Professional Design Makes a BIG Difference

Wendy Maynard is one of my favorite marketing bloggers.  While her recent post is not specifically written for Realtors, it certainly does apply.  I have seen some absolutely horrendous Realtor web sites out there and I am always asking myself….”what are they thinking?”.  Anyway, enjoy the read and please follow her advice!  

Some businesses make the mistake of trying to design their own logo, business card, or website. Or they have an amateur “throw together” something for them. This is actually a VERY costly mistake. Having a logo, stationery, brochures, and other marketing materials that look unprofessional and poorly designed creates a less-than-favorable impression in the minds of new prospects and can lose you potential business.  

Hire a professional, reputable design firm to develop your logo and marketing materials. Do it right from the beginning. Here are some specific reasons why having professionals design your marketing materials is an investment in the future of your business:  

1. First Impressions Count: Your logo and marketing materials are the first impression people get of your company. People often make decisions about where they make purchases based on imagery. Your appearance helps sell your company and draw in new prospects!  

2. Your Branding Sets You Apart: A well-designed identity will help to differentiate your business. Without a solid brand, your core-marketing message isn’t being reinforced, you aren’t memorable, and you also have a problem distinguishing your company from your competitors.  

3. Your Materials Sell You: Anything your company puts out in front of prospects and customers must be of the highest quality. If your logo, website, business cards, and brochure aren’t professional, why would prospects think your services are any better?  

4. Professional Design Enhances Credibility: People want to purchase services or products from a company that appears established, secure, and reliable. Your business needs to look sound and trustworthy. Professional materials show that you care about quality and have attention to detail.  

Well-designed, strategic marketing materials will reward you again and again by driving more customers to your company and helping you to make a great first impression. Professional, high-quality marketing tools will move your prospects closer to making a purchase. And after all, you wouldn’t show up to a professional networking event in pajamas, so, why would you dress your business in sloppy clothes? 

~ Wendy Maynard – Kinetic Ideas

Usability: One Sure Way to Maximize Sales (and Increase Conversions)

Attracting prospective clients and customers to your site is only half the struggle??the other half is actually making the sale or conversion.

One way to increase your conversion ratio is to make sure your Web site is easy to navigate and information is easy to find. In other words, ensure its “usability.” Often, search engine optimization and marketing principles benefit a site’s usability with people as well as search engines.  

Here are some tips on how to improve usability and improve your conversion rates.

Analyze the usability factor

Your Web site can drastically change over time with the addition of new products, services and content. That’s why it’s crucial to regularly put yourself in your visitor’s shoes and evaluate what they experience. Carefully study your homepage. Can visitors quickly find what they are looking for? Is the site navigation simple and logical, or are visitors confused by too many options, too much junk or flashy ads? Even though you know your product inside and out, assume your customers don’t. Show them why it is the best, how it can be used and how it will benefit them. Offer free demos (if possible), or provide customer testimonials or third-party reviews from professional sources. Try to get an outside perspective. Ask a few trusted customers, other business associates, or family members to look at your site with fresh eyes.

Deliver what you promise

Some sites forget to follow up on their promises. Or, just as frustrating, the product that’s attracting customers’ attention is buried behind other information. Putting essentials in the back of a store might work for the grocer down the street, but it doesn’t fly online. Online customers have a choice: If they don’t see what they want right away, they leave and click over to a competitor. You can show visitors other products and services after you deliver on your offer, whether you’re touting free shipping, a white paper, a case study or specific product benefits. Your customers will have a more positive experience, and they may bookmark your site so they can come back again and again.

Design landing pages with care

Make good on any headline or offer, whether you’re directing traffic from pay-per-click ads and banner ads or links to specific pages. For example, if you advertise, “Download A Free Demo,” then be sure to give them the free demo. No tricks or gimmicks. No lengthy explanations of your other services or products, no matter how great they are. There’s time for that later, after you make your customers happy by giving them what they requested.

Landing page design should be clean; it should have easy-to-find buttons and a clear call to action. Test which images work best. In general, photos of people are attractive and engaging, but you’ll also need to determine what kind of product photo tells the best story or explains the most about your benefits.

Small changes, like tweaking the location of your submit button, can add up to big differences, influencing conversion rates by as much as 40 percent.

