Raj Dosanjh is co-founder of Rentround
Your estate agency’s marketing efforts are not just for gaining traffic to your website, but converting traffic into leads.
You don’t want property sellers to view your site and then leave without you being able to contact them again.
Before they go, you want to capture their contact details so you can engage them in follow up conversations and hopefully get their business for your estate agency.
This guide will give you tips on ensuring you’re maximising leads from your websites traffic.
Wait wait… How do I even get traffic to my site?
How to get traffic to your site is a completely different article, but at a high level traffic is created in two ways.
The first is organic traffic. This is where you’re getting site visitors without paying, usually through ranking well on Google.
Although organic traffic is free, ranking well on Google usually takes time, money and effort, but it can be done. In less than six months letting agent comparison site Rentround managed to rank first for its key term “landlord leads”.
This of course is powerful considering their whole business is geared towards attracting letting agents who want to get more landlord leads.
How to rank well on Google is an article within itself. But in a nutshell it requires website content, other sites talking about you and a well created website.
Paid traffic means, well, traffic that is paid for. The most common methods involve paid Google & social media promotions.
Setting up ads can be tricky and does require knowledge of the Google & social media systems. However there are plenty of free guides out there that can help estate agents make the first steps.
Now, back to getting leads
Not sure how to boost your traffic to lead conversion rate and secure more business?
We’re here to help. Keep reading to discover 10 ways to increase lead generation and improve your estate agent marketing efforts.
1. Free tools on your estate agency website
They say nothing in life is free, and while this may be true, you can offer free tools on your estate agent website that not only attract property sellers but get them to convert and cough over something more valuable than money. Information.
Securing a sellers email, name, and phone number is a major step in converting them onto your books. Once you have their information you can contact them and use your winning personality to convert them.
Unfortunately, not many people are willing to provide personal information. Unless, of course, they’re getting something in return. Offering free rent & estate agent fee calculators on your website is the perfect way to entice property sellers to give up their details.
Make the tool free to use. A property seller can enter a few details about themselves and their property to find out their sale price and what hiring an estate agent will cost.
But wait, there’s a catch. The tool won’t generate the results of their inquiry until the seller inputs certain information.
Just be sure to adhere to data protection laws when collecting personal data. State in your privacy policy how you plan to use and store all personal information.
2. Speed matters for leads
When it comes to the speed of your estate agent website, seconds count. If your page doesn’t load within three seconds, you could lose as much as 53% of mobile users.
A one-second delay in loading times leads to a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction and a 7% loss in conversions.
If you went through the trouble of attracting potential leads to your site, don’t lose them because of your page speed. Instead, use a few of these easy-to-implement tricks to help speed things up.
- Your server location matters. If most of your website traffic is based in the UK, your website should be hosted there also (or as close as possible).
- Avoid using image files that are too big or complex tools. Both of these add-ons can increase loading times.
- Make sure caching is turned on. With this feature enabled, some elements of your web page are stored in visitor’s browsers so the next time they visit your website, those elements will load faster.
- There are countless browsers available for searching. The most popular are Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox. Make sure to test your website features across all these platforms to ensure its loading properly regardless of the browser.
3. Align your website to your estate agencies marketing
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but when it comes to estate agent marketing and lead generation on your website, the words you use matter too. You want to display the most popular keywords on your website in a tactful way.
If a seller types in, “cheap estate agent in Wales” and they’re directed to your page where they see a banner for “The cheapest estate agent in Wales”, they’ll know that you’re exactly what they’re looking for.
Linking the words on your page to the words people are searching for is a great way to increase conversions. It’s also easy to set up using Google adwords.
You can also set up groups to target different keywords if you’re running paid ads.
One advertisement group can target the keyword “local estate agents” while another one might focus on “cheap estate agents”. You can also create different versions of your homepage that cater to each keyword.
Then you tell Google what page you want visitors to land on when they click each individual ad. Now, visitors will see the same keywords they searched for on your website, solidifying their trust and decision to choose you.
4. Pay attention to the seller conversion process
One of the main goals of successful estate agent marketing efforts is fast conversions. property sellers don’t want to jump through hoops when visiting your site. If they have to, they’re more than likely to jump right into your competitor’s page.
Make sure your lead forms that capture important details are short and concise. Only include important information. Things like their name, email address, and phone number are musts.
Their birthday and middle name aren’t relevant and will only create one more hurdle between them converting and a lost opportunity. Take a look at your lead forms and only include the essential information.
5. Include a price comparison chart to boost your marketing
Have you heard the saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer? One way to do this is by telling your website visitors all about your competitors – and why you’re better! The best way to do this is by using a comparison chart.
