The world of real estate is hard to break into, whether you’re new to the industry or a seasoned agent. With a saturated sales-driven market, it can be easy to spread yourself thin unless you take the right steps.
As a real estate agent working in a new era, it is your job to keep up with the trends. The best digital marketing strategies will help you build your sphere of influence to get you closer to your modern-day clientele.
How to Find Real Estate Clients
While specializing in a specific real estate niche, creating a database of contacts and talking to prospective real estate clients will help put you on track. However, in-person networking will not be enough to sustain your business.
Forty-four percent of buyers look for properties online, meaning the best way to build a successful real estate business is to bring your network online. With many resources available, there are several ways to source new clients.
Word of Mouth
As a real estate initiate, when trying to find new clients, the first skill you will rely upon is in-person networking. You will want to find referrals and networking opportunities from the people you already know in the real estate industry. As well as friends and family, if they have connections to the industry.
Word of mouth can be a great way to find new real estate clients, but it isn’t always as effective as other sources. One of the many reasons why it can be ineffective is that people may not remember your contact details, and those referrals will fall through the cracks.
Buy or Find Leads
Leads are essentially tip-offs to potential clients and their contact details. It’s possible to buy leads, but with a large number of agents bidding for the same details, it’s easy to miss out. Chasing organic leads is a far better option.
An organic lead is a potential client that seeks you out themselves. They will come across your details and contact you looking for information. One of the best avenues for organic lead generation is your own SEO-optimized website.
Use Social Media
Another way to find real estate buyers and sellers is by marketing yourself and your business with social media. Social media is an essential part of any long-term marketing strategy and is vital in generating leads.
Instagram, for example, is visited daily by 59 percent of millennials, the largest group of first-time home buyers. Social media platforms allow you to engage with potential clients, directly advertising your properties and portfolio. This level of interaction helps to establish your online presence and brand as an expert.
Get Local Press
Though traditional methods of advertising aren’t as popular as they used to be, they can still be a useful tool. Advertising in the local press allows you to market your brand effectively to an older demographic, reaching a wider overall audience. Print advertising also gives your brand a sense of authority due to the long-established nature of the medium.
Listing press outlets you’ve advertised with on your website and social media can help you to gain attention from many new clients. This is because consumers will begin to associate your name with a brand they already recognize and trust. Therefore, you’re more likely to be viewed as a real estate expert.
Build A Website
Did you know that 90 percent of home buyers search the internet for properties before doing anything else? According to the National Association of Realtors, 82 percent of agents that make over $150,000 a year have a website. When you have a professional real estate website, you allow yourself to be seen by the millions of potential clients searching for homes every day.
Why Build a Website for Your Real Estate Business
In our modern world, first impressions tend to be created online. A professional, intuitive website is the best way to present yourself as first-rate real estate. Though this is not the only reason you need a website, there are several more.
1. A Real Estate Website Improves Branding
As a Realtor, your personal brand is important. While many brokerage firms may provide you with your own unique webpage, this will only help you as long as you are with that company. If you decide to switch firms or branch out on your own, you will lose all the hard work you may have put into building up the visibility of your page.
As a Realtor, your main goal should be to stand out from your competition. The best way to make your website noticeable is to have a bespoke site developed. This will enable you to have a highly functional website with a smooth user experience that showcases your property portfolio.
2. Use Your Real Estate Website to Create a Virtual Business Card
As a Realtor, you may have gotten into the habit of giving out your business card when you interact with others on a professional level. If you don’t have a website, one important point of contact is missing from your business card. While a business card may look expert, your website is what will stick in the mind of most of your customers.
According to statistics, 88 percent of all business cards are thrown out within a week. However, a website will always be available when clients go looking. Whether they’ve thrown out your business card or not, with a website, they can just do a quick google search for your name and find you.
3. A Real Estate Website Will Help Increase Your Sales
If you have a website, you have a place to show videos of the properties you are selling. With 73 percent of all homeowners preferring to list their home with real estate agents that use video, you need to have a website to ensure you don’t lose out on their business.
