Many real estate professionals have been recently asking themselves a foundational question: is it possible to be a real estate professional without a website in the age of the Internet?
As you might anticipate, the response is a resounding “no” and with good reason: it’s important to remember that 90 percent of completed real estate transactions in developed economies start on the internet. Furthermore, a whopping 89 percent of sellers look for a real estate expert on the Internet. Almost nine in every ten sellers!
There’s no way any real estate professional worth his salt is going to pass up the opportunity to generate so many leads. Today, having access to the Internet is a must. And you’ll need a website dedicated to your real estate agency, branches, or network of agents in order to establish a truly successful business with future potential for continued growth and success.
If your real estate business doesn’t have a website, it is more than time to start, especially since it is very likely your competitors are already on the Internet and are capturing parts of the real estate market that you might be far better poised to serve!
But how do you go about it? Creating a website isn’t always easy and straightforward, much less a real estate website. And real estate agents don’t have a lot of experience working with complicated technologies, so it can be a reasonably complex endeavour when you’re starting out.
The easiest way is to use an excellent PSD to WP service from software houses like Acclaim Agency to get your project done, but you can also absolutely do it on your own. Here is what you absolutely need to know before creating a real estate website that is both an excellent vehicle to showcase your portfolio and conclude deals.
#1 Outline What You Want to Achieve with Your Website Clearly
It is frequently stated that a real estate professional’s website is crucial because you can use it as a portfolio. Websites are commonly referred to as a “digital storefront,” as if it’s as simple as transferring your physical shop to the internet.
This is partially correct but it misses the mark, especially when it comes to real estate. Because the “showcase” section of your real estate agency website probably accounts for around 20% of its true value. The remaining 80% is made up of anything that enables your site to not just be a glorified slideshow but actually capable of driving sales.
While it is true that at the beginning most real estate websites will be primarily viewed as a way to reach a broader audience. Success at this phase is often measured by how many times users view your property ads. However, your website needs to evolve beyond that.
You need to come up with more objective and relevant ways to measure your website’s success (key performance indicators), and with time, learn how to use the data users generate while interacting with your website to learn market sentiments and improve your ads.
To reiterate: it is important to ask yourself, what’s your purpose when building this website? Almost no real estate agent will answer, “I just want people to view my portfolio.” Rather, most agents care about driving sales, finding new properties, and growing their business. So, make sure you measure success correctly when building and tuning your digital platform.
#2 Understand Your Target Demographic
Have you defined your targets? The audiences you want to reach? The categories of prospects you want to create?
If you haven’t yet, forget about the question of how to create a real estate website and focus on
Understanding your typical client. That’s a far more foundational topic you need to understand before you even begin writing a single line of code for your website. Because your website will have to meet the needs and expectations of your clients, and you can’t meet their needs and expectations if you don’t know anything about them.
Reaching the right audience helps you better design your website and come up with better messaging. Both of which will guarantee you a higher rate and volume of conversions.
Therefore, ask yourself these essential questions to get a rough sketch of the targets you want to reach:
- Is your real estate business B2C (individuals) or B2B (companies, for example, if you work with construction companies, businesses, etc.)?
- What’s your client’s socioeconomic status, their profession?
- What are their needs? their expectations?
- In which geographical areas are they located?
#3 Outline the Key Features That You Need to be Included in Your Website
To be able to create a successful website, you have to have a complete understanding of which features are essential. Usually, the first step to creating a successful real estate website is writing a detailed specification report of the project.
To start with, you have to remember that one of the primary functions of your website is to act as a portfolio that showcases your business. To properly do that, your site must display certain key information that it is better to plan to integrate in advance:
- A contact page with your agency’s details;
- A presentation page of your agency/network (with a bit of storytelling, it’s always good for branding);
- Pages to present your services;
- A page dedicated to your team: this will reinforce the “human” aspect of your agency;
- A geolocation feature, so that prospects can find you easier;
- Customer reviews. Important to build trust and help with SEO.
- Figures about your agency; This helps establish your authority in the domain of your work.
These are the barebone features that you need, but they’re a good foundation to build off of.
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