Top 5 USA Real Estate Websites i 2017
The Real Trends report for 2017 is out, and 2017 is being compiled. The top five Real Estate Websites were determined after Real Trends analyzed over 750 Real Estate Websites across the United States. They used Best Design, Best Mobile Apps, Best Neighborhood Pages, Best Property Detail, Video Strategy and Conversion Rates to rank the leaders.
2017 – 7 Best Overall Real Estate Website Results:
- Michael Saunders & Company
- Realty Austin
- Climb Real Estate
- Pacific Union
- William Pitt Julia B Fee Sotherby’s International Realty
- Elevate Realty Group
- NOLA Homes Search
- Realtor.com
2018 submissions have been made, and Real Estate Agents across the U.S. are anxiously waiting the results.
What Makes The Top Real Estate Websites Land On This List
Just throwing up a website these days will not work to get traffic to your site. Many factors come into play when sites such as Google, Bing and other search engines rank a website. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has identified eight ways to make visitors come back time and time again to your website. Regardless of how good a website may be, if it doesn’t get found when people search for real estate, it doesn’t matter.
Website up & working 24/7, 365 days a year
Nobody wants to go to a Real Estate Website only to find that it is down, or non-existent. Even a lapse in renewing your domain can cause this to happen. Staying on top of this is a must.
Full IDX Search That Is Consumer Friendly
At the forefront of your mind, must be the awareness that consumers come to your website to search for listings. Most users, when visiting a real estate website, want to see homes for sale. Using just your office listings is not going to be enough. Give the visitor full IDX search or do not even bother having that feature on your website. Your search tab should be the first tab on your page, an easy to find and click tab.
Click Here To View & Contact Forms
The purpose of a Real Estate Website is to get more business. Having the tabs for “contact an Agent for more information” as a contact form will capture the visitors information, to now 
become a lead. In addition, using tabs to ask them to make an appointment, receive a FREE CMA, and signing up for local market data can capture them for follow up. An automated system of follow up would be best, but the website owner still has to follow up on the leads reports and capture rates.
Clear Layout & Design
Keep in mind “pretty” is great, functionality is “best”. The visitor experience to the site is what 
will keep them coming back. Consumers looking for assistance from a Real Estate Professional want clear and easy to navigate pages. White space is okay, overwhelming the visitor with text is not. Keep it clear and concise.
Useful Content
The Real Estate Website needs to have useful content. Focus on neighborhood statistics, links to schools system rankings, fresh and useful information. Content non-specific to the market area the website services can be anything from DIY projects, real estate news & trends, FAQs and financing information. Embedding videos on the website are another way to engage the visitor. Use a good mix of text, images and videos to grab the visitors attention.
Add Links To Your Page Content
Adding links from the home page to other pages and blogs on the website will send the visitor deeper into your site. To add value to a website, the home page should be the portal 
to move visitors through the site. Add clear menus with navigation tabs and links to existing content on the home page.
Use Video
Visitors to websites these days like to watch and hear the content, versus reading long text. This site does a good job of using video to explain their listing guarantee. https://www.boston2.com/sellers/29-day-sold-guarantee/
Use this opportunity to add video highlights of Spotlight Neighborhoods and Agent Introductions. Embedding videos of maps and other useful information will engage the visitor longer, and if you have the right search engine optimization behind your videos, you can increase the traffic to your site as well.
Social Media
In today’s social media world, successful social media links are more than just Facebook Business Pages. It is more effective to not lose visitors to the Facebook stream to distract them from what they went to the website for to begin with. Use social media “share” buttons to have the website content “shared” and “liked”. 
Also using social media to drive traffic to the website by using links that take the viewer back to the website to “read more” when uploading a new blog post. This will lead to more traffic to the website and keep the visitor from being distracted, and ultimately moved to other sites.
