It’s no secret that as a real estate agent your website is one of your greatest assets. As the first thing most of your potential clients will see before working with you, it’s essentially your digital first impression.
The importance of finding the best real estate website builder to embody your brand and make a powerful statement that your services are a cut above the rest is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, actually finding the perfect real estate website builder to work with isn’t as straightforward.
In this guide, we go over all the hallmarks of a great real estate website builder and the five best real estate website builders in the industry today.
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Choosing the right real estate website builder
Just like the right listing or client, there are specific features to look for in the perfect real estate website builder. Here are six key traits any website builder worth their salt should offer.
Comprehensive media support
First impressions last forever, and your website is no exception. When potential clients land on your website, they won’t read through your agent bio or service list first. Nine times out of 10, the first thing they’ll notice is the media on your homepage.
Whether you offer virtual tours, use drone photography, or only photograph perfectly staged homes, the media you include on your website should be high-quality, seamlessly integrated, and attention-grabbing.
Outstanding design and optimization abilities
Like the luxury homes you sell, your website design needs a sophisticated, clean look that will appeal to your high-profile clients. However, an aesthetic design is not the only goal.
More than 59% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. And a user interface that looks amazing on a desktop might not translate well to the smaller screens of most smartphones.
A great real estate website builder should offer a mobile responsive design that not only makes your site look great on a cellphone but also optimizes page load times for smaller, less powerful devices.
Seamless IDX integration
The Internet Data Exchange (IDX) allows you to import listings from your local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) database directly to their websites. It’s the number one tool used to create up-to-date, searchable listing pages.
Any real estate website builder worth your consideration should offer seamless IDX integration and support.
Intelligent lead-capturing features
No matter how much traffic your website draws, without lead-capturing capabilities that traffic means very little. The best real estate website builders all offer a variety of lead generation and capturing tools and features.
Powerful SEO abilities
Search engine optimization (SEO) is how your website draws organic traffic. Choosing a real estate website builder that offers SEO-focused web design and content can set you apart from even the most beautifully designed websites that don’t use SEO.
Impeccable technical support
There is nothing more frustrating than clicking on a website and landing on a page that’s down or registering an error.
If your website is down, new clients won’t be able to reach you, and you won’t get any new leads which means you’ll be losing money and opportunities. A great real estate website builder needs to be on top of technical support and deal with bugs and errors quickly, so your website stays up and running no matter the time of day.
The 5 best real estate website builders
With so many different industry-specific website builders available, we’ve compiled a list of the five best options out there for luxury real estate agents today.
1. Luxury Presence
Trusted by over 20 of the WSJ’s Top 100 Agents, Luxury Presence is a full-service web design and content creation firm specializing in luxury real estate.
Luxury Presence takes the guesswork out of creating a stunning real estate website that prioritizes lead generation and making your site work for you. As part of their real estate website design services, Luxury Presence offers:
- Award-winning, completely customizable designs. Every website Luxury Presence builds is uniquely tailored to showcase your brand image and excite your clients.
- A focus on catering to luxury clientele. The Luxury Presence website design team is highly experienced in working with real estate agents in the upscale property market. They know exactly what works and what doesn’t when it comes to appealing to luxury property buyers and sellers, and the websites they design reflect that perfectly.
- High-converting IDX integration. Luxury Presence’s IDX home search tools are built in-house. This means the IDX tools they incorporate in their websites aren’t only geared toward lead generation and capture, but they are fast, visually appealing, and built with SEO in mind.
- Industry-leading SEO services. As a dual website design and content marketing firm, Luxury Presence knows how to harness SEO to get its websites to the top of Google search results in some of the most competitive markets in the world.
- Fully responsive designs. No matter what device your clients use to browse your website, Luxury Presence ensures the experience is equally as interactive, engaging, and beautiful across the board.
As a highly-specialized, niche website builder in the luxury real estate industry, Luxury Presence caters directly to high-end property agents’ most pressing concerns. Their websites check all of the boxes while also placing an emphasis on ROI. The reason for building a world-class real estate website is to generate more business, after all.
2. Squarespace
With over 100 different templates to choose from, Squarespace offers nearly endless opportunities for customization and differentiation.
However, as a website builder that caters to all industries, Squarespace falls short of the real estate-specific features like IDX integration and SEO that put Luxury Presence at the top of this list.
Despite these drawbacks, Squarespace is still one of the best website builders for real estate agents out there and offers several sought-after features:
- Simple, customizable designs. Although Squarespace has more than 100 templates to choose from, they’ve identified five designs that are best suited to real estate. Using one of these options, you can build a sleek, media-centered website that allows you to show off your properties and listings.
- Easy-to-use lead-capturing features. Lead-capturing tools like pop-ups and contact forms come built into their website themes.
3. Duda
Known for its beautiful templates and focus on lead conversion, Duda is a great choice for real estate agents looking for a simple yet effective website to call their own.
Although only available as part of certain website design plans, Duda offers several great features for real estate agents to take advantage of, including:
- Full customization capabilities. With complete editing abilities, agents can tweak and adjust nearly any aspect of the theme they choose to suit their business and brand.
- Simple lead-capturing tools like email subscriptions and contact forms.
One major limitation of using Duda for a real estate website is that it does not have a native IDX functionality. With Duda, you’ll have to use a third-party agency to build a custom widget so you can include IDX on your site.
4. GoDaddy
With a variety of great real estate website templates to choose from, GoDaddy has solidified its position on the top five list of best real estate website builders. With GoDaddy, you can register domains, access hosting services, and design your website all in one place.
The platform also offers the following industry-specific features:
- Impressive design functionality. Customizing templates and creating new pages is incredibly simple thanks to GoDaddy’s user-friendly website-building platform.
- Built-in SEO features. Among others, tools like Search Engine Visibility make implementing SEO on your GoDaddy website quick and easy.
However, like other runners-up on this list, GoDaddy does not specialize in real estate website building, and its IDX integration abilities fall far short of the standard Luxury Presence set.
5. Wix
Wix offers much more template variety than most general website-building platforms. Its beginner-friendly user interface also makes it great for new real estate agents who need a simple, DIY option to build their own websites.
Some of Wix’s most powerful web design features include:
- Unique lead-capturing tools. On top of the standard contact forms and email marketing pop-ups, Wix offers additional options like dynamic maps and online scheduling for virtual tours via Zoom.
- Easy design customization. Wix’s drag-and-drop tool makes editing and customizing your website extremely easy, although this simplicity does somewhat limit the level of customization you can achieve.
- Proprietary SEO tools. Wix’s SEO Wiz provides individualized SEO recommendations for your site to help you rank better and draw more traffic.
Unfortunately, IDX is also where Wix falls short of the convenience and specificity provided by Luxury Presence.
Real Estate Website Builder FAQs
What is the best way to make a real estate website?
Although DIYing your real estate website may be tempting, the best way to design a stunning, high-converting website is to outsource the process to an experienced website design team that specializes in the industry.
Do realtors really need a website?
The majority of property buyers start their search for a real estate agent online. Without a website, you risk losing out on the additional business the internet creates.
How much does it cost to design a real estate website?
Website building costs vary greatly based on whether you’re using a DIY platform or outsourcing the entire process. It also depends on the complexity of the website you require and the features you’d like to include. Contacting any of the website builders on the list above should give you a good idea of what to expect cost-wise.