Does Your Realtor Website have these 5 Essential Things? What your online business platform needs to succeed

The real estate market is crowded with realtors, and it's necessary to differentiate yourself with a stand-out website that attracts clients and grows your business. Still, most realtors don't have a background in web design or development, and launching a website can be a daunting task.

The first step to successfully creating a robust online business platform for your realtor business is to make sure it includes a number of essential features. With the presence of these five things, your website will generate ROI, helping you expand your sales and earnings.

Mobile-Optimized, Professional Showcase

Many people who seek a realtor look for one online, and increasingly from their mobile devices. This means that your website will literally serve as your storefront. The site should have a clean, professional design, with well-written, SEO-friendly text and high-quality images.

The site should be optimized for search engines so that it appears in search results, and it should also be optimized across various browsers and especially mobile devices, such as smartphones and iPads.

CRM and Contact Management

Staying in contact with former clients, and building relationships with new ones is a critical part of every realtor's job. Your website can ease the burden of these tasks through contact management tools. This feature stores information such as the names, emails, and addresses of your clients in a database.

Additionally, customer relationship management tools (CRM) allow you to track the behavior of clients using your site. This allows you to see what properties they were interested in, or what other aspects of your business caught their attention. With this knowledge, you can target meaningful marketing campaigns tailored to your clients' interests.

MLS Integration and Inventory Management

Keeping an eye on your sales inventory can be time-consuming, but inventory management tools alleviate much of the difficulties. With inventory management you can keep track of inquiries, views, website visits, and more.

Every realtor understands the value of MLS access. It's also critical that your website integrate MLS listings so that you and your clients can find them easily accessible.

Appointment Scheduling With Reminders & Digital Signatures of Contracts

How often have you been frustrated juggling appointment scheduling, only to have a client miss an appointment? Your time -- and ultimately money -- have been wasted. A website that allows clients to schedule their own appointments can be a life -- and sanity -- saver. Plus, your appointment scheduler should also have the ability to send automatic reminders so that clients are less likely to skip or forget appointments.

Additionally, realtors know better than anyone that real estate involves signing many contracts. Your website can make your life easier by allowing for digital signatures on contracts, offering convenience to you and your clients.

Advertising Optimizations and B2B Co-Marketing

Some savvy realtors pay for online advertising to help expand awareness of their business. Your website should incorporate advertising optimization, which allows you to track the successes and failures of your advertising campaigns and adjust them as needed.

Finally, B2B co-marketing on your site links promotion of related businesses to your website, such as the services of interior designers or contractors, and vice versa. This ability is just another path that can help generate leads to your business.   

Realtors can create a website with these features using tools such as Ocoos Websites for Realtors, which are designed with the needs of real estate agents in mind. Ocoos is  an easier and less expensive solution than hiring a website developer or using a complicated DIY tool.

Ocoos also offers a full-service concierge that works closely with clients to create an online business platform that meets all their needs. After doing the heavy lifting and building the site for you, the concierge gives you access to and control of the site so updates and changes can be make in the future, if needed. US-based, 24-hour support is always available.