There’s nothing more frustrating than having a great service, but a website that nobody visits.

Perhaps your estate agency has a unique offering, exceptional customer service, or fits a niche that few other agents can. But if your website’s tucked away on page 97 of Google Search, no one’s going to know about it.

According to HSBC, “UK home buyers are the most digitally active home hunters, with 93% using online channels (websites, mobile, email etc.) to research their recent property purchase.” 

This means that you need to drive more (relevant) traffic to your website, and then persuade customers to take the next relevant step, like filling out a contact form.

Find out how you can reel in more customers and keep them interested, from the use of instant valuation tools and property data to WhatsApp integrations and more. 

Step one: increase traffic

Traffic is like footfall for your website. And, while it is important to get relevant visitors through your front door, it’s equally important to get lots of potential customers to visit. 

So what are the key components for increasing traffic? There are four key pillars:

1. Google
2. Email Campaigns
3. Social Media
4. Property Portals

Using these alongside one another ensures that more people will visit your website and take action there. Let’s look at each one. 

1. Google 

Google is an essential starting point if you want new customers to find your website. There are several important strategies to employ if you want this to succeed: 

• SEO optimisation – Your website needs to be indexed on Google, mobile responsive and optimised for relevant keywords. At the same time, you’ll need relevant backlinks to your website from credible sources to raise your position in Google Search.
• Google My Business – Listing your local office with Google is a powerful way to drive traffic to your website. This can lead to a local maps listing at the top of Google Search, alongside reviews, a direct link to your website, summary of services, opening times and more.
• Paid campaigns – Google Search campaigns are a quick, easy way to boost traffic to your website for certain keywords – e.g. ‘estate agents in Manchester’. Done correctly, this should put your advert and relevant landing page near the top of the search results. 
• Google Display Network (GDN) – This is a network of millions of websites where Google can display your ads in banner format, giving you instant access to potential customers. You can target these adverts according to different user profiles, locations and preferences.

Take a look here if you need a new estate agency website designed with Google Search optimisation in mind.

2. Email campaigns

Email campaigns should be a crucial part of your strategy to convert ‘hot’ leads and build a relationship with landlords and vendors on your mailing list. These campaigns should also redirect people back to resources on your website – even if simply to fill out a contact form. 

Here’s a few ways your email campaign can lead to more traffic to your site:

• Linking to a free consultation or valuation on your website
• Pointing landlords and vendors to a relevant blog
• Encouraging buyers to book a viewing to new properties 
• Directing customers to a landing page for a special offer
• Through your logo as a clickable link on the email

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While hot leads may email you back to use your services or book a valuation, many more will want to return to your website to remind themselves of your services and resources. 

Dedicated industry email marketing tools, like Spectre Email, integrate with Street CRM to allow you to create tailored email sequences, complete with branded, beautiful emails, to send to leads as they enter your CRM – significantly increasing your click-through rate to your website. 

Take a look here to find out how you can create targeted, tracked email campaigns that help you nurture leads and convert more prospects.

3. Social media

Social media is important for reaching sellers and landlords where they spend their time – whether it be Instagram, TikTok, Facebook (or another channel). This can help you drive traffic to your website through several strategies:

• Promotional offers & referrals
• Posting links to blogs on your website
• Informative posts which offer valuable information to (e.g.) landlords
• Paid campaigns to download a resource
• Paid,  ‘boosted’ posts which link back to resources on your website

These strategies either send customers directly back to your site, or they offer resources, tips, testimonials and more to increase credibility – helping persuade people to visit when they are ready.

Spectre’s Auto.social tool, which integrates directly with Street.co.uk CRM, means you can not only automate this process and grow your agency’s social media presence faster, but create a dynamic, branded link page, ready-made with your agency’s logo and brand colours, to include in your bio – complete with a property slider to showcase your new listings. This way, you can direct your engaged social media followers to any page of your website you’d like – and turn them into conversions.

4. Property portals

Since nearly all property searches begin with property portals, these are a crucial source for new leads. While customers tend to enquire directly through the portal, they are likely to visit your website to explore your other properties and services to get a feel for your brand and find out more about your properties.

The massive volume of visitors passing through these portals means it is essential that your properties are listed there with links back to your website. You can use Street CRM to manage properties across multiple portals at once, ensuring this is an easy task.

Step two: increase conversions

So, given the diversity of potential customers visiting your website, you need to capture as many as possible and move them forwards towards that all-important conversion. 

