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In the last decade, the whole real estate market has changed, and this “revolution” is yet to come to an end. Real estate websites use new and new techniques to convince potential buyers, and there’s no time to sit on your successes, as your competitors will take your crown away.
In 2023 approximately 68% of all broker associates had their own website, today this number is even bigger than that. Another research showed that 47% of potential homebuyers first look around online to check the listings, then go anywhere else. This is captivating! This means that even if you are not the market leader, but offer homes for competitive prices, you have a chance to attract visitors’ attention!
Although, you still need something. Something that highlights you amongst your competitors, something that does not let the customers lose attention when they get stuck on your site. This article gives you the light in a dark cave for this specific topic. We are going to show you 10 strategies that make your real estate website better-optimized, unique, and more exciting than the others.
Are you ready to increase your real estate website’s conversion rate? If yes, come with us!
Why is the real estate market unique?
Before we enter into the strategies, we shall analyze the real estate market first.
There’s some good news to the real estate-themed businesses: the industry is stronger than ever: According to Statista, the sector is anticipated to grow at an annual rate of 3.41%. However, this increase will rather gain its effect in China, and the whole Asian continent.
Then what’s the case with Europe and America? Well, in these places the costs of living are getting higher and higher, therefore fewer people can afford to buy new properties over and over again. Renting is another topic. It became a classic option for young couples, and friends who haven’t got the income to buy a property, but need to move out from the family house. However, 45% of them reported that they would be happy to buy a home if prices were lowered.
What are the main problems facing a real estate website?
Now that we analyzed today’s habits and market reports, let’s see what types of problems an online real estate business needs to face:
- Restricted to locations – you can’t serve all human needs, therefore you need to pick different target groups. The problem is: you can’t sell real estate all over the world, as your target audience is only interested in a limited area.
- Real estate hinges on too many factors – buying another house is not a core need (for investing purposes), so people only decide to buy one if they have stable earnings. That means a bad economic situation can lead to a decrease in interested people.
- Buying a home is still an offline activity – even though the internet switches a lot of offline activities to online (even in the real estate sector), there are such things people still can’t really do online: and one of these is buying a house! Ok, there were some practices where people choose online house shopping, but the number of cases are dramatically low nowadays. Think of it: Who believes in “greedy” real estate agents? (By the way, this article also shows you some great options to wear off this cliche.)
As you can see, if your real estate website is struggling, you can’t only blame yourself. Maybe there’s an economic downturn, or your advertised houses are too far from the visitors. Also, if your business doesn’t have any offline parts, you can’t win the great prize.
However, if you have already thought of all of that, the problem’s source can be your website. In the next chapter, we demonstrate to you 10 effective features on a real estate website, which can not only lead you to more efficient customer acquisition, but better profits!
How to generate customer acquisition for your real estate website?
According to Statista, between April 2022 and January 2024, Zillow.com was the most visited real estate website with an average of 336 million visits per month, however, their selling area is almost only restricted to the United States. After that, there’s Craigslist with a very old-fashioned site, and Leboncoin, which is only restricted to the French language. The thing is: even they can improve their online presence! Real estate websites haven’t maximized their website opportunities, but recent customer trends show us that customers’ need for a better and better customer experience is more crucial than ever.
That’s why in this article we will present to you 10 innovative strategies that may appear on some real estate websites, but they haven’t reshaped the whole industry. These strategies all lead you to better customer acquisition.
1. Make your design responsive
The first tip is not that complex, but very important. Although many years from now, the only option to browse offers online was via a computer, the situation is quite different today. In 2024, more than 60% of online traffic comes from smartphones, and less than 40% from computers. This trend appears on real estate websites as well. Even if customers have the option to watch pictures of houses on a bigger, better-resolution screen, their convenience is more important than the perfect pictures.
(more important)
Using mobile > perfect look!
That’s why when you create a website, you must focus on the following step: create the same satisfaction as you ensure in terms of computers.
One way to reach that is by using a responsive layout. The problem is that there are millions of resolution types. Not just for mobiles, but also for computers. Although you can try to optimize your site to many of them, optimizing to all of them seems an impossible scenario.
The thing is, with the three most popular computer resolutions you cover more than 50% of all global desktop users’ resolutions, in terms of mobiles the first free only covers 30%. Thus, in the mobile market, there are no standard choices.
A responsive layout handles this problem. A responsive web design adapts to different screen sizes, platforms, and layouts, so the customer will experience less technical issues caused by an unoptimized device, or browser.
2. Create short, but engaging CTA-s
A call-to-action is used for directly navigating the customer to a desired place. In websites, it is usually an element, and by clicking on it, the customer can reach the desired place in a shorter time period.