There are a few benefits to this tactic. First, you want to keep visitors on your site as long as possible to increase the likelihood that they’ll convert.
By displaying your competitor’s prices and services on your site, they have no reason to leave.
Here’s the trick. You get to choose which services and prices you display.
For example, if you offer the best prices for tenant referencing, display these prices in the chart compared to your competitors’ much higher rates.
If your competitors have better prices for fully managed services, leave these out.
Other things to include are any awards or accolades you’ve earned, technology you use, and your record of finding buyers
6. Provide various price options and packages
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to being a seller and finding the right estate agent.
Make sure your website caters to property sellers with varying budgets and needs.
One trick to successful estate agent marketing is offering numerous services at various price points.
If you expect property sellers to pay one flat fee for all your services, you may be unintentionally isolating those that only want a subset of those services at a discounted rate.
Some may want to conduct viewings themselves while others may not be interested in advertising boards on their property.
Property sellers are looking for flexibility. They want to be in control of their finances and know exactly what they’re paying for.
They don’t want to pay for services they don’t need or use. Giving them options leads to more conversions.
7. Make online support a priority
Remember how we said that the faster a seller can get what they want on your site, the more likely they are to convert? This is one reason offering online support is growing in popularity.
Instead of picking up the phone and waiting on hold to speak with someone, visitors to your website can use a Chatbot or support bot to get the answers to their most pressing questions, reducing wait times and frustration.
These bots are easy to implement and program. Bots are equipped with answers to FAQs.
When the property seller asks common questions like, “How much are fees for selling my property?” the bot will search its database of answers to come up with a relevant response.
If no suitable answer is found, the bot will ask for the seller’s information so someone can contact them at a later date.
In some cases, these bots are even disguised as real associates, but most leads know this.
The convenience of having answers at their fingertips improves the entire customer experience and increases the likelihood that they’ll convert.
You’ll also save money since you won’t need a paid staff member to man the chat lines. Now, your employees can focus their time and attention on more important things like securing more properties and following up on leads.
8. Pay attention to the layout of your estate agent website
You only have a few seconds to make a good first impression on your site. When visitors click-through to your homepage, they should be met with a clean, professional, and easy-to-use website.
Your website needs to display a lot of important information in a clear and concise way. In addition to including estate agent fees, services, and affiliations, you also want to make sure your conversion tools get noticed.
Subtle tactics like using bold fonts, eye-catching colors, and capitalization can help these tools stand out. For example, on our homepage, we use a border to draw attention to our postcode entry bar.
Rentround’s call to action button is also in capital letters and a different color than the rest of the words on the page. The wording used on their call to action button is also an important factor.
Instead of just using the generic word “search”, they use, “Compare Agents”. This lets the user know exactly what will happen when they run the search.
These small changes helped boost their site’s conversions by nearly 7%!
9. Increase your agency’s credibility
Your reputation and credibility go a long way when it comes to successful estate agent marketing. Property sellers are more likely to convert when they trust you and believe that you and your company are credible. All of this starts with your website.
The more credible and professional your website appears, the more conversions you’ll get.
You can display your credibility in more ways than one.
In addition to a well-maintained and run website, you can also showcase your affiliations, awards, and ratings. Another tactic is to add links to Property Ombudsmans and deposit schemes. You can also include how you’re compliant with local regulations.
Be sure to mention if your estate agency has been featured on certain property portals or news outlets.
When it comes to the logistics, make sure your website works properly and looks clean and professional.
This is a reflection of you and your services. After all, if you can’t keep your website running smoothly, how can you successfully sell or manage properties?
10. Validate your leads
Part and parcel of lead generation is getting incorrect (or fake) contact details.
Let’s say use a free valuation tool that requires the lead to provide their contact details. You’ll for sure get a proportion of leads entering incorrect details, either on purpose (i.e. they don’t want to be contacted) or by accident.
In your data capture forms, using automatic validation can boost the quality of your leads.
Validation doesn’t only check the format of your data, i.e. does the telephone number have the right amount of digits. Validation will also check if the telephone number is live against an actual phone network.
Using validation prevents false information and ensures you’re focusing on good leads instead of wasting time on invalid phone numbers & emails.
The last word
There you have it, some great ways at maximising the leads you get from your website.
Making the process simple & easy, relating to your audience & showing your agency in the best light possible are the themes that span across our tips for getting more leads.
Once you get the lead the process as you know, doesn’t stop there.
The challenge then is to use your charm and experience to get the seller to choose your agency.
No doubt, no matter how good your marketing is, the savvy sellers would be engaging with other agents. The first to contact the lead, who has the best sales techniques and which agent can cater for the leads needs will put themselves in the prime position.
