With 78% of home buyers starting their home search on the Internet, real estate professionals have embraced websites and an Internet presence in a big way. Let’s face it, you need to be where the consumers are and that means the Internet.

But how many of the hundreds of thousands of real estate websites actually bring in business and generate income. I don’t have statistics, but my gut, along with discussions with agents I come into contact with as a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, tells me not many.

Rismedia.com published a great article about the 10 website “must-haves” needed to ensure success a successful and profitable website. I have included these ‘must-haves’ along with insights of my own:

1. Remember: There Is But One True Goal - Sales

If you have, or are planning to create a website, it is essential that you keep in mind that the only goal of a website, ultimately, is sales. Don’t get caught up in the vanity or technology surrounding websites (which is all too easy to do). Make sure everything on your real estate website is oriented toward your “One True Goal.”

In the early days of the Internet, websites were no more than an on-line business card with attention focused on the agent. We have learned the consumer doesn’t care about ‘you.’ He cares about ‘what is in it for me.’ Today’s websites need to give the consumer what he wants and what he wants is to look at homes.

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The old adage is ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ Most of us in the real estate industry believe this to be true and offer the consumer numerous photos of a property to look at with virtual tours, single property websites, video tours and the like. One would think if one picture is worth a thousand words, then 20 pictures must be worth 20 thousand words…but is this really the case?

I must say, I had never given it much thought, either as a licensed Realtor or as a Virtual Assistant, until I read an Inman article, Too much exposure can be a bad thing? The article asks the question, Is it possible that too many pictures online is preventing buyers from looking at your property and therefore a bad thing? There are 2 very different schools of thought on this question.

Point2Agent has released a new study measuring the effect multiple photos have in marketing of listings. The study researched three variables:

1. Detailed views

2. Interest in terms of interaction with the listing on a Web site (i.e. how many times visitors viewed a virtual tour, viewed the listing on a partner site, completed a mortgage calculation for the property, etc.)

3. Leads generated

The study evaluated all Point2 listings entered into their system during the first quarter of 2008. The sample consisted of more than 100,000 listings and included listings from all 50 states, every Canadian province, plus other countries worldwide. All price ranges were represented.

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If you are like me, you really enjoy hearing about a program that will give you the desired effect in an easier, less expensive way. Picnik Photo Editing, is just that kind of program.

Although I have Adobe Photoshop, I have to admit, I hate using it…probably because I haven’t taken the time to really learn it. But I don’t want to take the time to learn it, either. I want to edit photos in a much simpler way…and Picnik does that.

Picnik is an online program that works with photos stored on your computer or from various programs, such as Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, Myspace, WebShots and FreeWebs. Once click of the mouse brings the photos into Picnik.

The editing features allow you to resize, crop, rotate, remove red-eye sharpen colors and exposure.

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Last night about 9PM, I was working on marketing a listing (Listing Coordination) for one of my clients. Why so late? I have a Team of four real estate Virtual Assistants that work with me. One of them is on vacation this week…something well deserved! And the husband of another is in the hospital. Understandably, she is not focused on her virtual assistant work this week either.

If these women were working as in-house assistants or maybe even working on other virtual assistant Teams, the real estate agent, whose work needed to be completed, would be working on the marketing his listing at 9PM in the evening. NOT so, is this case!!

Because this real estate agent hired myREassistant as his real estate Virtual Assistant, the work was getting done by other people on our Team. The agent didn’t have to worry about it. He knew it would be taken care of.

Do I advertise I work at 9PM in the evening…heck NO. My advertised hours are 9-5 EST, Monday through Friday. But, when there is work to be done that is time sensitive, it gets done one way or the other.

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If you market your real estate listings on Craigs List, you will find the following Inman article interesting. Craigs List is considering limiting the HTML that can be used in post as a way to regulate spammers who embed fake keywords and links into ads:

The online classified service craigslist is contemplating restrictions on HTML formatting to combat cloaked spam links and embedded false keywords in ads – a move that could also make it harder to create slick-looking property listings using third-party applications like vFlyer and postlets.

The proposal to limit the use of HTML to a few basic tags could limit the ability of all craigslist users to create visually sophisticated ads that format information in ways that are easier to grasp, and has sparked a lively debate on the site.

“I love HTML,” says one craigslist user posting on a forum created for discussion of the proposal. “I am a professional and I like to launch one or two postlets a week. They really stand out and help me sell my houses.”

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