While working for PropertyMinder, Inc. I have seen both ends of the ROI from website universe.  I've seen the very successful and driven real estate website and I've seen the website that earns zero ROI for it's Realtor®.  I thought today I would mention some of the differences between the extremes of success and the agony of business website oblivion.  I've helped to set up many AccelerAgent Real Estate Websites across the nation and done my best to assist clients with the extra tips and tools to help their websites to gather new leads for them.  PropertyMinder has an abundant amount of Realtor® success stories in this regard.

First off, get a website address (URL) that you own and control.  This is so easy to do, yet a good percentage of the real estate websites I check out are at temporary domains or sub domains.  Stop that and get a web address now.  They are cheap and if you use one like GoDaddy, you can even have great phone support to walk you through difficulties.  Others that I have checked are indeed good domain names but they are owned by whoever the client had done the purchase with and not by the client directly.  This can lead to trouble in the future when you try to make changes to what real estate website you are using.

Once you have a domain name, don't try to remember it because there is no try.  Remember it by putting the domain name EVERYWHERE.  Then you can't help but remember it.   Put it on your business cards, signage, Voicemail, email signature and any printed material you send out there should always be a complete web address.

If your website has several lead capture tools, get the web addresses to these pages and add links to your online advertising.  This way people who find your advertisement have an easy way to get to your website and you have a chance to convert them to customers.

Do your own online advertising on Craigslist, Oodle, Backpage, Google Base, Kudzu Zillow, Trulia and other places.  Make sure that in all cases you tie this advertising back to yourself in any way you can.  I know there are a lot of easier ways to allow others to do this advertising for you, but the biggest difference in lead production I have seen comes when you control all of your own avenues of lead generation and you know what the returns of each one are.

Make time in the week for your website and online marketing efforts.  Set aside a couple of hours a week to update all your online postings and to be sure to register yourselves on all the different places that you can.  So many of these are at no cost to you and allow you to put in your web address to link back to your site.  Google Business Center, Yahoo Local, Merchant Circle and many places like this can help you to 'exist' online.

In short, website success is out there, but it is usually wearing a disguise.  It is disguised as a little bit of work.  There are good ways to do it and of course there are great ways.  For those people looking for a written out plan of what to do with some step by step walkthroughs should look into the PropertyMinder TECH-MAR Clinic.  The TECH-MAR Clinic will give you a well thought out plan of attack on getting your name out there and beginning the return of investment on your real estate website.