Does your target audience respond to your website?
I will go over why a ‘unique for you' website is important to your target market and your conversions and how you can benefit.
You can have the most beautifully designed website on the planet but if no one finds it, what good is it?
It is good for your own ego, but ego does not pay the bills.
You can have the same template site everyone else has- what good is that if you are not differentiating yourself in the market?
You can have a great website that is found, but it does not convert the traffic that arrives, what good will that do you?
Many people look at a website as a technology based calling card or business card.
Then there are people, like in real estate, who want to copy the website format that the heavyweights have or be like everyone else because that is what appears to be the norm in the particular industry you are in.
Overall, these are very poor reasons to have a website.
Some people say they want to have a website and the only reason they know is because that is what they are “supposed” to have.
I firmly believe that nearly all businesses and solopreneurs and entrepreneurs should have a website.
But they should have one for the right reasons. Those reasons will vary depending on your niche and the strategies of your business plan.
You first need to create your plan for your website. You need to understand how it will play a part in your marketing strategy.
You need to have a goal first. What is the goal of your website?
Don't put up a website, just because everyone else in your market is doing it.
Website Marketing Strategies
Some niches don't need organic search because they drive the traffic from offline to their websites.
Others don't need organic search because they pay for Facebook ads or Google adwords which drives traffic to their sites.
In both of those instances you should have a landing page to drive that traffic to. If you are using Google adwords, there are a few more items you need specifically on your website in order to get approved for your ads.
For instance: if you are marketing to expired listings and are sending out a postcard to drive the traffic to your website- you need to send the traffic to a specific landing page or squeeze page on your website. Don't send then to your home page.
This is another huge mistake real estate agents and other marketers make – they send all their traffic back to their home page. Unless your home page is your landing page, don't do this.
For each type of call to action, you need to have a landing page or a pop up form that directs the visitor to what to do next.
In the case of expired listings, the visitor needs to be sent to a landing page on your website which is addressing the pain of having an expired listing, their house did not sell. Address this, loud and clear, and then have a very clear call to action.
If you are working with buyers you will want the home search fields above the fold of your website and a clear call to action. You need to then support that with community pages that address each specific neighborhood. But niching goes even deeper than this.
If your goal is to get organic search – that means you want people to find you on the internet and then go to your website- this is called SEO, search engine optimization, then you need to have an SEO friendly website. WordPress.org platform is great to accomplish this goal.
Know your target audience- your avatar
Who is your avatar? In my Listing Experts Academy we have an entire hour long module on doing your avatar research and defining your avatar. An avatar is targeting a specific person in your niche.
Before you ever hire anyone to build you a website you need to know your avatar.
If you are paying someone to build you a website and they are not having a strategy session with you about who your avatar is, you are wasting your money.
Even for paid ad traffic, you will need to know who your avatar is.
You can not be all things to all people. You must target your avatar very specifically.
There is no way that in today's internet you can be a generalist. There is no way you have the money to compete for the same traffic that Zillow and Realtor.com compete for. Get out of their lane. You can fly under the radar of the heavy weights.
Color is one part of your website your avatar needs to connect with
Color is very important on your website. Here is an article I wrote about how to work with graphics on your website and social media.
Tips on color:
- Use very little black – don't overdo it with black background sites
- Use white text only for accents, titles, attention grabbers- don't use white text.
- Blue is for loyalty and soothes; great for dentists, medical sites, and water related sites like waterfront real estate.
- Red is the hardest color on our eyes, it is the most intense color of the rainbow. Be careful how you use it, great for accents and some call to actions.
- Use a color wheel to find complimentary colors.
- Make sure your logo and brand blend in, don't use opposing colors, that confuses your visitors.
Here is a video with some samples of some of the websites I am working on to give you an idea of different niches.
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What pages do you need on your website?
There are specific pages that Google will require if you run adwords campaigns or adsense. There are also best practices pages Google likes you to have on your site which help to verify that you are a human and not a spam program creating thousands of websites at one time.
The only time these are not required is when you have a squeeze page. But even with a squeeze page – if you are sending traffic to it, make sure you have in small text under the optin box, your link to your privacy page and your disclaimer page.
For regular niche website you will need:
- Home page
- About page
- Main keyword topic page
- Testimonial page
- Blog page
- Contact page
- Disclaimer page
- Privacy page
Design for Your Website
After you know who your avatar is, start the conversation.
Design every part of your website as part of your conversation with your avatar.
Look at this screenshot of one of the websites I designed. See if you can tell who the avatar is for this website.
The colors not only match the logo but they also resonate with baby boomers in Rhonda's niche.
You want to make things very simple and clean.
Overcrowded design no longer appeals to most avatars. You want clean lines, simple boxes, and lots of white space.
You also don't want your site to look the same as every one of your competitors.
So many times clients tell me, ” I like this website. I want my website to look like this one.” This is the wrong focus. Your website needs to resonate with you avatar not with you. Then your website must be able to include your avatar in the conversation. You do that through the use of color, design, and content.
I have YouTube tutorials on how to build your own WordPress website.
Text me at 561-502-1577 if you would like me to build your website for you instead. Not everyone is cut out to build their own website:)