However, CTA-s have some rules, which are even more essential to acknowledge in real estate websites than other industries.
- You need to use words that generate activity: join, click, subscribe
- Tailor your CTA to your target audience (if you target rich businessmen around London, create one like this: “find your dream palace to sell!”). Personalized CTA’s convert 42% better, according to research. That’s your chance!
- Use fear of missing out techniques – “on a daily basis, our users sell 1000 houses on our website. Click here to get your dream home!”
Also, CTA-s have an optimal word count. Research shows that it is between 5 to 7 words. If you want to write a context to your CTA, it’s not a problem: You can explain the text over or under the CTA.
3. Fascinate the users with horizontal scrolling
Horizontal scrolling (left-to-right) rarely works online, since it’s a completely unnatural move. All the most popular social media apps made humans interested in vertical (up-to-down) movements, as it is more comfortable with mobiles, and faster as well. Moreover, our eyes can concentrate better on the text, and it isn’t fluffy.
However, there’s one aspect where horizontal scrolling still has some advantages. If you want to demonstrate images, and highlight offers from each other, make a professional look to your website, horizontal scrolling can help you do that.
In terms of real estate websites, all of these 3 factors are important. You want to showcase the houses and convince the buyers that it is worth its price. The best way it works is the following: split the best parts of the house and demonstrate them individually with one key message. After the potential buyer goes through page to page, analyzing the picture while understanding the key benefits of the house, your chances that the visitor becomes a buyer are increased.
4. Use AI-based chatbots
In 2024, one of the biggest trends of new website capabilities is the appearance of artificial intelligence. These kinds of plugins can be easily added to the original website, and if you choose the most useful to your needs, even customer acquisition can be better after all.
For a real estate website, AI can be added in the form of chatbots. Communicating with the potential buyer through the buyer’s decision is a very important part of real estate websites. The reason why is simple: you can understand their problems, and offer solutions, make personal offers, or offer some personal initiatives.
Well, you would be surprised, if I mention the amount of human resources to have if you want to implement this with a 24/7 available human workforce. It’s too much, and won’t be worth it!
That’s why chatbots exist, which can handle most of these roles. However, chatbots developed a lot in the last couple of years. Some years ago, there were some integrated questions, and after the visitor clicked on it, the bot wrote down the answer. Now, it is completely different. These chatbots can learn! If you integrate one with your site, teach for the FAQ, the AI-based chatbot can interpret the user, even if the user uses other words, or misspells something.
On top of that, if the user asks, the bot can create individual offers, or choose the best possible option that fits the visitor’s needs based on a simple question. Offering initiatives, sales, or limited offers, don’t cause problems either: when the bot recognizes that the visitor lost its enthusiasm, the chatbot enters the game!
5. Take advantage of 360° virtual tools!
Another tip that doesn’t work in most industries, but we once said: real estate is unique in its own way. There you go: in this advice, we take advantage of its uniqueness.
On a website, static elements dominate the atmosphere. Static written contents, static pics, and not-moving CTA-s. Of course, we can say that by the change of our new online habits, dynamic elements will dominate the next eras. Although, this is not necessarily true, as static designs have some advantages: simple, buyers can concentrate on the buying process, and the website will load faster, so customer satisfaction may be higher as well.
However, in the real estate business, it is a crucial factor to demonstrate your deals in the most comprehensive way. Buyers can be suspicious when you don’t show every ins and outs of the houses you are selling, as their brain is constantly saying: behind the camera, there’s a hole, that’s the reason why you don’t show that!
Using 360° virtual tools can calm down potential buyers. With these tools, visitors are eligible to turn the camera to 360° and take a look into every aspect.
6. Be the recommended one!
One of the best ways to grab new buyers for almost free is a well-built-up referral strategy. Word-of-mouth has always been a prominent part of marketing, and its relevance is still spot on. Semrush concluded that 83% of marketers still use word-of-mouth as it can increase brand awareness.
But the best way to convince buyers, or potential buyers to speak about your service is actually when you offer them some rewards in exchange for it. People love actions, especially when these are connected to their desired purchases.
However, building up an efficient referral program is not that easy, it includes defining the objectives, and initiatives, creating the process, advertising it, and optimizing its effect and success. It takes some time to create one, but this is one of the most effective features of a real estate website.
7. Present your crew!
Making the sale more personal is one of your key tasks to achieve. It’s because ensuring that your potential customers trust your service it’s not an easy thing. Of course, when we are talking about buying cheap gadgets, or beauty care products online we are not completely worried about the buyers’ reliability. Although we don’t want to lose our money, we are not taking more than one teardrop for the possible lost amount of money. That’s not the case in buying houses, I suppose.
