4 tips to keep and convert visitors on your real estate website

In the online world, the challenge for marketers is how do we retain someone's interest and get them to become subscribers and followers of our service. 

In the real estate industry it is widely accepted that when promoting properties or your business via email, social media and other channels, we need to be consciously directing all visitor traffic back to our own websites. 

However, the question is - once we get someone to our website, how do we keep them there?

Below are 4 new strategies you can implement into your real estate website to retain visitor interest, engage with interesting content and ultimately convert to subscribers in your database.

1. Lead Capture & Nurturing 

You need to ask the question, why is this person visiting our website and what do they want? 

Are they looking for an agent to sell their property?
Are they looking to buy a property?
Are they wanting property management services? 
Are they looking to rent a property?

Once you understand their reason for visiting, the strategy is to get them to answer the above question and provide some contact details.

If you can successfully identify their initial need and then capture and database the data - your website is working for you.

If you aren’t asking for the information, you won’t receive it!

One way to get the information is to add a non intrusive pop up on your home page with those questions. Or provide something of value in return for their contact details. Once the form is completed, you can setup a drip email / SMS campaign in your CRM to nurture or inform the prospect with information relevant to their particular need.

For example for someone who is looking to sell we would setup the following call to action.

“Do you own a home? - Prepare for Profit” Download our top tips on how to get the highest & best price when selling”

Then, your CRM could setup a drip fed communication trail via email, SMS or letter with the prospect over a period of days, weeks or months. 

This automatic nurturing assists you in being recognised as a trusted adviser and the one to approach when the time comes to sell.   

2. Live Chat

Sometimes when people visit your website, they are interested in your properties or service but are uncomfortable providing their details immediately. That’s totally fine. However, we should also be giving them the opportunity to ask questions or be assisted with finding the correct information on your website. 

One way to assist your visitors is to implement a Live Chat program. To see how it works visit www.geteagle.com.au and start a chat.

Once you start an open and honest conversation via the chat, visitors will normally provide their details during or at the end of the conversation. Initially if it’s difficult to get their information, you may like to try some of the following scripts. Example;

“ would you like me to email you the information?” or “I can send it straight away to your phone, can I get your number?” 

Live Chat can be done with a real person in your office looking after the enquiries or via AI (Artificial Intelligence, Bots) or both. 

 

If you have never used Live Chat on your website before it’s probably best to have a person in your office answer the website visitors questions live. If no-one is available most live chats ask people to leave their details so they can be responded to as soon as possible. 

Consumers today are very comfortable with Live Chat and this technology can greatly assist in retaining visitor interest on your website. 
 

3. Interactive Online Calculators

Stamp Duty and Loan Calculators have been a standard on real estate websites since inception. But what about other types of calculators.

Commission Calculators
Recently on a trip to New Zealand, we encountered many agents who use a Commission Comparison Calculator. Some of these just basically allowed people to put in a commission rate and selling price to work out the fee. Others were quite detailed and compared one agencies fees against another! 

Now, many agents in Australia would instantly dismiss this as not being suitable in our market. However, if we looked at it from the consumers point of view. Selling and Management commissions can be quite substantial and it’s not unreasonable for people to ask “how much will it cost me to have you sell or manage my property?” 

Your website could answer this simple question and at the same time engage the client in discussing it further with you.

Your commission calculator could explain the likely fees and what’s included in providing your service. Your calculator could also show different rates of commision based on varying levels of service. 

Buyer / Tenant Demand Calculator
A new way to demonstrate to likely sellers and landlords that you do have people interested in their properties is to allow them to query your CRM via your website.

You could provide a calculator that asks for their property address / suburb, number of bedrooms and likely selling price. The calculator can then search the database and provide a result. The calculator could also ask for their contact details to email or SMS the results. 

The purpose of these types of calculators on your website is to engage, inform and demonstrate you do have people interested in their property. 

 

4. Moving Visuals
 

It goes without saying that your website should be visually appealing. Also, it’s worthwhile updating the look and feel of your website every 3-4 years to “move with the times”. Furthermore there is no excuse in 2019 for not having a responsive designed website.

Video Background
However, one trend that is successful in retaining interest is having video in your home page background. 

Home page property slider images have been around a while and lately the trend has been to replace them with video. 

Ideally, the theme of the video is to portray the lifestyle aspects of your marketplace or the feeling of moving into a new home. To see an example click the links below.

Lifestyle Example

Home Living Example

These videos keep your visitors interest and entice them to stay on your website.

How to quickly implement these tips into your real estate website?

Eagle Software has just released a new package which includes all these features and more. It’s included in our PLUS Website offering. 

When you take on the PLUS offering, these features can be easily integrated with EagleCRM so you can start nurturing and converting visitors to your website.

To see how it works, call us today on 03 9016 0444 or visit us at www.geteagle.com.au 

 

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