Maintaining your online presence is an integral part of managing your real estate brand successfully
Consumers are more empowered than ever when researching products online. The internet is a fabulous resource for consumers: providing the ability to research any given product before committing to a purchase so they can confidently select the right product, at the right price, through a trusted brand. All with a simple search and a website.
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. How often do you use a search and a company website to get an impression of their trustworthiness?
Once you acknowledge how often you search the web for even the most basic need, you can imagine how important it is to maintain your own online presence. In this post, we will take a look at how brokerages can do this through their website design and, as part of that website, blogging. We’ll explore this concept deeper into other areas in future installments.
Building your online presence through web design
Ask yourself:
- When you search the web, either personally or in a professional setting, what elements of a website most pique your interest?
- What is it about a good site that keeps you navigating through its pages, rather than quickly clicking away?
One of the first things you can do to maintain your brokerage’s online presence is to have a well-designed website that captures the essence of your brand.
Cultivating your brand’s culture through responsive design can set the tone for your relationship to your audience. Your website’s design (including imagery, typography, color schemes and more) is one of the many elements that adds to the ethos of your brand. A well-designed site takes precedence to tech-savvy consumers, and according to Real Estate Tech News:
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“Consumers favor easy-to-navigate menus over tabs, a search option, and content categories. Visuals are taking precedence. New design practices place important content on a single, scrollable page instead of spread across the numerous pages.”
Since consumers rely on the internet to search for just about anything and have information readily available at their fingertips, your brokerage’s website design can either make or break your brand.
Conveying your brand through visual storytelling can set the tone for your site’s visitors. More buyers are relying on searching for homes online. According to The National Association of REALTORS® Real Estate in a Digital Age 2017 Report:
“In 2016, 44% of all buyers looked online as their first step in the home search process. 95% of buyers used an online website as an information source in the home search.”
Of course, if you’re not sure about the particulars of a well-designed real estate website, well, our expert design team here at TRIBUS can be of use.
Use blogging to your advantage
Another factor you might want to consider implementing in your efforts to maintain your online presence: establishing a blog on your website. Doing so gives your brand a voice and allows you to connect with your site visitors directly by creating content that’s interesting and relevant to them. By understanding your audience when you create a blog post, you can express your knowledge and expertise in any given topic.
The two key elements of blogging are relevance and regularity. You won’t get any readers unless the posts are impactful to their lives, and having only two posts in as many years makes you look worse than not having a blog at all.
With some steady scheduling and dedication, regularity is easy enough to achieve. But actually getting interested readers to your blog might be one of your biggest challenges. Not sure how to get started? Check out this post from our archives on how to start up a real estate blog as a beginner. Next month, we’ll get to the issue of attracting visitors using one of the handiest (and, for many, most elusive) metrics on the web: SEO.
Given that just about anything is accessible online, it’s more important than ever to ensure your online presence is up-to-date, informative, well-designed, and on point. That’s going to be key in getting the kind of ROI your brokerage is looking for.
