Your website is only one factor in building your media brand on the Internet but you have to clearly identify your site’s role in the big picture. Do you want your site to serve as an extension of your traditional media outlet, like an online catalog as a backup for your in-person sales efforts, to stand on its own as a source of revenue or perhaps just another way to get your company’s name out there regardless of the income potential?

You see, you can build a Real Estate website and promote it anytime. But how does your website fit into your company’s media brand strategy? If you don’t know, you’ll find it more difficult to have a successful website and your site could actually hurt you. Most brands fail because their web design has not allowed the consumer to distinguish them from their competitors.

Here are some tips to get you started on building a brand strategy for your Real Estate website:

1. Define Your Brand – Understand Your Touchpoints

Remember that Branding is the sum experience of every touchpoint your customer has with your product and service, so it’s important you provide a consistent experience. There are many of these touchpoints that help define the kind of company you want to be and who you want to target. These touchpoints include:

• Personality (philosophy & messaging)
• Logos
• Colors
• Imagery
• Typography
• Textures
• Shapes
• Homepage design

Remember, it’s the sum of these parts that make up your brand and how it connects with your customers so it has to be well thought out.

2. Document Your Brand – Create A Style Guide

In branding, consistency is the key, which is why you need to document your touchpoints. That documentation is called a Brand Style Guide. The style guide will define the design direction for the creative team, and keep everyone on the same page across all your media channels. It should ensure that the design of your website is consistent with the design of your Facebook page, your displayed ads, the tone of your emails, and even your printed and video materials.

Creating a Style Guide is one of the processes that our designers create in our Ubertor Custom Design Packages. That way, we can ensure the consistency of your brand both online and offline.

3. Determine Your Website Goals

You’re starting a website for a reason. What is it that you want the site to accomplish? You should know that your website is only one factor in building your media brand on the Internet so you have to clearly identify your site’s role in the big picture. Maybe your goal is to have a showcase of the properties you have already sold? Or to have a funnel and get more leads? Maybe you want to share some information and tips about home buying and selling and become an industry authority, or maybe a place for your customers to look for properties and compare listings.

Whatever that goal might be, make sure that it is part of your marketing process so that you can have some sort of measurements on how effective the website is. It will also serve as a direction as to where do you want your visitors to go, and what do you want them to accomplish (user-journey). That way you can make adjustments to the website and align it with your goals.

In our Custom Design packages, we make sure that your goal is clear before we begin the design process. We create a project brief by inquiring about brand preferences, as well as market positioning, and competitors. We make sure that we are on the same page about the design before we implement.

4. Aim For Function Over Aesthetics – Target Usability and Functionality

Web Design is not just about how it looks, or how big is the logo, or how the color pops. Web Design is all about how you make your website work. However beautiful and stylish your website is, if it is not functional and unaligned with your brand goals, it is useless. It will just be a glorified online brochure.

A functional website provides a system for your actual users to use and communicate with you. Examples of these functionalities are a blog, listing search, property lists, and custom forms to name a few. These functions will make your website usable and eventually decrease the bounce rate. It also places you as an expert in the field since your website is more than just some blurbs on the internet.
(suggested read: Real Estate Website and IDX)

Ubertor, as a content management system, has these features prebuilt. And we are continuing to add and develop more features. Recently, we have also released our ChatBots so that there will be someone to attend to the questions of your visitors even if you are not online.

5. Optimize For SEO

If you want people to find your website, then you need to be thinking about how to design your website for the search engines as well as people (although people should always be a priority!). That means learning the basics of SEO and optimizing each of the pages on your website is imperative.
(suggested read: Improve Real Estate Leads and Sales with SEO )

Search engine optimization is a big topic, but to give you the short version, it includes:

• Performing keyword research to learn the terms your audience is using (and how competitive they are)
• Including relevant keywords in your URL structure, title tags, headings, image meta tags, and content copy
• Adding meta descriptions on every page on your website
• Including natural internal links on your web pages using relevant keywords in the anchor text

Ubertor, as a content management system, has this pre-built within our pages. In fact, we are so specialized on it that you even have direct access to the page’s meta title, meta keywords, and meta descriptions. These SEO features works seamlessly with our system. Other providers needed third-party plugins for this, which are sometimes faulty and ineffective.

