At RealtyNinja, we hear it all: from new agents just starting out, to seasoned agents looking to make changes. These are some misconceptions that we get all the time; The worst part is the stress they cause because of the implications of getting it all wrong. REALTORS® might feel that their money is being wasted, or that if they start out not launching something “perfect” then no one will ever look at their website from the beginning.
Let’s set some of these myths straight:
Myth #1: “People don’t go to agent websites to look at listings.”
Sometimes that’s true, but as a blanket statement it’s false. While it’s true that many buyers use aggregate platforms like REALTOR.ca for daily searches, agent websites still play a critical role. Prospective clients often look up an agent’s name from a “For Sale” sign to explore their style, expertise, and perspective on a property. Listings on your site can serve as an extension of your other marketing efforts, offering more personalized and detailed content than larger platforms.
In fact, NAR’s 2024 research shows that above any content-based factor, photos and detailed information about listings including floor plans are the most looked for on a Realtor®’s website.
The Takeaway: Narrowing down the purpose of your website doesn’t have to reduce functionality. Listings on your website are an important tool for your other marketing efforts, and you get bonus points if you personalize the listing functionality to the people that are most likely to love it.
- Offer “personalized saved searches” so they get matching listings delivered straight to them from you to scroll instead of popping REALTOR.ca open every day. Offer them some sort of value they won’t get on aggregate sites.
- Market listings on your website as the landing page for an ad.
- Tell people the ins-and-outs of the listing with information that can’t be detailed on aggregate websites, like personalized neighbourhood info, school district information if a family-oriented home, and what the average lifestyle might be like living there. Enhance listings with high-resolution imagery and other media like videos and documents. (RealtyNinja customer? Here’s how to do that!)
Myth #2: “SEO is the only thing that matters with your website.”
I’m just going to go ahead and say it, and you can send your cold-call email agencies that contact you about how “awful the SEO of your website is but they can fix it with these recommended actions and $5000” to fight me about it: Search Engine Optimization as it is being marketed to you means nothing these days.
The amount of h1 tags on a single page doesn’t matter.
A “C” score of your page load optimization doesn’t matter.
Pages full of AI-written, un-engaging content that are entirely built around certain keywords don’t matter.
Try some searches in an incognito browser window for terms that you think you should come up for and review the first page of results. For example, “New listings for sale in Vancouver” comes up with:
- 4 sponsored links
- Zillow
- REALTOR.ca
- REW.ca
- Redfin
- RE/MAX Canada
- Royal lePage
- Zolo
You get the idea. These sites are huge, well-established, and on principle have a much higher marketing budget than you, no matter how many properties you sell. You cannot win a competition for broad search terms.
However… let’s search for “House for sale on Lily in East Vancouver”. What comes up this time? The Stonehouse Team (a RealtyNinja website ☺️), right at the top, showcasing one of their listings on Lily Street. Several other agent websites follow! In a list with real people’s names, they far outshine the scattering of brokerage or aggregate site listings in terms of attractiveness to click. The key is focusing on long-tail and specific keywords instead of broad search terms.
What if you’re just starting out or you don’t have many listings, and you want to start making a name for yourself? Real, human content is so important — and it can work. Try a search for “living in Grandview Woodland Vancouver”, the same neighbourhood that the last search was about. 3 real estate agent websites come up in the results, and the search term wasn’t directly about real estate.
The Takeaway: Go public about why you love what you do, and the rest will follow.
- Establish your presence online by posting about your favourite neighbourhood finds
- Include testimonials from your favourite clients that talk about their new life and how awesome it was to work with you
- Above all, be human. Find the balance between vulnerability and professionalism that works with your target audience when writing about the things that you love. Don’t forget to inject your personal head voice into what you write, so that it’s more interesting to read than something written by ChatGPT. It’s very easy to notice these days when a real person has not written or proof-read something, and for many savvy people it will mean an instant “X” out of the page.
And please, I beg you: Do not rely on home renovation listicles to try and bring genuine home buyers or sellers to your website!
Myth #3: “The amount that you spend on your website and/or marketing will directly translate into a return on investment” / “You must spend a lot on your website for it to be successful” / “A fully custom developed website is the only option for a truly successful agent.”