Let’s look at the tools, features and strategies that help.

1. Increase website speed & performance

This is basic, but very important. If your website doesn’t load, then customers will leave and go elsewhere. To start with, you can take simple steps like compressing images and editing down any videos so that your pages load faster.

However, your site structure is important to begin with, meaning it’s best to have a reliable framework in place which delivers mobile optimised pages, reliable hosting and an easy to edit structure. Take a look here if you need a website which does all this from the start.

2. Improve the user experience (UX design)

Every page needs to move potential customers forwards in their journey as easily as possible. 

Here’s what this should look like across your website:

• Site structure – The site should be easy to navigate, with all important content easily findable in the main menu and site footer.
• On-page order – Each page should be ordered logically, giving the relevant information at each stage. Critical information and calls to action should be near the top of the page, and extra information should be offered further down.
• Content – The content must always be relevant to the visitors you expect, with calls to action that help them take the next important action.  

3. Use features that build trust

It’s crucial to build trust with your web visitors. On a basic level, your website needs to function well and look professional. But there’s much to do beyond this basic requirement.

• Testimonials & reviews – Reviews from trusted platforms like ESTAs, Trustpilot, and Google are an essential tool to build trust with web visitors, and there are many ways to display them. For example, you can use a system that filters reviews by individual offices if you’ve got several branches, as well as embed the best reviews directly onto your website. Even better, you can filter these for by customer type – like buyers, sellers or landlords – and then display these on the relevant pages. 
• Stats, badges & awards – Much like reviews, it’s an excellent idea to neatly display your credentials, qualifications and associations. For example, an adaptable carousel can show off (e.g.) your properties let, customers served, homes sold – and more. Then you can display your associations with TDP schemes, agency awards (like ESTAS or EA Masters) in other prominent places to build that trust further.

4. Tailor your calls to action

Calls to action (CTAs) must move your visitor to where they need to be. Some CTAs should always be visible (e.g.) ‘book a valuation’ and ‘contact us’. However, it’s also important to lead visitors to other relevant locations on your site. For example, for landlords to view your table of services, or buyers to register with you.

Here’s how to improve conversions with your calls to action:

• Targeted CTAs - Once again, CTAs are better when they are personal and targeted. For example, you can make CTAs appear dynamically on blogs with messages suited to the blog topic. So, a blog on selective licensing might contain a CTA with lets landlords access a landlord responsibilities checklist.
• Pop-ups & promotions - Similarly, you may want to target customers with a promotional pop-up containing a special offer, or to download a valuable free resource (in exchange for contact details). 

5. Provide better information

You shouldn’t bombard your visitors with information. However, the right information in the right places can keep customers browsing your site and returning to it in the future.

Here are a few ways you can display information effectively to increase conversions:

• Detailed listings – Provide better information on your property listings, with embedded transport links, nearest stations and schooling information. This keeps searchers on your site by giving them information that they would have to work hard to find elsewhere.
• Instant valuations – Instant valuations are a tantalising opportunity to attract  home sellers early in their journey to see how much their property is worth. Using a high-quality valuation tool will provide a realistic estimate for sales or lettings property, and encourage them to book an in-person valuation too.
• Team profiles – A detailed set of team profiles with bios, options for instant contact by phone or email, and segmentation by office and role is a great option. This will help customers understand who they are working with, and easily contact the relevant person for their query. 

6. Make contact easy

You need to make it as easy as possible for customers to contact you. The more seamless it is, the more time you save and the more bookings you get. Here’s a couple options that help:

• Integrated calendars – A generic contact form is helpful, but you can do better. You could use this embedded calendar tool like this to let visitors book a meeting with one of your agents, picking an available date and time, saving you a longer phone call and making it easier for customers sign up quickly. 
• Chat options - Embedding chatbots or (e.g.) WhatsApp are two other ways to engage customers as they browse your site, making it easy and comfortable for them to interact with you. Street can also notify vendors and applicants over WhatsApp with their automated messaging system.

Enlist expert help

“These tips are great, but I’ve got no idea where to begin.”

Let’s face it, websites are complex. And in fact, they are just one part of an overall marketing system which needs careful management – from tracking leads to building persuasive email campaigns and monitoring web performance. 

Understandably, many agents struggle to do this without help.

So, if you’re looking for estate agency web design and marketing services, visit Art Division. We can build your website, and then turn it into a marketing powerhouse which generates relevant traffic, converts customers – and looks the part too.

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