Updated, March 12, 2020

During these unprecedented times, it can be hard to find your footing. While many of us learn how to run our businesses from our home offices, this is a good time to get our online presence in order.

Now, more than ever, you need to focus on getting leads, and ensuring that while they visit your site, they are having the best possible experience.

Part of this is taking a good look at your website, and taking the time (while you have it) to clean it up, to ensure your leads are spending as much time on your pages as possible.

As you are practicing social distancing and working from home, so are they. And they have much more time on their hands to prepare to buy or sell their homes, once the fears of the crisis

If you don't have an SSL certificate on your website, you need to change that.

Once a nice-to-have, SSL certificates are now as necessary as having a URL.
You can not, should not, and will not have a successful website without one.

Althought Google led the way, other browsers are following suit: your site will be penalized severely without the proper security settings in place. Let's go through some of the most commonly asked questions about SSL certificates:

Do I Need an SSL Certificate for my website?

Yes. Absolutely. Oui. Sì. Shì. Ja. Ae. Yebo. Hai.

An SSL certificate is way to tell both your website visitors and search engines that your site is safe, and secure. Without one, Google (and other search engines) will mark your site as

IDX apps are a powerful tool for your business. They can help engage potential and existing clients, improve brand loyalty, and get people addicted to your services. But to get the most benefit, you need to know when to promote your app and how to use it within your existing workflow. Timing is everything.

Typical journey of buyers & sellers

First, let's talk real quick about the basic digital journey that almost every buyer and seller takes:

1. Search online

When someone decides to buy or sell a house, they tend to start in one of two places: referrals or web searches. In either scenario, the person is trying to find more information about the real estate process.

People who don't want to start with an agent will search terms like

So it’s the end of 2019 and we're coming into the beginning of 2020.

I’m headed over to one of my favourite conferences, the One C21 conference for Century 21 Canada.

Before I head out, I touch base with our customers. I send out a blast email letting them know about a new CRM, a new promo etc (you know doing my sales & marketing thing) and for those that write back I also ask them a very important question.

“How has your experience with REW been so far?”

I ask because I genuinely want to know. I want to make sure we’re as good as we can be, but also since I know I’m headed to a conference where we have hundreds of customers, I need to be prepared to work on any relationships that need love. "Run towards any problems” that is what Tim from my

Having your own home search app offers an unprecedented level of client engagement. Over the past few months, we’ve seen huge adoption of the branded REW IDX App by top agents and brokers.

But how do you get your branded real estate app into the hands of home buyers?

We’ve assembled a list of actions that you can take today to get more people downloading and using your app.

But First... What is REW IDX App?

REW IDX App is a branded home search app for agents and brokers.

We've previously discussed why every real estate agent and brokerage should have their own app.

In short, apps offer a superior mobile experience, they drive customer engagement and follow-up, and they showcase you as a market-leading innovator.

But, you don't receive

It’s no secret that REW clients have a knack for personalizing our platforms, and Vision is no exception to the rule.

Thinking about a Vision, or looking for a fresh perspective to breathe new life into your existing site? Check out our list of some of the most innovative and effective Vision sites thus far.

Custom Vision Sites

While Vision is designed to provide an immersive brand experience and attract quality leads straight out of the box, here’s a shortlist of our clients who have chosen to take their sites to the next level with a few custom tweaks.

Military Home Search

militaryhomesearch.com

The Military Home Search team uses key customizations to cater perfectly to their niche: military relocation.

From helping you find

This article is part of a series about real estate PPC. We highly encourage you to read the entire guide as it's released. Follow us on Facebook to stay up to date!

• Part 1: What is PPC?
• Part 2: How Much Does Real Estate PPC Cost?
• Part 3: The ROI of Real Estate PPC (and How to Improve It)
• Part 4: To be continued...

It's the first question we're always asked when an agent or brokerage is considering PPC:

"What's my expected cost per lead?"

To be honest, there's no simple answer. But, by answering the following questions, we can get a pretty close approximation and help you understand the mystery behind the cost of PPC:

1. How does the Google Ads auction work?
2. Cost Per Click: What is the expected CPC in real estate?

We live in a world that's downright obsessed with smartphones, tablets, and overall screen time.

And yet, apps are nearly ignored completely by most real estate businesses. But they're starting to gain popularity with the heavy hitters. Zillow, Realtor.com, and Redfin now have mobile apps.

It's time for agents to step up and take advantage of this underutilized marketing channel.

Why would an agent need both an app and a website?

As a real estate tech provider, we had to ask ourselves this question.

When we did, we found overwhelming evidence that we should be building apps too, which is why we created the REW IDX App for iOS and Android.

Here's what convinced us:

1. Apps provide a better user experience.

Remember the main reason

So this month I decided to join our sales manager in a really fun sales contest against our entire sales team. You can read about the contest at this facebook post (please feel free to share).

As I've started to discuss projects (especially large custom projects or upgrades) the subject of the "queue" comes up. IE what is the wait time to get a project started / completed?

People are often surprised by the answer (and that is there is a pretty long waiting list) and someone today asked me to explain why. 

Because part of my contest is social media; in the spirit of transparency and because I feel I will be able to reach the most people by putting in extra effort in more robust content that I can then share for the benefit of all, I've decided to write a

If there's one contentious issue when it comes to real estate websites, it's registration settings. Some agents swear by forced registration and others shudder at the mere mention of the words.

The purpose of this blog is to provide a powerful example of how forced registration can impact real estate lead generation in a big way.

What is Forced Registration?

Before we jump into our experiment, let's clarify exactly what it is we mean by "forced registration." In this case, we mean that users are required to provide their email and phone number before they're able to browse a single listing on your website. To be clear, this is totally non-optional registration—the user has to either fill out the form to view a listing or back out of the page.