where they can ask those questions directly on the site easily.

One of the other tabs on the website is for First Time Buyers. Great idea to target specific groups as that can lead to higher conversion rates when targeting more specific groups. However, whats here is just an explanation of how they can be helped in person. You may find more success with generating leads if you offer them something of value in exchange for their contact information such as a First Time Home Buyers Guide.

Under the about tab they also have a Testimonials page. Love the page itself, it is filled with video testimonials which is 100% the best way to do it. The only thing I may do differently is to remove it as a sub-tab and make it one of the main ones on the site to highlight it and drive more traffic to it.

Lastly, the contact page is good but the contact form isn’t well defined. right now. As you can see its hard to tell where exactly to input the information. Some clearly defined boxes may boost the conversion rate. The easier you make it for visitors on a site the more likely they are to convert. 

Those are my thoughts on the StuartSinclair.com website. It is a good overall website and does generate some leads but there is a lot of room for improvement however. Most of the changes are relatively easy to do and would just take a little time. They are on the right track!

If you’d like your website profiled in a future edition of Behind the Curtain please leave your website URL in the comments below.

How To Boost Conversions On Your Website

by justsellhomes | Jul 21, 2015 | Uncategorized

Do you want to boost conversions on your website? This is a big topic but there is one relatively simple theory that will help you see more conversions on your site that anyone can do. It’s simple, be more specific on your website. The more specific and detailed you can be the more likely you are to convert a website visitor into a lead.

So what do I mean by that? A lot of people say that they target buyers or sellers, or both on their site. To get conversions you need to get a lot more specific than that though. The only reason people come to your website is to get specific information. Most of the time that means listings, but it also means information related to their situation.

Let’s start with listings, a lot of people see the listing online and then come to your website. 99% of the time (Did you know 82% of all statistics are made up on the spot?) all they’ll find is the exact same information they found on Realtor.ca or any other site that pulled the listing through the IDX or DDF Feed. So if you want to boost conversions of visitors to your listings than provide more information about the property than they can get anywhere. Give them the information about the age of all the major systems, what school district its in, what did the current owners like the most and what will they miss the most? Everything you know about the property you should put on the page. The more information, the more people will come back and the more they come back the more they will begin to trust you and then they are more likely to reach out to you.

So what about the people who aren’t coming to your site for listings? They are coming for other reasons. They aren’t just buyers and they aren’t just sellers. They are people looking for information about their specific situation. They are relocating to Toronto for work from another country and want to find the information they’ll need to know about buying property for someone who isn’t Canadian. Maybe they are getting a divorce and want to know about selling their matrimonial home and how to buy a home on their own now.

So when you are putting information on your site, don’t make it generic. Make it specific. You are targeting a smaller group but will see higher conversions. So continue to put specific information on your site and think about how you can provide the most value to specific niches. Give them everything they need to make a decision and you’ll see the decision they make is to contact you.

What To Do With Client And Prospect Email Addresses

by justsellhomes | Sep 30, 2013 | Uncategorized

Getting real email addresses are valuable. They can lead to a lot of extra business. Yet you also need to know how to leverage them to generate more business for you.

So let’s take a look at some of things you can do:

Specialized eNewsletter

With a tool like Mailchimp its easy to send newsletters to many groups of people. Don’t send generic newsletters out to every email address you have. Start building newsletters around specific groups.

For example, you could have different newsletters for buyers, sellers, and investment clients. Now you can start tailoring the content to be more relevant to them. Make the newsletters shorter but much more relevant content. People read most emails on their phones so shorter is often better.

You can even get more specific than that if you want. Do newsletters for first time buyers, seniors, relocations, military, first time sellers, house flippers, investment properties, etc… As long as you are willing to create the newsletter for them the more you should do.

Targeted Advertisements

With Facebook advertising you can build custom audiences. Build these audiences off of emails that you have collected. This is especially useful now that the Anti-Spam laws have come into effect. You can’t just add every email you get to a mailing list. So say you get a lot of leads and they aren’t interested right now but you want to stay in touch and top of mind.

Create an ad that targets those email addresses specifically. It’s easy to do. Much like the newsletters you want to break the ads down to be as specific as possible. Create custom audiences that are specific to a niche group. You will see your conversion rates skyrocket.

So whether you are targeting new leads, old leads, past clients, or anyone else its time to start leveraging all those email addresses.

Much like retargeting, if you do targeted ads you get a more relevant audience. The more relevant your audience the higher your conversion rate and the less money you spend. Think about every Open House you host where you get e-mail addresses. You can now target the attendees with ads without violating spam laws.

Bonus Tip: Use your email list to target people to sign up for your newsletters.

Treat e-mail addresses like gold, the more you get the better off you will be. If you’ve been given an email address it means they’ve expressed interest at some level. So start leveraging that interest and staying top of mind with them.

How do you use email addresses that you collect? Let me know in the comments below