3 Signs That Your Brand is Ready for a Website Overhaul
A website is the cornerstone of a brokerage’s or agent’s marketing efforts. With so many different websites and brands within your local market, it’s vital to establish a presence that is truly remarkable and creates a long-lasting impression. That’s why it’s essential that your website be up-to-date and meets the latest quality standards.
Here are three signs that you need a new website or can use a website overhaul:
- Bounce Rate is High
The numbers never lie. Check your analytics to see if there are any discrepancies. Then, assess where you can improve the user experience. If you see that your overall bounce rate is high, this means your website visitors are unsatisfied with the experience. Bounce rate can be broken down on a page-to-page basis, meaning you can improve each page individually to improve the overall bounce rate on your website. Constantly make changes to the pages that have a high bounce rate and monitor the analytics to see if there’s an improvement. The lower the bounce rate; the better.
- On-Page Search Engine Optimization
Does your website show up in Google when you search for your name or brand? If the answer is no, this is a good sign you need a website overhaul. It’s critical that your website is optimized for SEO to make sure your brand gets the search engine exposure needed to capture traffic. Many brokerages and agents fail to use the SEO features of their website and leave many pages to fall by the wayside. Start by checking if your website has SEO optimization features, such as meta data and page title fields on the backend.
You can also call your website vendor and ask for a demo or documentation on how to use these features if they are available. Simply filling out these fields with the required data will boost your website presence and place your website higher in the search engines. If these features are not available through your current vendor, start looking for a different vendor to accommodate those needs.
- Timing
Has it been three or more years since you had a website overhaul? This is a simple, straightforward way to decide whether or not your website is ready for a refresh. With web design trends coming and going, it’s essential that your website speaks to the latest trends and stays on the cutting edge. For example, sliders were once an essential element of a home page and are a trend that still exists to this day. However, web design in the last few years has shifted to a more minimal experience with simple slides or a single video background. Look for examples of web design trends in real estate and decide if your website is stacked up against the competition. If the answer is no, it’s highly recommended to speak with your existing vendor or a new vendor to see if their platform has the features needed for these type of trend updates.
Conclusion
A great starting point to decide whether or not you need a website overhaul is to perform a website audit. A website audit will give your brand direct insight into whether you need a new website or need to improve upon your existing website. There are many tools online that can be used to perform a website audit, but this can also be done in-house with a manual review.
Check your Google Analytics account to see how traffic and growth has performed year-over-year. If there’s a decline, look for different resources to make a change. You can also perform a mini focus group and ask a handful of people to use your website. Then, get their feedback on whether or not they were able to find the information essential to their search.
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