In 4 days I received 54 leads on this site. I can teach you to do it to!

Spring is in the air and with that comes the spring real estate market! I know in many places in the country the market is hotter than it has been in years. Now is the time to kick your marketing into high gear. But before you do it you should do some spring cleaning on your marketing.

Here are 5 tips to improve your current marketing tools and give them a good spring clean:

1. Home Page

How does the home page of your website look? Is it dated or fresh looking? I think a lot of real estate websites have too much going on with their home page. It makes it hard for a visitor to know where to look or what to do next.

Take a look at your home page. What items can you remove to make it look cleaner? What do you want your prospects to experience when they first see your website?

Here are a few things I recommend doing to your home page:

• Remove the featured properties. This makes the page look cluttered.
• If you have a scroll box with pictures make sure the pictures fill the box and don’t look distorted.
• Change your welcome message on the home page. Most messages are dated or canned content. Stand out and do something different!
• Make sure your contact information can easily be found. It is ideal to put it in the top right hand corner of your website.
• Check your social media links on your home page. Are they up-to-date? Also don’t bury them on your website. Include them in the header.

2. About Page

The about page of your website is the most viewed page on your site. People are drawn to it because they want to know who you are before they give you information. They want to connect with you. Yet the about page is the worst one done on almost every site on the web. It feels unnatural to talk about ourselves and it’s uncomfortable. But if you invest time in doing it right you will make better connections with your website visitors.

Here are a few tips to revamp your about page:

• If you wrote in third person using your name or he/she, change it to first person. Third person on individual agents sites sounds unnatural and forced. And well just kind of awkward.
• Be yourself. Don’t try to copy another agent’s about page or write things that you think people want to hear. Be you and write like you talk. It will help people feel more connected to you.
• Interview yourself. Write out a list of questions for yourself and then answer them. This conversational style will read much better than the typical about page.
• Be different. Don’t just talk about your awesome sales on your about page. Or that you love working with buyers and sellers. Talk about why you love real estate. Talk about what you do in your personal life. Be a real person and be different.

3. Social Media Profiles

I think we are all guilty of signing up for social media and then never updating our information. I know I am bad at this! Take a moment to review each of your profiles to make sure they are current.

Here are a few things to look for:

• Facebook personal page: Do you have a header photo that reflects you and your brand? Do you identify yourself as an agent without overdoing it?
• Facebook business page: Do you use it all or does it seem to be just a placeholder? If you don’t use it then get rid of it. Pages that aren’t updated look worse than not having a page at all.
• Twitter Profile: Is your profile fresh or could it use some new content? Do you have a nice header graphic? Also are you sending people back to your website through a link in your profile?
• LinkedIn: Do you have your current information on your profile? Do you have recommendations from your past clients?

4. Photo

I like bringing up outdated real estate photos as much as I can. Please get your photo updated once a year! Please! Like a fine wine you get better with age so have a new photo taken and then update your marketing. When you get a new photo don’t do the standard head shots either. Mix it up and have fun with it. This is where a professional photographer will come in handy!

5. Email Signature

Your email signature can drive leads for your real estate business. But it has to be updated every once and awhile. I love using WiseStamp to make my email signature standout. You can include links to your social media profiles and links back to your website. I like using the links to my website to drive people back to my landing page. This is how I drive leads from my email signature.

Ideas to include in your email signature are:

• Links to your landing pages
• Requests to connect on social media
• Your professional photo
• Your latest blog post or post on LinkedIn

It feels good when we first launch a new marketing tool. We are excited about it and think it is just perfect. Then time goes by and we forget about it. Unfortunately when this happens our materials end up looking dated and aren’t a true reflection of who we are as business owners. Take the time to give your marketing tools a good spring cleaning. Plus when you do it’s an opportunity to reconnect with clients and show them your updates!

What do you need to spring clean in your marketing? Please tell me about it in the comments below!