Social Media

Over the last couple of years I have seen many more estate agents embrace social media; every day I see a newly launched account releasing its first Tweet after venturing in to the world of Twitter or posting their first ‘hello’ message on Facebook.

Once again, figures obtained from simple searches on Google show us that around 80 per cent of Twitter users are active on mobile devices, with the majority of these likely to be Smartphone users.

Whichever social media platform you share content on, it is likely to be viewed on various devices, including a mobile. But will they be able to access your website?

Mobile Websites

The desktop computer is no longer the only way we look at websites. When looking for a new home, you need the property details to hand, along with routes – and even, now, information on travelling times to your place of work. All of this is available to access on mobile devices, so if your website doesn’t work well on them, your potential clients will go elsewhere.

A mobile device these days will generally be touch screen and of palm size so accessing a standard website layout will be hard for most people to navigate through.

But a mobile-friendly friendly – ‘responsive’ is the technical term – website will present your property listings in an easy to access format, usually with larger and clearer call to action buttons, showcasing full page
photos, floor plans, videos and enquiry forms, among other features. It leapfrogs the need for an app.

It is a good idea to ask a selection of the estate agency website developers to review your current website with the aim of making your website mobile so no matter however someone tries to view your website, be it SmartPhone, tablet, Blackberry, iPhone or any other handheld device, your site resizes itself for optimum viewing.

SEO

Many agents rely on the property portals to drive enquiries and build brand awareness, but it is also important for your own website to appear on internet search engines. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is simply ‘making your website as easy to find as possible’ by using correct wording, images, social media updates, videos and more so that when someone goes on to a search engine such as Google, it is your estate agency website that appears in the results.

In my mind, SEO is a combination of all forms of marketing put into practice correctly rather than a magical wand that guarantees that your website appears on the first page of Google.

In addition to property listings, think about sharing content on your website that is themed on all things ‘local’ to your agency’s area of business.

If your website doesn’t work on mobile devices you will lose clients to your competitors.

QR

QR codes certainly made a big attempt to capture our imaginations, but I am sure many will agree that these bizarre square maze boxes made up of black and white dots never really took off. Over the last couple of years QR seemed to fade away. But more recently QR codes seem to be making a re-emergence, illustrated by the fact that we are now seeing more of these codes in magazines, newspapers, supermarket labels and products, company vehicles and buses.

For estate agents, window displays are now really embracing QR codes to appeal to people with clever mobile devices in an attempt to engage with them and take them straight to dedicated pages such as property details, their Rightmove and Zoopla listing pages, promotions and so forth.

The secret is getting people to scan or tap and be quickly taken to a call to action web page to gather the users required details.

The likes of ‘scan’ or ‘tap here’ to ‘follow us on Twitter’ or ‘follow us on Facebook’ to get information, such as news on the local property market, among other things, is what businesses are slowly embracing, especially
local businesses with shop fronts who are looking to turn footfall in to followers.

NFC

NFC stands for Near Field Communications and this technology allows for mobile users to simply tap a sticker or poster and be taken to a website page. Less used, but rapidly being adopted by major businesses across the UK. We are all familiar with Oyster Cards which work on a similar principle, i.e. tap and pay.

Customer satisfaction

With mobile web browsing in the UK having grown to around 50 per cent of all web traffic this year, up from 30 per cent of all web traffic in 2012, it is extremely important that your website performs well across all mobile devices, otherwise you could find that you start losing valuable clients to other agents offering a significantly better mobile web experience.

 

Key top tips that you can use to ensure a good SEO strategy for your estate agency website include:

• Think content: Blogging maybe be boring for many of us and simply too hard to maintain a new post every day.But by increasing the relevant keyword rich content on your website you will be helping your site to appear in relevant searches on the likes of Google.

• Think keywords: If you want your website to appear high up in the search results someone is searching for, as an example ‘property for sale in south Kensington’, check to make sure that all of these words appear either together as a phrase or separately on a page on your website. Think about creating a page, or a blog, dedicated to the title of ‘Property for Sale in South Kensington’ and theme it with something along the lines of ‘House prices through the years in South Kensington’ or ‘Famous names to have lived in South Kensington’. These types of pages or blogs will engage online browsers and may even tempt other websites to ask to use, or share, what you have written.

• Create backlinks: Look to build popularity of your website by forming relationships with other websites and sharing content such as blogs and images that have a link back to your website.