Web Tune-Up

This certainly makes sense for a company such as Jim Walter Homes, which targets first-time buyers seeking affordable homes.

According to Crabb, Spanish-speaking families will make up a significant portion of the affordable homes market in the Southeast during the next 10 years. While this is also true in the Southwest and California, builders doing business elsewhere may also want to consider posting Spanish editions, since the influx of Hispanics into the country is no longer a regional trend. Visit the KB Home site for another take on how to create a Spanish version.

Small builders may not want to support an entire version of their site in Spanish, but they might think about posting some basic marketing points and directions in the language. Of course, if you're going to cater to the Hispanic market, you also have to have salespeople and possibly even construction managers on staff who are fluent in Spanish.

Some big builders are trying to make visiting their Web sites a fun experience.

John Laing Homes starts site visitors off with an image of a very cute dog and cat sleeping in front of a fireplace while a folksy, upbeat blues tune plays. Taylor Woodrow Homes, meanwhile, recently became one of the first builders to post podcasts of promotional videos (www.realestatepodcasts-taylorwoodrow.com; clicking on the Taylor Woodrow logo takes visitors to the company's North American site, (www.taylorwoodrowna.com). And Lennar has the Kid's Community, a page designed to make young children feel more comfortable about moving.

“One of the most traumatic things for a child is a move,” says Lennar's Alexander. “The [page] is a warm fuzzy that lets parents tell their kids, ‘We're going to live in a Lennar home, and you can come and play here.' ”

Development for the Kid's Community cost Lennar about $5,000. Taylor Woodrow says production costs for the podcast videos start at $1,500 per segment. If you can't afford thousands of dollars on slick sections for kids or podcasting videos, think about starting your site with a Flash slide show of your best five or six homes and supporting the show with audio. It may still cost you about $2,000, but that's a bit more affordable for smaller builders. One caveat: A Flash slide show is a one-shot deal and would require an update every couple of years. But more buyers looking at your site might make it worth it.