Success is not solely tied to the amount of money invested in a website. Many agents thrive with semi-customized, budget-friendly websites that focus on user experience and authenticity. What matters is aligning your website’s design and functionality with your target audience’s needs.
In especially urban markets, the expectation of your customers does need to be considered. If you’re trying to sell multi-million dollar homes to or for high-end clients, a certain budget is going to be necessary. The needs of who you want to work with will dictate what functionality, quality, and experience will work best for you. For the most part, the everyday person’s real estate agent does not need to worry about investing in a fully custom developed website with more bells and whistles than they could have ever thought of — they just need something that looks good and can convince someone of why they should work with you.
The Takeaway: While your role is supposed to mainly help buy and sell homes, you often act as therapists, money advisors, housekeepers, and drivers too. Adding “digital marketer” to your list of roles makes sense now. Sometimes paying more is worth the quality of the help you’ll get, but it’s possible to get the level of results you’ll need with trustworthy people at an affordable price, too. Consider these steps before committing to a fully custom developed solution:
- Research service providers carefully and prioritize those with strong client references.
- Start with a foundational site that looks professional and supports your goals, then expand as needed.
- Invest in features that genuinely enhance the client experience, like high-quality imagery and testimonials.
Myth #4: “You must have [insert feature here] for anyone to use your website.”
I know I just talked a lot about having listings on your website, but as a designer, I have to be real and the truth is quick: There is at least one real estate agent out there who has the personality (and connections) that could work with a single-page, minimalist style website and have droves of people contact them off of it. Not everyone cares about having the latest listings delivered, or that you have a weekly-updated blog. A lot of people do care about the feeling that they know you and can trust you — and they will make that judgment based off of who you seem to be, not the chatbot that pops up in the corner of your homepage or forced registration features.
However, the amount of people that can get away with that single-page, minimalist website is admittedly very small, so having features that differentiate you from competitors can help attract quality leads. Making sure that you offer — at the very least — the standard experience based on other common real estate sites, will set a baseline trust level for your website. This might include items like:
- Your profile, outlining things like your education and experience
- A portfolio of the properties you’ve sold or helped purchase
- A method to search or view all listings in areas that you work in, if you work as a buyer’s agent
- A place to view all of your active listings — if you don’t have any, you can handpick some listings that you think are interesting to feature, potentially from your brokerage. Remember to add extra detail to your listing pages!
- What you offer clients in both the buying and selling processes. Include visuals where possible, like examples of drone footage, development brochures, etc.
- How to contact you, plus your social media links
- If you have it: social proof in the form of testimonials, Google Reviews, etc…
Some “nice to haves” might include:
- A feed of your recent social media posts
- A signup form for an email newsletter list if you offer that, and/or free downloadable resources
- A blog with resources and market updates
- User accounts
- Neighbourhood guides
- A way to schedule an appointment with you
- A mortgage calculator and any other relevant, interactive resources
- Listing pages for specific interests or searches, like “great for families” or “affordable starter homes”
- A chatbot or messaging service
The Takeaway: Design is entirely subjective and will say different things to different people. The best you can do is be authentic, and focus on the authentic people that are then drawn to you. Sometimes, a number of your clients will think that having a certain feature would be really helpful for their experience on your website and keep them coming back – consider the average experience and what will be useful for your best clients. When creating a website, I’d recommend focusing on and developing the first list before worrying about adding the “nice to haves”.
Myth #5: “All you need is to launch your website and then you never have to think about it again, it will do the work for you.”
It’s simply safe to assume that if something is “out of sight, out of mind” for you, the same is true for anyone else. If you are not giving attention to your website, then no one will have attention to pay to it. Active website management demonstrates commitment to your business. Even if you spend months perfecting the content on your website before you push it live (see next myth), leaving it alone for too long will mean that very few people will return to check for updates or new content. “Check in” with your audience by scheduling regular website content maintenance and improvements, such as seasonal photo changes, updating testimonials, and sharing thoughts about the market and your experience within it.
