The competition in the real estate industry is tough. And if you don’t make moves to stand out, your company will only fade into the background, along with dozens of other “nondescript” real estate companies. Learn what differentiates the best real estate broker websites from mediocre ones.
Real Estate Marketing
Marketing your company through showing flashy ads, giving out fliers, handing out freebies, and making phone calls may provide some value. Still, they cannot replace the advantages of having a well-crafted website.
Websites, especially in the real estate industry, are invaluable tools for any company that wants to boost its productivity. In fact, statistics show that 93% of people visit websites when buying a home.
As consumers tend to lose interest within the first 15 seconds of visiting a website, you only have a short window to catch their attention. You have to do everything you can to engage them within that short period or risk losing business.
To create your own engaging real estate website, it’s a good idea to study how the most successful companies did it. By looking at each of them, we found eight traits that they have in common that you can also adapt.
Table of Contents
Modern and Mobile Friendly
It’s no secret that most people spend a significant amount of their time on their phones every day. Also, 73% of buyers use their mobile devices to search for homes to purchase. Hence, making your website mobile-friendly should be a top priority.
But it shouldn’t be just available; your website must also look orderly and professional. See to it that your website has the following features:
- Clean, organized design
- Ample white space and enough room between different elements
- Easily readable font, at least 16px large
- Home link on top of every page
- Contact information, preferably a clickable link
- Eye-catching high-resolution photos of listings
- Real, high definition videos
Has targeted content to engage with customers
You want your visitors to see what they are looking for right when they click on your website. Put valuable content on your homepage, preferably “above the fold,” or the visible space when the page loads without having to scroll down.
These are examples of valuable content that should appear on your website:
- Top navigation containing links for buyers, sellers, listings, and about us page.
- Built-in home search engine
- A comparative market analysis tool
- Featured listing from the local MLS
- Newsletter registration section
Make sure that your content is always up to date. The last thing you want to do is to break a customer’s trust by providing false or outdated information.
Easy to find contact information
This one applies not only to real estate websites but also to all businesses, in general.
Firstly, your business address, email address, and contact numbers must always be included at the bottom part of every page throughout your website. It is standard practice, so your visitors would expect to find them there when they need your contact information. However, you can also put them in other areas as long as they make sense, like on your About Us page.
Adding a Contact Us page on your website will make it easier for your visitors to contact you since not everyone will readily call or email you upon visiting your website.
Lastly, you can ask people to give their contact information in exchange for an incentive such as email alerts for newly listed properties, a sign-up form for an e-newsletter, or a free buyer or sellers’ guide. These forms of lead capture are effective in generating leads and converting sales.
Has high-quality photos and rich media
Your potential customers won’t appreciate the true beauty of each listing on your website if you don’t showcase them in the best way possible.
In fact, you can go beyond providing some photos, floor plans, a detailed description of each property. Hiring professional photographers who can artistically capture every important section of a property can go a long way. High-quality photos are well-appreciated by buyers. You can also provide video walkthroughs and interactive 3D tours to let your buyers see the whole picture of a property and engage them.
Consistent with your brand identity
The most prominent real estate websites present themselves online with consistency across all platforms. Make sure that all the information you show on each of them is the same to avoid confusion. Use the same photo on all your profiles, clearly display your logo, use only your brand colors, and be sure that the links to your social media profiles are always working.
Apart from the visual side of your branding, you should also be consistent with your brand voice. The way you communicate with your audience through all platforms should reflect your company’s identity.
Easy to navigate
If you want to deliver a good user experience, your web design should be navigation-friendly that your visitors can “jump” quickly from your homepage to any other page on your website.
Make your homepage accessible from all the pages on your site. Put your navigation buttons where users can see them easily, ideally at the top of the homepage and at the bottom. Add links that lead to other pages and features that users can see even as they scroll down the pages.
Has multiple calls to action
It would be best if you never forgot to include on your website calls to action or CTA.
CTAs are among the best tools you can use with your website. They are the ones that prompt your visitors to engage with you and directly impact your conversion rates. A CTA can be as subtle as a “Read more” button that encourages your visitors to spend more time on your website or as bold as “Book your viewing now,” which hooks them in.
By having multiple CTAs on different parts of your website, you can prompt visitors at any stage of their buying journey. For example, if they are still unsure about their decision to purchase a house in an area, your “Contact us” CTA may give them a little push to take the next step.
As a reminder, make sure that your CTAs always direct your visitors to where they would expect them to, whether they are using a computer or a mobile device.
Has targeted SEO
Even if your website already has all the characteristics mentioned above, they would still not matter if you’re not getting any traffic. If you want to receive traffic, incorporating search engine optimization (SEO) into your website is your best option.
Not being on the first page or top 10 of search engine results puts you in a bad position to attract visitors since almost 90% of online users only click what’s on the top of the results page. Therefore, your goal must be to rank higher in Google, Bing, or other search engines to acquire customers better.
SEO allows your website to be more visible, helping you build a more online presence and increase organic traffic on your website. Furthermore, it will enable you to target the right audience using the right keywords.
For example, instead of optimizing to rank high for the keyword, “houses for sale in Northern California,” you can opt for a more local target like “homes for sale in Downtown Sacramento.”
Furthermore, as you target the right market, you generate more qualified leads. And by creating quality content with SEO, you exhibit your business expertise to your target audience. They will start to trust you more and see you as an authority in real estate. As a result, you’ll rank higher in search engine results as well. Overall, this is what sets apart the best real estate broker websites.
