This is your complete guide to setting up a real estate website. Read up on everything you need to know about creating the best real estate web design.
The real estate industry is extremely competitive and there is no magic formula for a successful real estate career. However, there is a commonality amongst all successful real estate agents. And that is a real estate website with a great design. A well-designed real estate website should allow real estate agents to grow their business through lead generation. If you are able to build a real estate website that is structured to generate leads, you can focus more on helping your clients rather than finding clients.
Now, the question becomes “What makes great real estate web design?”. We understand that coming up with ideas for the best design for real estate websites can be difficult. In this article, we specifically break down every aspect that makes an effective real estate web design. Use this as your evergreen guide on everything real estate web design. From new real estate website design tips to trends, strategies, and tactics you can deploy, expect us to be updating this post regularly with all the latest information. The goals are that after you’re done reading this article, you’ll know how to design a real estate website and know exactly what makes a good real estate website design.
YOUR WEBSITE ISN'T GENERATING ANY LEADS BUT WE HAVE A SOLUTION
In this free 20 minute video training you'll discover:
- 3 key secrets to restructuring your real estate business for growth
- Understanding the strategy of specialization
- A new approach to positioning yourself in real estate
- How to address your messaging to properly acquire prospects
Whenever you are ready, click the RED button below that says "Grab my training now"
PHASE 1: CRAFTING YOUR REAL ESTATE MESSAGE
Why is the message important for your real estate website?
For agents who are starting to build up their real estate website, what’s often overlooked are the prerequisites. These are the details that you must formulate first before actually starting on building your real estate website. In this case, the most important prerequisite that’s often overlooked is your message. We believe that the best way to start this guide is to emphasize the importance of this point. You see, what good is a website if you can’t convey a clear message to your prospects? This, for us, is the best way to design a real estate website.
In fact, many times than not, a poorly designed website with a good message outperforms the websites with the best real estate website designs and doesn’t have a clear message. Time and time again we encounter a lot of agents who have wasted a lot of money, time, and effort on websites that don’t work. These agents are the ones who focus a majority of their energy and resources on the website’s aesthetics when in actuality, the top real estate website designs must first have great copy and a clear message.
How do I create the content for my real estate website?
It is important to note that when it comes to creating content for your website this will completely fall on you. This is something that you cannot contract out to any web designers for real estate agents because that is simply not their expertise. It doesn’t matter if you’re working with an expensive or cheap real estate website design service or developer. However, if you have the budget, we highly recommend that you start working on your message with a real estate brand strategist. It may seem like something that you don’t really need but this will definitely be one of the most useful investments you can make throughout this process.
On the other hand, if you don’t have the budget, you really need to take the time yourself and establish a few things. First, you need to have a very clear mission, vision, and unique selling proposition. Your mission is your guidebook. This will help you stay on track with your day-to-day operations and should clearly define who you serve as well as how you help the people you serve. Next is your vision. Your vision is your goal within the next three to five years. To create your vision, try to answer the question “How many people do I want to serve in the next three to five years?”. Lastly, your unique selling proposition or your USP. Your USP should clearly define what makes you unique in the real estate marketplace. This should clearly showcase the value you provide to the marketplace. Here’s a useful resource, in the video below we break down how you can craft your mission and vision.
Pro-tip #1: Your message should be laser-focused and concise.
How do I identify my target audience?
The next component to crafting your message is identifying your real estate avatar. Find a community that is being underserved and target that community. Ultimately, your goal should be to become the best and only option for that underserved community. If you’re having trouble figuring out a community to serve, then I highly recommend that you niche down. Niching down serves several purposes. For one, it helps you test your message a lot quicker. This is because when you’re only targeting a small group of people, it is easier to gather data and make conclusions. The second reason is that it helps you cement yourself as a real estate authority and as an expert much faster.
One of the easiest ways to figure out your customer avatar or the community you serve is by taking a moment of self-reflection and begin to identify what you enjoy doing. Think about the habits that you have. You can also think about the hobbies that you enjoy. From there, you can start weaving in different things to identify a unique community that you can serve. The smaller the niche and the more specific your target community is, the easier it will be for you to succeed. Check out this video we uploaded below to help you understand and identify your real estate USP.