It’s also important to keep in mind that even if you are consistent with changes, the effects from it are not going to be immediate. Any effect on search engine optimization will take longer thank you think to make a difference in your stats. Websites are for long-term; you have a better chance of immediate (but short-lived) results via email campaigns or social media.
The Takeaway: If you want to get anything out of your website and make your money spent mean something, it will mean coming back to it on a regular basis and adding something to it. You will also need to consistently advertise it, preferably in different ways (Google Ads, social media post, email campaign, in-person conversations). It’s a repeating two-step process once your site is live: add something of value + tell people about it. Treat your website as part of a long-term strategy rather than a one-time project.
Myth #6: “You need to have everything perfect on your website before you launch it.”
This approach almost always leads to stale content for months after the site has been launched, because so much effort went into the creation of it that they get burnt out before it’s even live. This leads to lower effort placed on advertising it after an initial planned kickoff, and ignores the fact that search engines require fresh updates to hit servers in order to remind them that they are in fact active and useful websites to be shown to people. It’s better to start with a small, achievable foundation of content that you can work with and build on, which keeps people interested and coming back to find out what’s new. Surprise and delight your site viewers when a new resource that is relevant to the current market gets added, or they come to find that you’ve started a new series for first time home buyers. Dopamine is a huge factor in our online experience, and we are always searching for something new and exciting to keep us interested.
If there is one nugget of wisdom I could share with agents, it’s that perfectionism kills momentum. We have designed thousands of real estate websites over the years, and have seen many projects stall due to overthinking. Months that an agent’s site could have been accessible to the public and getting their name out there were spent in the dark as they debated endlessly about which photos and content to include. Its foundation was perfect to start with and perhaps “blank canvas syndrome” sets in: the fear of making mistakes. Perhaps they worried about not knowing what the “best choice” would be to achieve their desired online presence when faced with the question of what to add.
The Takeaway: There is no such thing as “best” when it comes to your website. But there are many, many wonderful and effective options. Just start small and attainable, and let it grow with your business. Try new things and see where it goes! If it goes nowhere — you know there are other things to try next. It can be scary at first, but if you view it as an exciting opportunity instead, you can take advantage of the selection.
Myth #7: Everything you see online is real.
This is the biggest lie served to you on social media, and it’s important to face: very few people are as happy, affluent, and successful as they portray themselves to be. If you have struggled with the market over the past few years, you are not alone. In fact, 49% of American real estate agents sold either one or zero houses in 2023. If you’re one of our Canadian Realtors®, you’ll recognize that the range of opportunities south of the border far outnumbers our own.
You’ll also notice that I placed heavy significance on authenticity within the items of this article, and I want to encourage you to maintain that within your mindset as you develop (or re-develop) your online identity. Celebrate real wins, which can be as simple as having a refreshing coffee date with a potential new client or a socially rewarding Open House that you just hosted. Success comes from being genuine in every interaction — and for many people, their first impression is going to be what they see from you online.
Personally, I like to take downtime as reinvestment time: keep working on your business while inventory is low, put your efforts public, and you will reap what you sow!
The Takeaway: Authenticity is your most powerful tool in building a successful online presence. While it’s tempting to compare yourself to the curated lives of others, remember that what you see online often reflects only a polished fraction of reality. Focus on celebrating real, meaningful wins — whether big or small — and let them fuel your confidence. Use your downtime wisely to reinvest in yourself and your business. By staying true to who you are, you’ll attract clients who actually like and respect you, forming the foundation of lasting, rewarding relationships (and many referrals!).
REAL: Having the right mindset is the first step!
It’s just plain not fun to open up your website if you feel like it’s a chore and the thought of having to write things for it is stressing you out. I hope that this list of misconceptions helped open up a bit more of a positive framing for how to approach managing your real estate website. After all, you get to have an awesome place on the web that shows off who you are and why people should choose you to buy or sell their properties! It’s one of your most important marketing pieces, and if you truly love what you do then it will even be evident online before someone meets you in person.
Many of the real estate agents that I’ve spoken to have told me that their favourite part out of everything they do in their career is the part where they get to have incredible conversations with so many different people. If you’re one of those people, taking that same approach to your website will make it a piece of cake! And if you’re not — with a bit of planning and using tools that are available, it can be easy too!
