As an Estate Agent it is important to give off an excellent first impression. I am sure that you have office rules which are followed such as; Greet clients within a certain length of time, keep the office presentable and dress appropriately, this is all to create a good image of your company.
Many Estate Agents think that this is enough to be successful. But did you know that 94% of home buyers start their search online. So, in fact over 90% of the time your website is the first thing that clients see of your business. This is why it is essential to have your website professionally designed and built to give off the best possible first impression and to stay ahead of the competition.
A ‘Do it yourself’ website is not recommended as it is unlikely to look professional and will probably present your clients with problems and glitches during their property searches.
So, you have decided to create your website yourself and have found some free templates online to choose from, how can you go wrong, right? In most instances the reason for creating a DIY website is down to cost, so a free template would be the option. Using these templates will make your website look like every other plain and simple boring website out there, how unoriginal. If a common template is used, this is not giving the best impression of your company to users and won’t put you above the fierce competition.
An Estate Agent website needs to look professional and trustworthy. Think about when you are looking for something online, if you come across a website which looks unprofessional, what do you think? That they don’t have the funds to build a professional website? Or that they simply can’t be bothered to generate more leads? This is not an impression that you want to give your clients.
When users are searching online they want to be able to navigate around a website with ease. Unclear, unorganised website navigation will leave the user clicking through every page to find what they are looking for. However it’s unlikely that a user will do this because they haven’t found what they’re looking for and go to one of your competitors instead.
Internet users like to find what they are looking for as quickly as possible so it is important that desired information can be found by the least amount of clicks, in a matter of seconds. This can be really hard to achieve without expert help.
Call to actions (CTA’s) are prompts of suggesting that the user takes action. A CTA could be a pop up enquiry form or a button such as ‘subscribe to our newsletter’ and they are usually a link or button. Not having CTA’s on your website should not be an option as this will lose you a lot of business, you could be advertising something brilliant, but if there is nowhere for the user to easily leave details then they are likely to leave the site. If you offer a free valuation, you could strategically place CTA’s on your website to get the user to request the free property valuation. This is something estate agencies don’t often use to its full potential.
Over 52% of global online traffic comes through a mobile device, this is a huge amount. Statistically over half of your website traffic will be using a mobile device. So, if your website is not fully mobile responsive you could lose half of your potential business. Would you know how to make a website mobile responsive? We do, contact us today to find out how we can help your estate agency succeed online.
It’s important that your property website is ranking high in Google’s search results, this is an essential part of growing your business. Think about when you are searching on Google for something, it is unlikely that you are going to go through to page 10 of the search results when you can find what you are looking for on the first page.
If a client searches for ‘estate agents in [your local area]’ and your website does not show on the first page, it’s the equivalent sending a potential client who walks into your office to a competitor down the road. If Google can’t find your website, neither will your clients. Trying to optimise your estate agency website yourself can be very difficult, time consuming and potentially damaging. Using an experienced SEO professional will get you noticed in search engine results in no time!
Are you making any of these common website mistakes on your estate agency website? If the answer is yes then you need professional help you get your back on track. Contact us today for more information.
