Whether you have a real estate agent website or are looking to get one, take a few minutes to understand these important best practices and take a look at some examples provided.
An agent website that ticks all four of these boxes – answers questions, captures leads, features listings and works well on all devices – can help you build your online brand, stand out from your competition and generate a significant amount of sales.
Answer Questions
Where do most people go when they want an answer to a question these days? That’s right, Google. So when a visitor lands on your website via a Google search, it’s likely because they’re looking for an answer to a specific real estate related question. You want to make it easy for website visitors to get the answer to the question that brought them to your website in the first place, quickly and accurately.
The best way to do this is with informative, easy-to-follow, professionally written content. This agent website is a good example. First off, it has entire sections dedicated purely to educating visitors on buying and selling, with individual webpages explaining everything from selecting an agent to arranging financing to closing the sale. Secondly, it has a built-in blog that features professional content about a range of real estate related topics. Blogging is an effective way to establish yourself as an expert in all things home and real estate related.
Think of your agent website as an opportunity to share your knowledge and expertise with prospects and clients. Offering helpful information about buying and selling is a great way to answer common questions which helps establish trust and confidence by positioning you as the expert that you are.
Having relevant, informative (meaning “not-salesy”) written content on your website and blog also contributes to positive search engine rankings, which means more traffic to your website and more traffic means more inquires, especially if your website is setup to capture leads.
Capture Leads
As a real estate agent looking to grow your business, the primary goal of your website is to generate sales leads online. Having lead capture forms for buyers, sellers, home evaluations, and more on your website is essential to attracting and capturing high quality sales leads.
Capturing leads is just the first step. You need to be able to act on them quickly so that you don’t miss an opportunity. While many DIY website builders include lead capture forms, very few enable you to action your leads immediately by automatically adding them to a CRM database for you.
The benefit of automatically adding all of your website leads to a real estate CRM is that you can decide what happens to the leads next. For example, you can set rules to send an automated follow-up to your leads, assign leads to a drip email nurture campaign, a monthly e-Newsletter – or all of the above. With all of your leads in a CRM with email marketing functionality, your leads will get the immediate and focused attention they need to convert into clients.
A quality lead will never “fall through the cracks” again.
Feature Listings
To take the lead generation power of your agent website to the next level, consider featuring listings. Whether they’re your own listings or general listings in your local area, giving your website visitors the capability to search and inquire about specific listings turns your website into a lead generation machine.
Take this agent website as an example. It has a property search bar front and center at the top of each page. It also has a webpage dedicated to showcasing featured listings and a page with a detailed property search by map, open houses and advanced criteria. Each property listing presents multiple ways for a prospect to get in touch, including schedule a showing and requesting more info buttons.
No agent has time or budget to work with a web developer to keep property listings up-to-date on their website. Luckily, there’s an easy and affordable way to integrate listings into an agent website and keep them current called IDX integration. It automatically pulls SEO-optimized listings directly into your website so that visitors can find the home of their dreams without leaving your site, and you can enjoy a flow of valuable leads.
Make it Mobile Friendly
Studies suggest that more than 70% of consumers search for and visit real estate websites on smartphones and tablets. When you pair this with the fact that mobile friendly websites rank higher in Google search results, it’s crystal clear that your real estate agent website absolute must be mobile friendly.
Check out this agent website on your smartphone and tablet. It loads quickly, you don’t have to pinch of zoom to read the content and its super easy to navigate. It’s also important to note that submitting a lead capture form on your smartphone is just as easy as it is on a desktop. This is the experience you want to offer your website visitors, no matter what device they’re using.
When you’re evaluating your options for creating a real estate agent website, be sure to select a vendor that ensures your website will display quickly and properly on all devices.
IXACT Contact makes it quick and easy to create your own agent website that builds your online brand and generates leads. Stand out from the crowd with an attractive and engaging website powered by IXACT Contact!
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