Considering that most homebuyers first search the web for any real-estate needs they may have, an online presence for realtors is essential. You can build awareness and your online presence through a real estate website. A website helps generate quality leads, increase credibility and enhance branding, educate buyers and sellers, and meet customer expectations as they expect you to have an online presence. Besides building brand awareness, a website allows you to establish your expertise and saves you time so you can focus on core duties and responsibilities.
When designing a realtor website, it’s essential to include multiple listing services access, live search, enough images for each asset, virtual or video excursions, and messaging. Effective realtor websites have clear, compelling designs that are easy for users to navigate, improving user experience. Here are web design tips for realtors.
Include Long-tail Keywords in Your Content
Using long-tail keywords across your website and site pages makes it easy to find your site on search engines. While using long-tail keywords doesn’t yield as many searches, they are specific enough to help you reach your target audience who are more likely to convert. When looking for the keywords to use, consider what your audience might search for to find the listings and homes you offer. For instance, a keyword like ‘Element home buyers in Lincoln’ will increase the chances of users looking to sell their houses in Lincoln to easily find you.
Optimize Your Landing Pages
A landing page is a stand-alone web page that promotes a specific product, service or offer to encourage customers to take action. A landing page is an effective lead conversion tool that builds your brand, improves SEO, and drives traffic. The ideal landing page hones in on an offer, is free from distractions, and communicates to a select audience.
To create effective landing pages, use a customer-centric language, and choose a clear CTA for each action you want taken to avoid confusing your prospective clients. Your web design layout should be user-friendly and include clear communication and social proof, which can be from testimonials from past clients.
Provide an Online Appointment Booking Option
Your realtor website serves clients 24/7. This is why offering an online appointment booking option allows your site visitors to schedule viewings easily or request callbacks to organize for a viewing. If you build your website with WordPress, you can use a booking plugin to implement online booking. You may use other site builders that offer appointment integrations or booking tools.
Select Quality Realtor Website Theme or Template
An excellent real estate website isn’t just about aesthetics. It requires the right functionalities to help the site boost business growth. Realtor website themes and templates form your site’s foundation. This is why you should not only choose an appealing theme but one that functions properly. Consider using website builders with attractive templates that you can use to capture searches and generation.
Add a Search Bar
When people visit your website, they’re probably coming to search for listings. Adding a search bar in your website design makes it easy for them to search through your website. When building your WordPress website, choose a theme with a simple, unique search bar to reduce your potential clients’ confusion so they can stay longer on your website. Consider using advanced search filters to stand out from other realtor search engines.
Design for Mobile Devices
If your audience can’t access your website on their tablets and mobile devices, you’re missing out on growth and success. Making your website design responsive means your visitors can access it from any device size, platform, or browser. Considering how potential clients will be navigating your site through their mobile devices will help you develop a design that will attract more on-site time and increase lead generation.
Use Quality Images
Images are vital for your realtor’s website. While quality copy communicates useful information, inherent features keep visitors engaged, images can evoke emotions and captivate the viewer’s imagination.
Besides breaking a web page’s monotony, images improve your content’s readability. While you can invest in stock video footage and photos at an affordable fee, considering professional videography and photography can help you create unique and personalized content, ensuring a trustworthy feel among your clients.
Ensure Your Site Loads Quickly
If your website has a slow loading time, users will abandon it for a better-performing site, increasing bounce rates and negatively impacting SEO. To increase your site’s speed, reduce redirects, enable compression, leverage browser caching, improve server response time, optimize images, use a content distribution network, and minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. To ensure your realtor website’s performance, constantly test the speed and adjust accordingly to ensure users stay longer on your site, reducing bounce rates and increasing conversion rates.
Ensure Simple Site Navigation
Website navigation is an essential web design element that, when not well addressed, can frustrate users and cause them to leave your site. Ensuring simple navigation makes it easy for potential clients to find whatever they need without combing through the entire site. Include a navigation bar to make it easy, quick, and convenient for visitors to tour your website.
To streamline your site’s navigation structure, use fixed headers to ensure the site’s main sections are always visible. Use descriptive topic labels to guide your visitors better, limit menu items, and avoid drop-down menus as they aren’t searching engine-friendly or user-friendly.
Include Featured Listings
Best home searches can be time-consuming and overwhelming, especially if the potential buyers are new and unfamiliar with specific neighborhoods. Consider publishing your recommendations and the latest best deals on your website’s dedicated pages to make property searches engaging and fun for your users. If you’re a realtor specializing in specific categories or types of properties, consider using featured listing pages.
Whether you want to display the best real estate, showcase properties on sale, or show up-and-coming constructions, you can use customized sheets to display these listings. Using customized layouts, summarize the listings to ensure the relevant information is easy and quick to read.
Endnote
Websites are a vital marketing tool that realtors can leverage. To maximize your site’s effectiveness, use a great, attractive web design and additional features that can give you an edge over your competition and allow you to dominate your geographic region.
