Your real estate website should be the epitome of professionalism.

Why? Because websites reflect their owners. So if a real estate website is sloppy and full of errors, readers will think the same of the agent behind the site. And who wants an error-prone agent helping them with something as important as buying or selling a home?

Take hyperlinks, for example. A website with broken links does not inspire confidence. It does not convey attention to detail, which is what people look for in a real estate agent.

The Reason for Broken Hyperlinks
Broken hyperlinks happen for several reasons: (A) The link points to a file that no longer exists. (B) The link points to a file that has moved. (C) The link is written incorrectly.

Regardless of why broken hyperlinks happen, you should make sure they don't find their way into your real estate website. When you do find them, correct them immediately.

Broken links say a lot about a website, and none of it's good. They say...

• This is an amateur, unprofessional site.
• This site is not managed by anyone. (Known as the "ghost-town effect")
• The owner of this site has no attention to detail.
• The owner of this site does not care about the site.

Checking for Broken Hyperlinks
Obviously, you don't want your visitors to think any of these things. So conduct a daily walk-through of your website -- weekly at the least. Click on all the links (especially those that link to off-site information, as this information may have been moved without your knowledge). Make sure all images display properly.

A weekly review will only take you two or three minutes, depending on how large your website is. But no matter how long it takes, it's essential.

How to Automate the Process
For a faster and more thorough approach, enter each of your web page URLs into the link checker at this site: www.validator.w3.org/checklink. It will perform an automated diagnostic check of the hyperlinks on every page.

Some of the errors the program returns will merely be recommendations. You can be the judge of that. But it's a quick way to check links for basic functionality -- especially on larger sites with a lot of links and pages.

* Copyright 2006, Brandon Cornett. You may republish this article in its entirety (and unaltered), provided you keep the hyperlinks active and include the byline and author's note.