Keep the navigation options to a minimum. The point of a landing page is to quickly guide your prospect to the item, issue or offer that caught his or her attention in the first place. Too many navigational choices are distracting. Plus, if you’re trying to guide folks to a form, you don’t want them to veer off track.

Forms are a good way to capture information about your prospects on your landing pages, which should provide information or some other benefit in return for a completed form. Keep those forms as short as possible, users can suffer from fatigue and abandon your offer if they get bored or you ask for info that they feel is too personal.

To make prospects comfortable about telling you who they are, display your privacy policy and let prospects know what you plan to do with their information. Ask permission on the form before you follow up with a phone call or email. And keep testing these actions as well, finding the precise balance of information gathered to information shared.

Rely on your analytics technology

Your analytics technology should be able to tell you where visitors enter your site and what content interests them. Some visitors might enter on a page touting a research study, for instance. Keep them engaged by making it easy for them to explore related topics, suggesting they read a new products page or subscribe to a newsletter. Use your analytics technology to find out what components engage them most.

In the end, the most compelling reason customers buy is because they believe in you or your product. Make it easy for them to see your benefits. Analyze your site regularly, making sure it’s easy to navigate and delivers what you promise. Then watch your visitors turn to loyal, paying customers.

~ Lisa Wehr – MarketingProfs.com

6 Mistakes Real Estate Agents Make with Their Websites

1.     Generic content: Most agents’ websites seem to say “I’ll help anyone, anywhere, anytime.” They try to speak to everyone, and end up speaking to no one. Categories like “Buyers” or “Sellers” are NOT target audiences. They are much too vague and therefore are meaningless.For example, if you are looking to target buyers, narrow it down. Are you looking for first time buyers? Move up buyers? Retirement buyers? Then drill down even more. For first time buyers, look at specific apartment complexes where their monthly rent is about what they could pay for a mortgage. Design your site to speak directly to them.

2.     No Community Information: Ok, most agents include a few links, but there’s nothing that talks about what living in the community is like. What are the good points? Why would I – as a first time buyer, a move up buyer, a retirement buyer, or any other buyer – want to live in this community? According to NAR’s 2002 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, after listings, people are most interested in the neighborhood. You can use your website to show pictures, local news and events, and other community information that captures why this neighborhood is a great place to live.

3.     Poor navigation: I’ve seen countless real estate web sites that simply provide a link to every page on their website on the top or left side. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to why the links are in such places, and navigating is a chore that requires me to read every link on the page to determine which I should choose.Web visitors are picky and if they can’t find what they want in a few seconds, they’ll leave. They won’t stay and try to figure out how to use your site. They don’t care, and there are many other easier to use choices.

4.     Focus on the Agent: Websites that focus on how the agent is #1 in their area and have their picture all over the front page are simply a waste of money. When people hear phrases like “the #1 agent in XYZ County” they are immediately skeptical. Don’t hype yourself up. If you can’t prove it, don’t say it. And if you can prove it, list the third party source that backs up your claim.Instead, make your website client focused. If your ideal prospect visits your website, what do they want to know? How can you help them find it? Focus on your visitors, not yourself. Use your knowledge of and experience in real estate to demonstrate why you are the one they should work with.

5.     Hard to read text: People don’t read websites the same way they read print materials. On the web, people scan. If you have large blocks of text, use industry jargon, or write in long, wordy sentences, your readers will skip over them. If you use fonts that are too small, are multicolored, or are ALL CAPS, your readers will skip over them. Web visitors want quick access to information that will help them achieve their goals or aid them in their research. Don’t expect them to take the time to figure out what you mean. Say it clearly and get to your point quickly.

6.     Poor lead generation tactics: Often, agents include a “free market evaluation” as their way to get in the door. They think that as long as they can see the home and make contact with the prospect, they can close the deal. That may be so, but often, prospects aren’t willing to make such a jump from knowing little about you to inviting you to their home. It can be intimidating, especially if they expect you to “sell” to them.Instead, think about what types of valuable content you can offer free on your website. These might include a tip sheet for moving into a specific community. A buyers kit that discusses relevant information. A tip sheet for sellers to get the best price. A relocation guide. Or anything else that might appeal to your target audience.Offer to mail them a booklet if they provide their address or create an email course that they can receive if they provide their email address. Think of ways to start educating prospects before they contact you.

Five Ways to Improve Your Web Copy Immediately

In the literary world, “good writing” may be notoriously difficult to define. But on the Web, good copy has two clear, easily understood objectives:

It elevates your search engine rankings.