LEARN HOW WE’VE GENERATED OVER 100,000 LEADS FOR OUR REAL ESTATE CLIENTS LAST YEAR
Marketing Strategy – create inbound strategies to better position you for the long game.
Systems Implementation – we design and implement systems for you to buy back your time.
Brand Building – position you as the thought leader and authority in your community.
How do I hook my target audience through content?
As the saying goes, go one inch wide and one mile deep with that community. This simply means that the more you can understand that community, the more you can speak their language, and the more likely it is for you to capture new business. One of the key things with messaging is really identifying what your real estate prospects usually say and saying it before they do. If you are able to synthesize what’s being talked about privately around the family dining table and actually put that out on your website in your messaging, the more likely it is that you are able to build trust with your prospects. Once you are able to build trust with your prospects, the more likely it is for them to be more inclined to want to work with you.
Pro-tip #2: Try and think about the several conversations that you have had with either your real estate clients or prospects. Recall these conversations and make note of the questions that they asked you. You’ll quickly realize that most of them will typically ask the same set of questions. Use those questions and conversations to your advantage. Use them as key identifiers to what the common frustrations are in your community. Once you’re able to do that, proceed by incorporating that into your messaging.
The last little note about messaging is that it is designed for your prospects and not for you. Talk about your prospects and how you could serve them better. With every step, remember that this website is not about you, it’s about your prospects and audience. Position yourself as the guide to help get them close to their goals.
PHASE 2: PLANNING THE WEBSITE
Where do I begin planning my real estate website?
Now that you’ve addressed your messaging and have a clearer approach to who you serve, it’s now time to start thinking about how you want to build this real estate website. You have several options with regard to execution. We’ve listed a couple of them for you.
- Website Builder Application: Applications such as Wix, Squarespace, or ClickFunnels are classified under website builder applications. There are a number of real estate agents who build their real estate website designs through site builders.
PROS:
- You won’t be needing the help of professional real estate website designers to set up these types of websites.
- Most versions of these types of websites are very inexpensive. If you’re worried about your real estate website design cost, then creating your real estate website through Wix and other website builder apps is a great option for you.
- Some of these applications have free real estate website design templates that you can choose from and have an easy drag and drop interface.
- There are a lot of designs you can come up with by simply mixing and matching the available design templates for real estate websites.
CONS:
- A big con for this is that you don’t technically own this website. The way website builder applications work is that you are paying them a monthly subscription fee to have access and use their software as a service (SAAS).
- The moment you stop paying them, you lose access to what you create.
- You don’t have the ability to feed in MLS Properties or IDX. If you are thinking of featuring any property on this website, you will then have to manually upload and update them yourself.
YOUR WEBSITE ISN'T GENERATING ANY LEADS BUT WE HAVE A SOLUTION
In this free 20 minute video training you'll discover:
- 3 key secrets to restructuring your real estate business for growth
- Understanding the strategy of specialization
- A new approach to positioning yourself in real estate
- How to address your messaging to properly acquire prospects
Whenever you are ready, click the RED button below that says "Grab my training now"
- Content Management Systems: One of the biggest and most famous content management systems is WordPress.
PROS:
- The first pro here is that, unlike with website builder applications, you actually own this website.
- You can install IDX here which will allow you to feed properties automatically into your website or search the MLS.
- There are plugins that help you design your website such as Elementor.
- You can use other plugins like custom post types, advanced custom fields, and an application like Calendly to schedule your appointments.
CONS:
- The con with content management systems is that it does become a little complicated to set up. You potentially will need to tap on the help of a web developer to execute the exact vision that you are looking for if you’re not really technically savvy.
- Custom Web Application
PROS:
- For custom web applications, a great advantage is that you can create whatever you envision in your mind and have a custom real estate website design.
- Gives you the freedom to design your own real estate website.
- You have free reign over the creatives and have no constraints.
CONS:
- The big con here is that you will most likely not be able to execute this on your own.
- Custom web applications tend to cost a lot of money as you will need to hire an expert real estate web developer to be able to fully execute your vision.
Many times, custom web applications are overkill. It is best to always consider and keep in mind what the goal is for what you are trying to create. If you are simply trying to generate new real estate leads or prospects online, then one of the above options will be more viable. However, if you are trying to create an application that provides a unique solution to the marketplace, then building a custom web application may be more aligned with your needs.
How do I integrate MLS into my real estate website?