6. Develop A Social Media Strategy

Nowadays, people are mostly on social media. So most likely, your future clients are already there so why not drive traffic to your site through it. Create blogs about industry news and use social networking to keep readers coming back to your site for the latest info. Share links of your latest properties and upcoming open houses. Get site visitors through Twitter and boost your site’s awareness on Facebook to bring your site’s visitors back multiple times a day. Post gorgeous listing photos on Instagram and pin house design ideas on Pinterest. Again, your website is just one on your media avenue, so create a harmonious environment between media platforms for your brand strategy to work.
(suggested read:
Boost your Real Estate marketing with Social Media Hashtags)

7. Measure Your Traffic

Lastly, measure your website’s performance. Use web analytics tools to track your site visitors’ habits as they work their way through your content.

Where are they coming from? How long do they stay? Which pages did they leave? Monitoring these patterns provides you a clearer picture of what’s working on your website and what isn’t. If certain topics drive visitors to your site, you know you can increase clicks by giving users what they want.

If you have other areas of your site that are practically ignored, you can decide if you want to alter the content or eliminate future coverage.

Ubertor’s Custom Design package includes adding your Google Analytics code, free of charge. All you need to do is to sign-up for an analytics account. We also have an in-house SEO expert to give you clear information on how your website is doing and how you can improve.

Next Steps

We have shared as much knowledge about building your online brand strategy, but you can get much more specific and relevant information by discussing your web design project with us. We *love* to talk about web projects and strategy. You can email us at clientservices@ubertor.com or call us directly at 1-604-264-1999, or chat with our live help. We are here to help.

SHALI TARK

• MEANINGFUL & PERSONALIZED PHOTOGRAPHY: What segregates Shali’s home page from all the others is their breaking away from conventional stock photos & using beautiful portrait shots – both posed & candid – in lieu of them strewn throughout the site. This creates an immediate human familiarity & connection, building a sense of trust before a single exchange is even made. Investing in high quality portraits ensures you become a familiar face amongst your visitor’s memory & impresses an air of professionality.
• FRESH & PLAYFUL PRESENTATION: With layout & content creatively assorted in grid & table format, Shali’s website is fraught with visual appeal. Shali makes eclectic use of colour, shifting between the cool hues of her personal logo brand & warm pastel elements without it being harsh to the eye or an over exaggeration of contrast.
• SOCIAL MEDIA MAVEN: You never know whether the next sale will come from the last tweet, facebook post, instagram picture or whichever platform you decide to market on. Shali is an expert at keeping her social media accounts up to date and her followers connected.

THOMAS BEESON

• BOLD & BEAUTIFUL: In a world where text is arguably the most commonplace thing around, typography can so easily be taken for granted. However, Thomas does not cut any corners with purposeful font choice. Artful & deliberate, the typography on Thomas’ site comes in a wide range to highlight different components.
• ATTRACTIVE INTERIOR PAGES: Minimalistic expression is portrayed through his simple & clean interior layout. Eye catching photos are the basis of which his website speaks. Great typography and visual cues integrated make for a powerful website. Not to mention it is also user friendly & intuitive!

Interested in seeing more from Limelight Marketing? Head over to their website to view their full portfolio & connect with their team!

SARAH PENIKETT

• CLASSY COLOUR SCHEME: There’s no argument that gold against a black backdrop is a classic colour scheme contrast that spells sophistication. Plastered atop of her backdrop, her website is streamlined with very well-written content.
• DIVERSE PORTFOLIO: Real estate market is multi-faceted & Sarah has all the bases covered for her clients from downtown condos to new house developments on top of her MLS active listings. Easily accessible, there are a variety of methods to search for houses on Sarah’s website.

Are you a Real Estate Agent looking to take the next step in your business by transforming your website to fully meet your branding needs? Contact us today to connect with our very own design experts who can help enhance, & make the most out of your web design!

