Knowing Is Only Half The Battle

Today you will be honest with yourself.  When is the last time you reviewed your website?  When was the last time you really dug in to consider what information you are providing to potential clients?  Do you just have the bare necessities or do you have something more to really engage your visitors?

We recently completed a series of Marketing Tips to help you optimize your site for search engines and visitors alike.  We also included a tip to review what to look for during a website check-up.  The idea is to give your site and related marketing strategies a review on a regular basis.  I think this process of constantly reevaluating is often placed on the back burner.  On the flip side, sometimes if you're checking your site constantly you can get tunnel vision and overlook some easy extras you could be implementing.  So these check-up items are for everyone.  Take some time to re-read those check-up items and give your site a review.

Once you know what's missing and what can be improved, it's time to take action.  It's not enough to know, you have to do.  So what do you do first?

I suggest getting some of the quick and easy stuff out of the way first.  If you're starting from scratch because your site is new, or you just haven't had time, the looming fact that you need more content is probably a tall order for square one.  Get acquainted with your site and figure out things you can do right away.

Some examples of the simple stuff are:

• Add a listing - Using the Property Tools > ListNOW section you can easily add any of your properties.  The listing entry is a simple form that will only take moments to complete.
• Update an existing listing - It can be easy to forget to update your website when important details of your listing change such as price, open house info, etc.  Don't leave your website out of your marketing efforts for your properties.
• Export your listings* - Check the "Export Property" box for each property to advertise your listings on Homes.com, Trulia, Oodle, and Yahoo Classifieds.  Be sure to update your current listings to export as well.  To get the most out of the export option you need to provide a valid price, and a complete physical address (including ZIP code) for each listing.
• Check your spelling - Run a spell check on your home page, about page, and any additional content pages.

Next, make a list of your most important items and tackle an item each week, or even more than once per week if you can spare the time.  It is likely that content will be a big part of your list.  Don't let thoughts about how many pages you think you should have overwhelm you.  Just write a page a week and write at your own pace.  Then come back to each page and add photos, links, alt tags, etc.  Remember, as long as you make relevant additions and improvements to your site, you are that much closer to your marketing goals.

"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'."
- Jedi Master Yoda

*Listings imported from IDX will not be available for export to avoid any non-conformance issues for your MLS and to avoid duplicated data being included in the portals.

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