Depending on the solution that you decide to go with, you may have the option to integrate an MLS search into your website. Should this be a viable option for you, you now have three options on how you can integrate a search.
- Iframe
The first option is via an Iframe. Depending on your MLS, they likely have a very rudimentary search application that you can install into your website via an Iframe. Iframes are essentially a way for you to have a window into another person’s website. In this case, the Iframe solution is no more than a window into your MLS’s website which will allow your users to search for properties on the MLS. You also have to consider that the Iframes are not really that customizable or flexible. With Iframes, what you see is what you get and they typically only work within the constraints of that Iframe. This means that you cannot have multiple pages for properties. Everything will live within that Iframe.
LEARN HOW WE’VE GENERATED OVER 100,000 LEADS FOR OUR REAL ESTATE CLIENTS LAST YEAR
Marketing Strategy – create inbound strategies to better position you for the long game.
Systems Implementation – we design and implement systems for you to buy back your time.
Brand Building – position you as the thought leader and authority in your community.
- IDX
IDX is a third-party application that you install into your website. IDX can typically be installed into WordPress websites. IDX is no more than simply a semi-customizable cookie-cutter solution that will allow you to search for properties and information from the MLS on your website. This will allow you to have multiple pages for properties on your website. However, just like with Iframes, you do not have the full flexibility of creating a very unique and specific design for these properties. The cost for IDX IDs is fairly inexpensive and will only set you back anywhere from $30 to $60 a month. Here’s a short video on everything you need to know about IDX:
- RETS
The final option is RETS. RETS can be thought of as raw data. This is a feed that sends you directly from your MLS. The advantage of having RETS is that you can control and manage this data however you please. This means that you can customize how you want this data to be displayed and presented on your website based on your vision. The caveat to RETS however is that it is quite expensive and RETS is simply just a raw data feed. This means that you will still need to hire a company to synthesize that data and turn it into an application that users can actually use. If you want to know more about RETS, here’s a video for you:
If you need help deciding between IDX or RETS, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a video comparing the two (2) platform:
Pro-tip #3: You actually do not need IDX or the ability to search the MLS on your website. Oftentimes, many Realtors are sold to the idea that this is necessary for every website but that is quite the contrary. The truth is if you present a website with the right message that touches the right pain points of your prospects, you will more than likely be able to convert them. Having pictures and details of properties that anyone can find off of Zillow, Redfin, or Realtor.com won’t make them want to work with you that much more.
Additionally, unless you have a budget that rivals giant websites such as Zillow, Redfin, or Realtor.com, you cannot expect an IDX technology to compare to the amount of time, effort, and money that was invested into those applications. In a day and age where most consumers are tech-savvy, they will probably know those applications and are more than likely going to use those applications for searching for properties rather than an IDX on your website.
What else do I need to plan for my real estate website?
- Domain
Once you’ve decided on which platform you want to use, you will now need to purchase a domain for you to house your website in. There was this old belief that you needed to spam the keywords that you are trying to rank for on your URL. However, that is not the case. If you’re looking for a website address, we recommend choosing something simple for the name such as your company or maybe your name.
It is not a requirement to have the words “RE”, “Real Estate”, or “Realtor” at the end of your domain. Whether you have or don’t have these words, your SEO will stay the same. These do not help your SEO directly. SEO is part of a larger strategy. Simply putting the words “RE”, “Real Estate”, or “Realtor” on your URL will not guarantee your rankings.
- Hosting
Now, if you are planning to go with a content management system or a custom application solution, then it’s important that we discuss hosting your website. Based on our experience, typically you would want to go with a hosting provider for your website that either specializes in the content management system of your choosing or with one of the bigger cloud computing services. Some of these bigger cloud computing services are Google Cloud Platform or Amazon Web Services. This is simply because when you are managing a lot of data, you would want to make sure that your website is performing at its very best. This is where real estate website design and hosting play into one another.
I also want to quickly mention the big names in the space for hosting such as GoDaddy and 1and1. While these Hosting service companies are extremely inexpensive, you do get what you pay for which will typically result in a very slow and underperforming website.
PHASE 3: CREATING THE SITEMAP
What is a sitemap?