Not only can you use your website to show off videos of your properties, you absolutely must have a website if you want to run Google Ads. More than 40 percent of all SERP clicks go to a Google search ad. Having a comprehensive website helps these motivated web users to stick around after clicking, reducing bounce rates and increasing SEO.
4. A Realty Website is Useful for Referrals
A website is a great place for past clients to refer their friends and family who are also looking to sell property. Managing referrals is easy through your website, as you can ask clients for referral information with an online form. Additionally, you can send previous clients thank you packages, inviting them to refer friends.
With special links, you can make it seem as though you remember each of your clients well. The link can be part of a customer relationship management (CRM) system that you can integrate into your bespoke website. Real Estate CRM software can help you to know where your referrals came from.
5. Use Your Realtor Website to Leverage Your Knowledge and Skill
It can be hard, especially as a new agent, to gain traction in the market. Even with a lot of positive reviews, homeowners can be hesitant to do business with you. However, if you include a blog on your real estate website, you can fill it with first-rate advice, making potential clients want to know more.
Blogs are seen as the fifth most trustworthy source for information online. If you want to be seen as trustworthy to potential, it is important to have a blog and establish yourself as a source of knowledge and expertise.
6. Use Your Real Estate Website to Capture New Leads
If you have performed proper SEO or search engine optimization on your custom-built Realtor website, many people who have never heard of you will find you through the search engine results pages or SERPs. With all these new and unique visitors, you have a new way to capture new leads for your real estate business.
If you have a custom website for your Realty business, you can include forms that connect directly with your CRM system for improved customer service. You can easily start to work with these new potential clients with ease. Furthermore, because a website is always on, you have a way to capture new leads even in the middle of the night.
7. Your Real Estate Website Helps You Target Online Traffic
With over 33,000 US searches conducted monthly (according to SEMrush’s Keyword Overview Tool) for the keywords “real estate agents near me,” there are thousands of people looking for you online at any moment. If you want to connect with these people easily, you’ll need a real estate website.
Targeting specific keywords in website posts and metadata is excellent for SEO. It helps Google link user search terms with keywords on your website to determine relevance. If the keywords and phrases on your site match that of the search query, your page will appear higher on SERPs
8. Include Your Website on Your Social Media Accounts
You can drive traffic back to your website by linking it through your social media accounts. Most social media platforms allow you to add a link in your bio or a button encouraging user engagement. This is known as a call to action and helps to direct your followers to your website.
As a real estate agent, your website serves as your virtual head office and the core of your online presence. Centering your marketing and all other social pages to your website is best practice. That way, customers can easily find your online presence in one cohesive place.
9. Keep In Contact with Leads with Your Realty Website
You can use email marketing platforms to help you keep in contact with current, former, and prospective clients. Email marketing requires you to have your website’s visitors sign up to receive your newsletter, and it can be a great way to keep clients up-to-date on new listings, new blog posts, and homes that have just sold.
Email marketing using your custom-built website is easy to integrate and can be very lucrative for your business. For every $1 you spend on email marketing, including building your website, you stand to gain $42 dollars. Email marketing through your website is a simple and effective way to help you gain and keep your real estate clients.
10. Use Your Realtor Website to Showcase Past Successes
Another excellent use for your website is to help you show off your past successes. It can help you to gain not only those clients looking to sell their homes but can also help you attract new homebuyers.
You can create a portfolio on your website that showcases the homes you’ve previously sold and helped customers to buy. Future and current clients will see these past successes as evidence that you are great at your job. It will help you to increase their opinion of you as an authority.
Bespoke Real-Estate Website with Idea Maker
It can be difficult to find new real estate clients, but with a custom-built website, it’s like having a personal assistant working for you 24-hours a day. Your website will market your business, collect leads, and help you to sell new homes. All you have to do is contact Orange County web development agency, Idea Maker, and you’re ready for success in the real estate market.
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