It attracts qualified traffic and holds the attention of your prospects and customers. If yours is an e-commerce site, your copy must also assume a third role as a virtual salesperson capable of closing the deal.  On the Web, your words carry a lot of weight. Fortunately, you can build verbal muscle, fast. Following are five tips, hints, and suggestions you can apply right now, with a minimum of time or technical hassle, to dramatically improve the effectiveness of your website writing.1. Write informative, keyword-rich hyperlinks

Text hyperlinks enjoy a privileged status on the Internet. Search engine spiders value the text within them more highly than ordinary body copy. More important, they’re virtual tour guides for your visitors: Good links direct your readers to the destinations they seek. But when they’re poorly composed, your readers may overlook important content or be misdirected to irrelevant pages.

Why be stingy with words? There’s no penalty for length, so make your text links as informative as possible. Instead of click here for more information, load your link with appropriate keywords that tell readers what they can expect upon arrival, such as compare laser printer prices, features and print speeds or download Whiff & Poof’s top 10 life science stock picks for the upcoming quarter.

2. Use headlines and subheads

Headlines attract attention, whet the reader’s appetite and encourage investigation of subsequent text. Subheads break long blocks of text into smaller, less-intimidating pieces, and they provide a content summary to the large number of readers who will scan your text. They’re standard features of articles and brochures, yet remain underused on the Web where they have an additional advantage: The formatting devices used to distinguish heads and subheads, such as bold print, italics, or a larger font size, give them added weight with search engines.

A page about graduate degrees for educators, for example, might lead with the following headline: “Weekend certificate programs for working K-12 teachers.” The subsequent subheads would not only interrupt the monotony of long copy but also communicate the most important elements of the story at a glance: “Finish your degree in just 14 months,” “We’ll bring the courses to your school,” and “Enroll online in minutes.”

3. Include alternate spellings

Many common word and phrases, such as email (e-mail) and Web sites (websites) have legitimate alternate spellings. In the traditional print world, this ambiguity is tackled by consistency you pick one spelling and stick to it.

But on the Web, this is a rule you should break. Since you cannot control the spelling a searcher may use, anticipate them all. If you provide a “business to business” service, you’ll want to express the phrase in its common aliases, including “business-to-business,” “B-to-B,” and “B2B.” (Just as there are exceptions to rules, there are exceptions to breaking them: If your site’s reputation rests on editorial quality, you may want to sacrifice some search engine optimization by sticking to consistent spellings and maintaining the integrity of your brand identity.)

4. Become ruthlessly specific

Print out your Web pages or the drafts of the Web pages you intend to post and grab a yellow highlighter. Mark every phrase that reeks of broad abstraction (“enterprise process solutions”), vague promises (“exceeding customer expectations”) and empty boasting (“best in class services.”)  

Now take a look at your page. Good copy should have very few, if any, streaks of yellow. Bad copy will look like a field of dandelions. Pull the weeds. Replace all the yellow copy with specific promises, facts, benefits, features and other pieces of concrete evidence that can support your causes and claims.

You might transform the previous parenthetical examples thus: “enterprise process solutions” becomes “browser-based manufacturing and inventory control”; “exceeding customer expectations” becomes “a 30% decrease in material waste in just 60 days, guaranteed”; and “best in class services” becomes “recognized as the industry standard by the Institute for Chemical Forensics.”

5. Learn from your Web stats

Chances are, the provider that hosts your Web site, or the internal IT people who monitor your servers, create thorough daily reports of your site traffic. Sadly, too few writers have access to these reports, or, if they do, they don’t take advantage of it. These Web stats contain a wealth of information of enormous practical value, including…

• Referrer data: The source pages of links that were used to access your pages. Some of these will be search engines, of course. But others will be blogs and other content-rich sites. Consider this data as a clue to the kinds of copy and information that attracts attention and encourages others to build links to your site.
• Search queries, search words: The keywords people used that led them to your site. Read these carefully; you’ll find search terms you’ll want to apply more liberally in your Web copy. (Conversely, you’ll discover that words you thought were important fail to show up which means they’re not being used to find you.)
• Request report: A ranking of your files/pages by requests (popularity). Look here to see which content really pulls (and should be expanded) and which fall flat (and may be candidates for deletion.)