Turning Your Property Website Into a Lead-Generating Machine

Generate Leads by Building a Better Property Website

Today’s real estate professionals feel the need to be everywhere online in order to generate leads–third party listing aggregator sites, Craigslist, social media, you name it. What’s more important than having your listings in as many places as possible is having a strong website to back up all the material you’re posting. Think of your website as the backbone to each listing you market on the Web. In order to increase the number of leads you draw from your Web presence, you need to have a strong website foundation. The key to a lead-generating apartment website isn’t a fancy design or cool layout. First and foremost, you need a real estate website targeted at helping renters find housing. Here are six tips on how you can turn your website into a lead-generating machine.

1. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.

The purpose of your website is to help renters find housing. Whether you specialize in apartment rentals or selling single-family homes, your website should be able to personalize each search. Put yourself in the renter’s shoes and offer search functions that will make it easy to narrow down available listings.

2. POST UP-TO-DATE LISTINGS.

Lots of them. In a RentJuice study of rental websites, 10 percent of them did not have listings available. Remember that the goal of your website is to help renters find housing. Facilitate their search by providing lots of vacant listings, and keep your database updated by removing properties as soon as they’re rented out. If renters will be spending large chunks of their paycheck on rent each month, they’ll be doing their research. They want to see everything that’s available in the area and to know the average prices, square footage, and features before they make a decision. Your website–not someone else’s–should be the place where renters can get up-to-date information on housing.

3. MAKE YOUR WEBSITE EASY TO NAVIGATE.

Now that you have cool search functions and lots of up-to-date listings, make sure your site provides direct access to each section of your website. A lead-generating website will increase lead flow through its easy navigation. Add a toolbar at the top of each page that provides quick access to listing, neighborhood, search and conversion sections. Your visitors shouldn’t have to dig to find what they want–if they do, they’ll probably leave and go somewhere else.

4. PROVIDE PHOTOS AND VIDEOS.

High-quality apartment photos and videos will help your listing resonate with prospective renters. Visual aids allow visitors to see what your property looks like without having to attend hundreds of open houses. Give renters the ability to familiarize themselves with the layout, get an idea of the space and see themselves making the property their home. Pictures and video tours will help renters narrow down their decision, giving you the most qualified leads.

5. MAKE IT EASY FOR RENTERS TO CONTACT YOU.

In order for visitors to convert to leads, they have to connect with you first. By placing your contact information, lead forms or “About” page in a visible place on each page, interested clients can reach out to you right away if they see something they like.

6. OPTIMIZE YOUR SITE FOR BETTER SEARCH RESULTS.

The higher your website ranks in search engine results, the more visitors your pages will receive. In fact, research done by the Georgia Institute of Technology showed that 75 percent of searchers never click past page one of Google search results. Move up in rankings by being SEO-friendly. In order to be found in a search, your website needs to contain popular search terms. A helpful resource for keyword research is Google’s “Keyword Tool.” Find out what your renters are looking for and the common search terms they use and include them in your website.

 



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