MEINZER & JAMES

• EFFECTIVE BANNER: What better way to truly feature a property than by placing it front & centre on the homepage? Scroll through gorgeous, high quality photos of Meinzer & James’ latest listing from the very get go.
• SIMPLE & CLEAN design with a strong visual structure allows visitors to navigate the homepage with no fuss, making it the furthest thing from a cumbersome affair when seeking out where you need to go.
• DEVELOPMENTS ON DISPLAY: Developments the Meinzer & James’ group are associated with are attractively showcased.
• ACCOLADES ON DISPLAY: In a similar manner to the development section, having their brokerage achievements organized in attractive form establishes professionalism & trust for their visitors.

AARON MACRAE

• MINIMAL SCROLLING Visitor retention is maximized in a sleek, & unobstructive way by confining text & design within a more minimalist, yet effective framing. No need to exercise your digits scrolling down to find the information you need!
• EASE OF CONNECTIVITY: Simply arriving at his homepage alone, Aaron makes it an incredibly uncomplicated approach to do exactly what a Real Estate website was made for: Connecting with the Real Estate Agent & team. With a user-friendly Live Chat & a candid “Text Me” button abound, visitors are basically one click away from their first conversation with Aaron.

NANCY FONG

• EYE CATCHING BUTTONS: With a design created by the talented Limelight Marketing team – one of our Approved Ubertor Vendors – well designed buttons with good use of typography make it easy for visitors to know exactly what their next action will be, & take it.
• HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEOS are used on the homepage to consolidate Nancy’s written testimonials. This automatically gives us a bridge of familiarity to Nancy, that engages her visitors & literally gives a voice to her existing clientele.
• COMMUNITY FOCUS: Prospective Richmond residents are in good hands as Nancy offers a wealth of options specific to Richmond sub areas. Users are able to narrow in their focus, & the Agent’s area of expertise is expertly highlighted.

Interested in seeing more from Limelight Marketing? Head over to their website to view their full portfolio & connect with their team!

Are you a Real Estate Agent wanting to learn more about making the most of your online presence? Contact us today & we’ll put you in touch with our very own design experts to help optimize your web design!

Thinking about giving your website a makeover? Or have any questions about how we can help you build the website of your dreams. Let us know by commenting below or filling out this form!

To better illustrate our vision for a bilingual real estate website site, I’d like to showcase a recently completed bilingual site by Übertor. Morning Yu, is an award- wining realtor, top seller at New Coast Realty selling over 180 properties in 2015 alone. Let’s take a closer look at her new, responsive, bilingual website.

Default site is in English with the option to easily switch to Chinese by clicking a tab on the navigation bar. The navigation bar and corresponding sub-tabs automatically change without compromising the aesthetic integrity of the site. 

Active listings view: Intuitive flow for search listings online. Addresses remain in English while the key details of the property are shown in Chinese characters. 

When viewing a property’s overview page whether it be for owned or reciprocity listings, all labels and call-to-cation buttons are in Chinese. 

If you’d like more information on how to transform your website to reel in new costumers, don’t be shy! We want to help you. 

Highlights of Don’s Ubertor Real Estate website include:

• Unique home page, used as a menu, allowing easy navigation.
• Properties section provides clear and concise imagery.
• Special attention paid to the quality of the photos being used, ensuring a great user experience for his visitors and clients.
• Active listings are displayed in a way that allows the viewer to truly be captivated by large, high definition photos of the property.
• Active listings map features all listings relative to their location.
• Mobile friendly version of Don’s website, applicable to all devices.

If you have any questions about responsive websites, and how they can benefit your business, we’re happy to chat.

Mark Hobbs – the Digital Sales Coordinator for CREB’s Media Services, was kind enough to share a list of newly designed custom Real Estate websites by CREB on the Ubertor platform early this morning.

What I’ve truly appreciated about our partnership with CREB, is Mark and his team putting a lot of effort into meeting REALTORS®, understanding their needs, and crafting high quality, beautiful Real Estate websites on Ubertor’s platform. The positive feedback from REALTORS® about CREB’s media team has been phenomenal.

If you’re a REALTOR® in Calgary looking for a branding refresh, a new REALTOR® looking to get started, or have questions about Real Estate websites reach out to Mark and his team over at CREB.

Below you’ll find 6 newly designed Real Estate websites completed by CREB. Click on the image to open up the website.