Phase 3 is all about creating your sitemap. A sitemap can be thought of as the navigation of your real estate website. This is the structure of your website. As excited as you are to dive into the design and development of your website, you must first create the sitemap. This is the step where you need to consider how many pages have to be designed for your website. Moreover, this is also another vital requirement that you must do prior to actually starting to create a website. The sitemap acts as your plan for your website. Think of it as the blueprint of your website. It also illustrates the architecture of your website so that you’ll know how the different pages flow together.
A common misbelief is that your website needs a lot of pages in order for it to be successful. However, the reality is, successful real estate websites are no more than websites with three (3) to five (5) pages. These pages can include your homepage, your about page, your testimonials page, your properties page, and a contact page. The pages that will ultimately be on your real estate website will depend on your goals.
It is also important to note that having a blog page on your website is not really a requirement. This is especially true if you do not have the capacity to update it on a regular basis. The only moment you should consider adding a blog is if you can allocate time or resources to creating content at least once a week.
YOUR WEBSITE ISN'T GENERATING ANY LEADS BUT WE HAVE A SOLUTION
In this free 20 minute video training you'll discover:
- 3 key secrets to restructuring your real estate business for growth
- Understanding the strategy of specialization
- A new approach to positioning yourself in real estate
- How to address your messaging to properly acquire prospects
Whenever you are ready, click the RED button below that says "Grab my training now"
PHASE 4: FINAL PREPARATION
What assets will I need for my real estate website?
Now that we have established all of the precursor tasks to developing a website, let’s now talk about the preparation involved in really starting the real estate web design. Before ever putting together a design, you first need to collect and organize your assets. These assets include your headshot, which can be done professionally. But in many cases, headshots are now done with phones because the quality of photos that are created from your phone is already high enough.
The next asset you would want to prepare is your bio. If you’re not a very good wordsmith, you can use services like Fiverr or Upwork to create it.
Another asset that you have to prepare is your social proof. Social proof is nothing but your collection of testimonials. You can actively collect them or can even just take screenshots of messages that you have received from your clients. These messages can also be used as evidence of you being a professional and expert.
Lastly, you would want to prepare your properties. Collect all the properties that you would want to feature on your website. Whether these are your active listings, sold listings, or maybe listings from other agents within your brokerage. It is recommended that you at least show a few properties on your website.
LEARN HOW WE’VE GENERATED OVER 100,000 LEADS FOR OUR REAL ESTATE CLIENTS LAST YEAR
Marketing Strategy – create inbound strategies to better position you for the long game.
Systems Implementation – we design and implement systems for you to buy back your time.
Brand Building – position you as the thought leader and authority in your community.
PHASE 5: MAKING THE DESIGN
How can I create a cohesive and effective real estate web design?
With your message now clarified and with your assets collected, we can now finally start with your real estate web design. If you have made it this far, you now see why most real estate websites fail. There is a lot of preparation involved long before we can actually start thinking about designing a real estate website. There’s a basic framework for designing a website. We first need to consider the structure of the web pages. From there, we need to synthesize the actual look and feel of these pages. If we’re talking about the basic framework of designing a website, we’re referring to wireframing.
Wireframing is a very simple process of sketching out how the web page is going to be laid out. You can think of it as if you’re baking a gingerbread cookie. The stencil that you use to create the shape of the gingerbread is what, is in our case, considered the wireframe. Ideally, you would want to have a basic idea of how the elements will be laid out on the web page. This isn’t a complicated process and it can simply be done by just grabbing a sheet of paper and a pencil and just sketching it out.
Pro-tip #4: Your web page is really built with columns and rows. It’s best to look at it this way when you think of the layout of your web pages. The columns of your website consist of where you want your content to be positioned. The rows on the other hand are viewed as the different sections. You can try to revisit the real estate websites that you like and find attractive to get real estate website design ideas as well.
Once you sketch the layout of the webpage, you can now start thinking about the design. The key to making the design is to find inspiration from everywhere. Look at websites that you like or gravitate towards and identify why you like them. What elements really made you like those websites? These are great strategies to get some real estate website design inspiration. From there, design your own web pages based on your inspiration.
Pro-tip #5: As good as it is to look for inspiration online, you should never look at another real estate agent’s website and base your decisions on what they have created. They must stay as inspirations and not as your framework. This is simply because what may be working for them, may not necessarily work for you. The key to the success of real estate websites is that they are iterative. You must constantly be testing them to figure out what’s working and what is not. You can’t keep on referencing another agent’s website because you do not have the data to back up the reason as to why they made their decisions. Therefore, pulling inspiration from them is no more than an emotional decision, and emotional decisions cannot be tested, measured, or executed. If you’re looking for a basic framework of how you should be laying out your website, then check out this video below.
