The Internet has become an important tool in the home search process. Real estate agents who do not have a website or listing may be missing out. Although most agents rely on their leads from referrals and repeat business, it’s important to utilize a website to establish name recognition for brand awareness. In the long run, marketing and advertising agents’ brand will result in more business.

According to Real Estate Agent U, 62% of agents spend at least an hour a day on marketing and advertising. 60% of agents prospect for leads daily. 26% devote several hours a day to prospecting. That’s a lot of time chasing leads in this demanding professional line of work. With a website, real estate agents can team up with digital agencies to build marketing strategies and generate quality leads. For the long term, content and inbound SEO marketing can be applied for organic growth. For immediate lead generation, paid marketing such as PPC coupled with relevant landing pages is the better plan. Regardless of marketing tactics, real estate agents can free up their valuable time to close more sales and generate more revenue. In addition, agents who add more value to their services for existing clients will be rewarded with more referrals and repeat business.

Increase Credibility And Branding

In the 2018 Properties Online Real Estate Tech Trends, nearly 95 percent of home buyers search for homes online. Most real estate agents believe that using the website of a well-known real estate firm should be sufficient for an online presence via a single-page profile. However, there are several issues with this approach.

When buyers or sellers visit the firm’s site, they are visiting a real estate agent’s umbrella brand instead of the agent’s brand. This means an agent relies on an umbrella brand to refer to the lead and that agent is not in control. In addition, this agent can be competing with other agents in the umbrella brand for the same business.
When an agent decides to leave the umbrella brand, it will require that agent to start his or her online presence which takes time to build. With a website in the agent’s brand, this is avoided since the established online presence is tied to the agent’s brand instead of the agent’s umbrella brand.

Services Education

Everyone wants a solution to solve their problem, instead of being sold on a product or service. This mentality is no different for buyers and sellers. Real estate agents with a website can increase their values for their clients by providing valuable information to help guide buyers or sellers throughout the buying or selling process. Part of this is ensuring the agent’s website has updated listing, community resources, FAQ, and contact information. Educating the buyer or seller and explaining how real estate agents provide their services can build trust, rapport and earn agents more business. According to the 2017 NARS Real Estate in a Digital Age, photos and properties information was most important to Millennials (born between 1980-1998). For Silent Generation (born between 1925-1945), real estate agent contact information, virtual tours, and photos were most important.

Customers Expect Real Estate Agents To Have An Online Presence

From the 2017 NARS Real Estate in a Digital Age report, social media plays a big part in tools utilized by real estate agents with Facebook leading at 80% followed by LinkedIn at 71%. Having a website is vital because it serves as the core of your online presence. Agent’s website can be the center of marketing and have all other social pages and local directories linked to the website. It will be a great place to add client testimonials and resources for buyers and sellers.

One issue with not having a website is that real estate agents don’t have full control of their information. This specifically applies to agents who rely heavily on social media for their online presence. Real estate agents don’t own their information on social media. They must ensure information is up to date along with related photos. In addition, any algorithm change in social media platforms may hurt their ranking. Real estate agents that own their website can have rich analytics reports from how visitors got to their website, what keywords they used if they used mobile phone or desktop, where they visited the site, and where they go after leaving the site. With this insight, agents can take the guesswork out and understand their visitor’s behaviors. Real estate agents that have a profile page under their umbrella brand have analytics but usually have access to limited reports.

A Major Component Of Your Marketing Strategy

Every small business can benefit from having a website and online presence. This is no different for the real estate industry. With a website, real estate agents reap these benefits: build awareness, generate quality leads, increase credibility along with the brand, help buyers and sellers throughout their buying or selling journey, and have full information control. It’s a small price to pay which should result in huge dividends in the long term with a planned and sound marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Today, every agent should consider real estate web development that may help support and promote his or her business development. With a custom website, it is getting easier to build trust and start closing as many commercial and residential real estate deals as ever before meeting all the customers’ needs and wants.

When bringing together a team of high-skilled software engineers, you are multiplying your chances for success and getting a perfect website in the end. Contribute to other people’s happiness and give them a free hand in finding a perfect place to call home!