Here, we are taking a risk, and this decision will determine the next couple of years when we can’t afford to buy one again.
And to decrease this risk in the customers’ minds, one way is to demonstrate who we are personally. Like, why do we show our face, if we want to steal their money, or if we are not transparent? Revealing our faces means we are experts in that activity and know that both sides will win from the deal.
Also, some experts also advise that you use photos that are not associated with your job. Highlight your hobbies, and give them a glance at what else you do than selling houses. This way, the potential buyers see you as a normal human being, and not just a professional marketer who tries to convince the potential buyer for a service that the buyer doesn’t even want.
8. Create custom search options
On a real estate website, potential buyers can choose from many houses in their local area. However, I am sure they have criteria. Thus, they don’t want to look at all of your options, just those that pass those criteria. Customer satisfaction will tremendously drop if potential buyers need to sort out the good options manually. It’s not the best way to make a good customer acquisition strategy.
The problem is, in the real estate industry there are many criteria that can come up:
- Price
- Actual place
- The uploader of the advertisement (agent or the owner)
- Square feet
- View
- Number of rooms
- Home type
- The type of the advertisement (sale or rent)
These search options are crucial to have in order to deliver one of the best services in this market to your visitors.
9. List some data about the neighborhood
It’s an extra function, as most real estate websites haven’t taken the time to implement this feature on their site. However, in today’s world, it starts to be one of the key aspects. In urban areas, the neighborhood is usually divided into places that it’s great to live in, and places where the crime or robbery rates are higher. Places where you should buy a house if you can afford it, and if it exceeds your expectations, and areas where you need to think twice about whether it is a good idea, or not.
Of course, it’s not necessarily the task of the seller to give the buyer a proper view of the neighborhood, but it can also increase trust, which is important in these tough decisions.
You can also write some general information about the nearest shops, pharmacies, bars, and restaurants, in addition to the behavior of the locals. This can be the factor, why these visitors choose your site, instead of your competitors’ sites, which – in terms of core features – know the same.
10. Install a user behavior analytics tool
Knowing what your visitors want is a huge competitive advantage. Customers come and go site from site, but the one where they are really appreciated and cared for always stays on top. But what is the best option to track your visitors’ thoughts? Is delivering questionnaires to them from time to time an option? Well, it can be but not always, otherwise they can get bored and move on to other sites.
The best way is to track their behavior with behavior analytics software, or an “online analytics tool”. An online analytics tool tracks, analyzes, and stores each visitor’s data individually, but is eligible to create complex analytics, as well. With the help of this tool, you can notice the most busy parts of your site, examine trends, or redefine your target groups.
Let me introduce our tool, and the features it offers to companies!
Capturly Analytics
Capturly Analytics is one of the most dynamically improving web analytics tools on the market currently. We are not only working on perfecting the old but gold analytics opportunities, which are the session recording, original heatmap capabilities, and a conversion funnel analysis. Although we take our time to improve these features as well, we also acknowledge the continuously improving opportunities of web analytics and make features that fit into the latest trends.
That’s why we created an in-depth JavaScript error detector that helps you point out your faulty codes. We also created an email survey function to not only give attention to new and new buyers, but promote your latest products, or services to your old buyers too. On top of that, our session recording tool is connected to our other features which means you can always take a look at how customers reacted to passing an event, our ending a buying process.
The good thing is that most of our features are free to use unlimitedly, so you have time to think about the necessity of these functions, and features.
Conclusion
In this article, you made a deep insight into why the real estate industry is unique, and which external changes can lower your customer acquisitions, even though you do everything you can.
After we had mentioned these aspects, we moved into 10 approaches which all can lead you to finding new customers and converting them into buyers efficiently. Do not forget these strategies require strategic planning, and you also need to be aware of your target audiences and their needs. But after you have the context, and shape these tips in your own way, they can always lead you to the best slices of the cake!
Customer acquisition is a process that covers all tasks that lead the business to more buyers.
As in many industries, real estate websites need to attract new and new potential buyers from time to time to grow bigger or stay at the top.
Real estate websites are restricted to one specific area, where their selling properties are located. Also, the price of one-time purchases is high in this industry, so communicating reliability is always hard.
Website analytics can help you with that! By tracking your visitor’s movements, and the changes in their numbers from the start of your campaign you get easy access to how well your customer acquisition tactics have worked out.
Sign up for Capturly and copy the tracking code from your Dashboard and paste it before the </body> tag. If you have a WordPress site, you can simply install our plugin.