Does your website get home buyers to respond?

If you have noticed, my lasts few posts are continuing with the same theme.

There are a lot of fancy websites out there that are built to market new homes and condos. I find many of them are using the latest and greatest techniques to wow the site visitor with flash, graphics, or sound. They lack the marketing message. What are you selling? Where is it located? How much does it cost? When will it be ready? What do you want me to do next?

The most visited new home real estate websites are the Internet Listing Sites; sites like Realtor.com, Move.com, NewHomeSource.com. These sites provide a basic search feature to allow the home buyer to search by city, price, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms. A list is given with lots of information. These sites are all in the business to make money from advertising. They provide a service to get the site visitor to your website that should give more information about the home they just saw. In many cases, websites advertised on these listing sites do not even answer the basic questions. How much do your homes cost? When will they be ready? I have had to hit the back button sometimes to get back to Realtor.com to figure out if I was on the right website.

Homebuyers on the web are searching for information. Holding it back will get a few people to contact you and ask the questions; "How much do your homes cost?", "When will these homes be ready?", "Where exactly are you located?". I feel that many homebuyers will simply move to the next website where their questions are answered.

Look at your website. Ask yourself the basic questions. Would the website make you want to go to the next step? Make a phone call? Visit the sales center? Request more information via email? If not, it may be time for a new website or at least some website modifications.