Remember that the key to having a successful real estate web page is to not overcomplicate things. Try to keep the text to a minimum of 250 to 400 words. Anything beyond that becomes too much to read for someone using your website unless it is a blog post. My last note for your design is that content is what makes your website, not the layout. Always try to find ways to create unique and valuable content for your prospects. Write content that they will enjoy enough that they would want to start a conversation with you.
PHASE 6: BUILDING THE WEBSITE
Once the designs have been laid out, we can now start the development of the real estate website. If you’ve executed the design correctly, then development is no more than copying the design to the web page builder. There are some things that I’d like to point out here. First, is that depending on the hosting provider that you decide to go with, they may have one-click installations for many of the content management systems such as WordPress to easily help you install it into your server.
Making use of page builders such as Elementor or Wpbakery also makes it a lot easier for you to construct your web page based on your design than having to hire a developer to create one for you.
How do I choose the videos and images for my website?
- Video Backgrounds
One of the most popular key components to a lot of the newer real estate websites is the video background. The real estate video background should only be between five (5) to ten (10) seconds long. It should also not contain any text. If you don’t have a videographer handy, one of the easiest ways to create a video background is by purchasing the stock video from websites like Shutterstock or istockphoto. There are also several free resources with stock videos that you can utilize for your real estate website.
Once you’ve chosen your stock videos, you can splice the videos together using free applications like iMovie. After having put together that video, you could then upload it to video hosting services like YouTube or Vimeo. We recommend hosting these videos on the servers because they do not bog down the server speed of your real estate website. Also, if you have a website builder like Elementor, then all you simply need to do is copy and paste the link into the video block module of the builder. This will automatically make your video appear on your website.
- Images
An often misunderstood ideology is that real estate websites look bad because of the layout when in reality, the visuals of the website are what make a website pop. If you do not have access to high-quality images, then we highly recommend that you purchase the photos or use royalty-free photos to embed on your website. As good as these photos may look, unique photos that you have taken or own will always resonate better with your audience than any stock photography you’ll find online. So try your best to go out, take photos, and use them for your real estate website.
YOUR WEBSITE ISN'T GENERATING ANY LEADS BUT WE HAVE A SOLUTION
In this free 20 minute video training you'll discover:
- 3 key secrets to restructuring your real estate business for growth
- Understanding the strategy of specialization
- A new approach to positioning yourself in real estate
- How to address your messaging to properly acquire prospects
Whenever you are ready, click the RED button below that says "Grab my training now"
What is responsive design for real estate websites and why do I need it?
The last component of Phase 6 is one of the key elements of a real estate web design. However, this component is usually overlooked. We’re talking about responsive design for real estate websites. Responsiveness is in reference to your website’s ability to respond to the different displays for viewing like a desktop device, a tablet device, or your mobile phone.
As you design and develop your website, you have to be cognitive about how your website will display on various devices. You have to be aware that more and more people are now looking at your website through their mobile devices than an actual desktop. So in many cases, it might be a better idea for you to design your real estate website “mobile-first”.
In any case, always pay attention to the builders that you are using. As many of them have the ability to repurpose the view into a mobile or tablet view which will allow you to see how your web page will appear on those devices. The caveat here is that if you’re building a web application, AKA building it from scratch. If so, you will need to create your own mobile and tablet designs.
CONCLUSION
This complete guide is designed to be the play-by-play book that we use, as well as many of the professional web development agencies out there. As long as you follow this framework, you will find that it is easier for you to create and deploy a real estate website very quickly. I know it’s quite a lot to take in. But if you’re feeling stuck or you need help, please feel free to reach out to us because it is one of the things that we are experts in and we are more than happy to provide you with any assistance.
LEARN HOW WE’VE GENERATED OVER 100,000 LEADS FOR OUR REAL ESTATE CLIENTS LAST YEAR
Marketing Strategy – create inbound strategies to better position you for the long game.
Systems Implementation – we design and implement systems for you to buy back your time.
Brand Building – position you as the thought leader and authority in your community.
