Most real estate professionals I speak to these days seem pretty high on sites like Homes.com, Zillow, Trulia, Homefinder, etc. just like they were a few years ago with realtor.com but before you sell the farm for a spot on these monster sites, there are a couple of things to consider. You may realize that you are better off promoting your own website than jumping on the real estate mega-site bandwagon.
The #1 complaint web surfers have with visiting sites on their smartphones is the loading time, in fact over 50% will back out and move on to another site if a page/site takes more than 2 seconds to load. People have short attention spans and little patience for slow-loading sites. There are several factors that can lead to slow load time, including the user’s own phone/connection but it makes little difference to most as they just want an easy, convenient experience.
You have a small window of time to capture and respond to a viable lead so why would you leave that to chance? Why put your faith in a slow, heavy, cumbersome, unreliable website? Your website, if built properly is far more likely to perform when it needs to than these behemoths. If using these sites is preferable to you because you can remain “anonymous” while you search for real estate, ask yourself if you would rather have your information collected and used by a singular individual, a small, local brokerage or a giant, multi-national corporation who is likely to sell your information to anyone willing to pay.
Ideal Positions has worked with literally thousands of real estate professionals all over North America for the last 15 years and at one point had to turn away testimonials because we simply had too many to process. We worked exclusively with Real Estate pros for the 1st 3 years we were in business so, we are more than qualified to speak to the efficacy of placing individual agents, brokers and agencies at the top of Google. Aside from standing alone above the competition at the top of the page, being associated with the big sites also on the page can’t hurt, it lends itself to the perception that one is a legitimate player in the industry by being in the company of branded, recognizable, well-funded and successful real estate companies. Credible by association, if you will.
Why get lost in the mix of thousands of other agents, why be just a face in the crowd when you can stand, head and shoulders above the rest? Stand out. Be recognized. Brand yourself. Sit at the top of Google. Don’t leave your success, your sales and your income in the hands of sites that aren’t reliable on mobile devices, who promote themselves and not you, that have no vested interest in your success. You are a dime a dozen to these sites, don’t join them, beat them. In most cases, within 24 hours or less we can have your site above everyone else on the page and we give you a 100% free demonstration of this with no obligation and no commitment. I triple dog dare you to call us 866-609-3483 and see for yourself.