We’re going to skip the part here where the need for having a website is a necessity for a realtor, because really there likely isn’t even so much as one realtor in Canada who doesn’t have their own website. Not all of them will be equal, of course, and not all of them will be as effectively built and oriented as others when it comes to generating business.
Here at Real Estate Leads, our online real estate lead generation system is proven effective for giving realtors buyer and seller leads that they can follow up on and make important connection with prospective clients. That much you’re likely very aware of by now, but today we’re going to look at lead generation from a different perspective; your real estate website, and how it’s either helping or hindering you in that regard.
Fact is every real estate website needs to have a plan to get people to it, and certain elements of a website can render the most beautiful web design or the most effective online marketing plan totally ineffective. Today we’re going to share what you need to know to ensure your website is actually AT WORK for you, rather than just being a nice reference point for clients who find you online
Consider Your Web Lead Form
One of the most vital components of any real estate website is the web lead form. Understand that any form on your real estate website that requests information from your visitors; name, e-mail, phone, address or anything else, will be a major factor in how well your website generates leads for you. Having one that’s poorly designed can mean the difference between a trickle of leads a month and a healthy volume of them.
If you’re not getting what you would consider to be an acceptable number of visitors filling out your lead form, you need to dig into why that’s the case. The first thing you need to do is take a count of how many visitors you’re receiving to the site each month, which should be viewable in your control panel, or CP as it’s most commonly referred to. It’s also beneficial to make yourself familiar with some of the more advanced data you can view there; ‘bounce rates’ – a measure of the number of visitors who leave your website within a short, specific period of time after arrival – most notably.
But we won’t get into that here today, and stay focused on your lead form. The long and short of it is that it shouldn’t take visitors an extended period of time to fill it out. As a rule, it shouldn’t take more than 3 to 5 minutes at most to complete it. Fill it out yourself with your own contact details and some made up information for the buyer / seller prerogative field and see how long it takes you. If it takes you more than 5 minutes to complete it then you need to revisit it.
Many realtors seem to find that name, preferred contact method, and then something along the lines of a ‘home buying / selling interests’ dialog box does just fine. Having a message below the box with something like ‘I’ll be in touch with regarding your real estate inquiry in the very near future’ is recommended as well.
KISS: Keep it Super Simple
The rule for ALL forms on your site should follow the KISS – Keep it Super Simple- principle. It’s smart to ask this question to yourself for each and every field that you add to a page on the site; is this field absolutely needed for me to learn necessary information about the prospective client? Ask yourself what additional information can be acquired over the phone or through an email.
Look at the purpose of your website forms as a means of having a lead submitted with the bare minimum necessary to qualify it as a good one. Then proceed to contact the would-be client without delay and take it from there. Taking this approach, you’ll likely eliminate at least one field, and maybe even more.
Improve Wording of Questions
Even for information that is deemed necessary, it may be better to ask for it in a different way, and one that is more conducive to getting a favourable response from the submitter. For example, rather than asking bluntly ‘are you planning to sell your home in the next 6 months’ it might be better to ask ‘do your foresee yourself being active in the real estate market in the next 6 months.’ This type of delivery is less ‘salesy’ and helps you come across as being more genuinely interested in being of assistance rather than exclusively having a sell home-gain commission focus.
That’s just one example, but really give some thought to this.
Experimenting is Beneficial
This is a much more general suggestion, but if your real estate website isn’t generating the number of leads you’re expecting to see of it then you should ‘shake things up’ every once in a while until it does. The aforementioned suggestions here are very directive ones, but you can also try changing the layout of pages, adding different images, changing background colours, text fonts, etc. You don’t have to necessarily have a natural eye for design to do this effectively, instead you can just take a trial-and-error approach to it.
That said, dynamic multimedia elements do wonders for websites these days, and if you’re not sure how to implement scrolling images, video, or anything else then hiring a web designer to improve the interactive appeal of your site is a good idea. It’s a proven fact that having a website that is ‘up to standard’ with 21st century digital standards goes a long way in making the impression you want with prospective clients. After all, all that you need is the opportunity to be in contact with them and then you can use your charm and industry expertise to sway the even further.
We’ll conclude here today by saying that many web design companies offer website ‘audits’ of sorts where they’ll look over your site and make suggestions about what should be done to increase the user appeal of it. There is often a nominal fee involved for the service, but many of these individuals or businesses will offer to subtract that fee amount from your bill if you decide to have your website rebuilt by them. Shop around for that type of offer if need be.
Sign up for Real Estate Leads here and receive a guaranteed monthly quota of qualified, online-generated buyer and / or seller leads delivered exclusively to you each month for your similarly exclusive region of any city or town in Canada. Pair it with a quality personal real estate website and you’ll be in a great position to be receiving as many leads as possible as your strive to build your business and brand as a trusted real estate professional.
