Real Estate Website Development: A Complete Guide to Getting Started
Starting your real estate website can seem daunting, especially if you’ve never developed one before. Luckily, the internet is full of tips and tricks that will help you develop an effective website that gets results with little cost and effort on your part.
According to Forbes, $223 billionaires derived most of their wealth from real estate. As per Grand View Research projects, the global real estate industry is expected to reach over $4 trillion by 2025.
Definitely, the opportunities in real estate are huge. And if you are wondering how to get started, this guide will take you through all the steps needed for an effective real estate website development.
Let’s dive right in.
Why should you develop a Real Estate Website?
Building a real estate website should, first and foremost, have a goal. The purpose of all real estate platforms is to solve users’ problems searching for a new property effectively. It allows customers to-
- Find the most appropriate property
- Give buyers and renters a sufficient number of options for properties
- Offer a way for people to contact a real estate agent
- Allow for efficient real estate research
Compass, Zillow, Trulia, and Zoopla are some of the most well-known real estate sites. These real estate websites have transformed the industry by introducing actual consumers to the market.
It is essential to have a top-notch website if you want your real estate business to succeed.
Key Requirements for Real Estate Website Development
When developing your real estate website, you must consider the key requirements to make it more dynamic and interactive. The following are the main criteria you should adhere to:
1. Strong Domain Name
Besides developing an attractive website, choosing a smart and strong domain name for your website is essential. A domain name is chosen once. Make sure you develop an effective domain name on the first attempt, such as .com .et, .org and .net. Among these .com domain is considered as most effective.
Consider the following tips before choosing a domain name:
- Keep the domain name short and professional
- Must connect with your brand identity
- Use keywords that connect well with your real estate niche
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO helps in improving your website visibility among your competitors. It increases website traffic and raises its search engine rating. You can increase your website’s reputation and usefulness with effective SEO methods.
It’s a smart idea to think about working with an SEO expert to assist you in developing SEO strategies that will increase the exposure of your website and enable you to connect with more users through algorithmic or organic search results.
3. Easy Navigation
A real estate website is loaded with information, and can be challenging for customers to use it. It makes no sense to build a stunning website that is challenging to use since it becomes difficult for surfers to understand.
Adding a search bar symbol to your website may integrate search capabilities and create well-organized website navigation. Sitemaps can also be added to your website to aid people in finding their way around. Keep your website’s design simple and subtle to make it easier for consumers to understand.
Real Estate Website Advanced Features
An advanced real estate website should allow users to search for properties by specific criteria, such as location, price range, square footage, and the number of bedrooms. Users should also be able to view detailed information about each property, including photos, maps, and descriptions.
Additionally, a good real estate website will provide users with tools to help them estimate mortgage payments and calculate potential savings. A real estate website must offer customer support in users have any questions or problems. You should always include an FAQ page on your site to answer common questions without requiring customers to contact you directly.
Steps of Real Estate Web Development
Here is the step-by-step guide to starting your real estate website development process:
Step 1: Select the right CMS
The idea of starting your website from scratch can be tiring. With the right content management system, you can use in-built features and templates for your website.
Web developers frequently use WordPress to access a huge selection of plugins, themes, templates, and add-ons. It’s a good choice for real estate websites.
Step 2: Choose the right Web Hosting Provider
Web hosting is required to keep all the files and data on a website accessible to visitors. It is crucial to choose the best web host when it comes to enhancing and boosting the website’s performance.
You must first understand your website’s requirements to pick the right website provider. It will help you choose the right web host.
Additionally, finding web host providers is possible with server monitoring software. To determine whether a web host service is suitable for your website or not, you may look at the uptime rating. To ensure that your website loads quickly and effectively, try to choose a web host with excellent server performance.
Step 3: Add Special Features
Conduct in-depth market research on your rivals before developing the website. It can assist you in determining what visitors want and expect from a new real estate website, based on which you can incorporate special features into your website to help you stand out from the crowd.
Step 4: Mockups, Prototypes, and Wireframes
Your website is now taking shape at this stage. Wireframing, mockup development using these wireframes, and future website design prototyping are all beneficial for a website to leave a good first impression.
Designing a high-performance website requires planning, so your logo, color scheme, photos, and other user interface components must be placed sequentially and consistently on each page. Also, ensure to organize these elements to reflect in sequence so it is easier to use.
Step 5: Budgeting and Development team
Creating a budget for your real estate website development is essential to ensure you don’t overspend. You’ll need to account for domain names, hosting, and design or development costs. It’s also important to factor in ongoing maintenance and update costs.
Give a clear indication of the pricing range you anticipate for your website development to fall inside once your business and personal goals have been clearly defined.
Further, you can choose the top website development company to work with in the interim. Your goals will probably change after you connect with the developers. It is essential to have a professional relationship, open communication, and idea sharing to achieve your desired results.
Step 6: Coding
Once you fix a budget for your website development, you need to hire developers for coding and execution. They can use modules, APIs, and themes in addition to using the proper tech stack for integrating the functionality.
Step 7: Quality Assurance and Review
After developing the website, you will require trained and experienced quality assurance engineers to ensure the website is of high quality and user-friendly. Regular quality assurance and review will help to improve the user experience for tenants, purchasers, property owners, and realtors viewing it.
Cost of Real Estate Website Development
Building a real-world website depends greatly on your budget and whether you want to work with a freelance website developer or a website development company. You can either engage a website development company or freelancers in your country or recruit offshore workers from nations like Bangladesh and India if you don’t have a large budget.
The cost of hiring a web developer can range from $500 to $5,000+, depending on the project’s scope. It will cost you about $16,000 to engage a website development business in the US. You will also have to consider all other costs of establishing an online presence. These include designing logos, buying advertising space on search engines like Google Adwords, writing blog posts and social media posts, etc.
You cannot set a price range in advance for your website development because many factors will affect the final result. Moreover, the hourly rate varies depending on the software engineers' and other personnel’s location and qualifications.
For instance, suppose that the standard hourly wage is $30. The entire cost of developing a real estate website can then be determined by adding together the following elements:
Final Words
A group of highly qualified software developers can increase your chances of success and produce a flawless website. However, dealing with a reputable web development business ensures hassle-free work and perfect website development. Ultimately, you can get cost-effective web design services in India.
Your real estate website can give others a helping hand in locating their ideal homes to provide satisfaction.
