Landing pages can help real estate agents capture potential client contact information, promote open houses, and develop an email list. Here’s how to build landing pages that convert. As a real estate agent, you need to take advantage of every opportunity to make yourself stand out from your competition. Treating your clients and prospects with personal attention is one of the keys to being successful in the industry. Doing this in person is the ideal option, but you can also give personalized attention with your website and marketing efforts. How? By using landing pages. In this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about landing pages and how to use them to enhance your custom realtor website design.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is a customized page on your website that is specific to a certain product or service. High-end website designers create landing pages to connect with marketing campaigns. Your prospects or clients get to landing pages by clicking on a specified link. These links can appear on your home page under custom tabs, or they can be hidden so that only those who are provided the link can find them. Links to landing pages are often provided in social media posts, Google or Facebook ads, or in other types of marketing prompts.
There are key differences between websites and landing pages. They include:
- Websites have multiple purposes, while landing pages have only one. Your website is designed to brand your agency and give pertinent information to visitors. It may also act as a portal to view home listings, give information on open houses, and educate viewers on the home-buying or selling process. Landing pages each have a single purpose. For example, a landing page can have the purpose of gathering RSVPs for an event or giving detailed information on a single home you are trying to sell.
- Websites encourage visitors to click around. Your website has multiple ‘distractions’ in the form of links and tabs. The goal is to keep your visitors on your website as long as possible, clicking around and viewing different areas. The best real estate agent websites have landing pages that encourage focus and action. A landing page will not have multiple links or tabs. Instead, it will have one option, such as signing up for a newsletter.
- Landing pages have a call to action. Your website is meant primarily to be informational. Landing pages are meant to incite action. Effective landing pages have a clear CTA, such as scheduling a viewing of a home. Some also have incentives. For example, you can offer a free e-book on staging your home in exchange for the visitor’s email address.
What are the Two Types of Landing Pages?
With custom realtor website design, two types of pages are used for maximum effectiveness.
- Click-through landing pages. Click-through landing pages are used if you want to sell something on your site. They have a simple button as the CTA that takes visitors to a checkout flow or to complete a transaction. For realtors, a click-through landing page would only be used if you sell items on your site, such as books or guides you have written.
- Lead generation landing pages. The best real estate agent websites have lead gen landing pages that use a form to capture information from the visitor. The information is usually an email address or phone number and allows you to continue marketing to them via email marketing, text marketing, or a personalized phone call. Lead gen landing pages are key to building a list of potential buyers or sellers.
Why are Landing Pages Important?
Once you know why landing pages are so important, you’ll see why they are critical to your marketing strategy. Here are the ways a landing page will improve your website.
- They facilitate conversions. When designed properly, a landing page facilitates a certain type of conversion. A conversion is an action you want the visitor to take. Conversions can be anything from signing up for your agency’s newsletter to calling you for a personalized showing of a home to RSVPing to an open house.
- They capture traffic. Depending on the analytics you have connected to your website, you may not know how many people are visiting your site or how interested they are in your services. You also will have no way to market to these prospects unless they directly reach out to you. Landing pages are designed to capture traffic to identify which prospects are interested in which of your services and to provide you with a way to contact them.
- They help you stand out. Many realtors in the industry either do not have effective websites or don’t have websites at all. A custom realtor website design with multiple landing pages shows you are serious about what you do and sets you apart from your competition.
- They improve your ROI. Marketing is all about return on investment. Because landing pages are designed to convert visitors into clients, they offer a much higher ROI than many other forms of marketing. When connected to an effective and robust social media marketing campaign, landing pages offer a high return for a modest investment.
What Makes a Landing Page Effective?
Just having a few landing pages on your website will not guarantee an improvement in your marketing efforts. The best real estate agent websites have specific elements in their landing pages that make them effective. They are:
- Knowing your target market. Landing pages are meant to be customized to a specific group of people. If you have several different target markets, such as young married couples interested in buying their first home or middle-aged single women looking for townhomes, you can create several landing pages and direct each group toward the appropriate one. If you don’t yet know your target market, you need to identify it before moving forward with landing page development.
- Conciseness. Landing pages should be clear and concise. Wordiness and multiple images will only dilute the message and confuse visitors.
- Clear CTA. What do you want people to do when they arrive at your landing page? A clear call to action, such as signing up for your newsletter or booking a time to see a home on the market, will lead to conversions.
- Imagery. Choose an appropriate image that matches the emotion you want your visitors to feel when they see your landing page. For example, if your page is geared toward young married couples, having an image of a happy couple in their early 20s will have the intended effect.
How Can I Drive Traffic to My Landing Page?
There’s no use in developing landing pages if the right people are not going to see them. Fortunately, there are several paid and non-paid strategies for driving traffic to your landing pages. They include:
- Email marketing. If you already have a solid email list, you can include links to your landing pages in newsletters or weekly emails announcing open houses or new homes on the market.
- Social media. Market your landing pages on social media through regular posts (free) or a strategic ad campaign. Ad campaigns can target prospects who will respond well to specific landing pages, making them an effective and affordable option.
- Paid search. Paid search, otherwise known as pay-per-click (PPC) or search engine marketing (SEM), consists of advertising methods where you pay a fee each time a user clicks on your ad. While these can get pricey, they can also be highly effective in driving traffic to your pages.
- Promote on your site. The goal is to have people go directly to your landing pages without having to wade through your home page to find the information they are looking for. However, the best real estate agent websites also have promotions throughout their site to market their landing pages. Buttons to sign up for newsletters or other CTAs can be included on multiple pages of your site to lead visitors to appropriate landing pages.
How Do I Choose the Right Professional to Design My Landing Page?
Building an effective website with landing pages is the best way to stand out from your competition. To achieve this goal, you need a custom realtor website design created by a professional. Here’s how to choose one:
- Look at companies that specialize in your industry. The best real estate agent websites were designed by companies that have built hundreds of sites for agents and know what works (and what doesn’t) for the industry.
- Ask for references and examples. The best way to tell the level of professionalism of a company is to see designs they have completed and talk with past and present clients.
- Don’t rely on price alone. The best web design companies are not the cheapest. When comparing prices, always keep in mind what you are paying for. Sometimes you will pay extra for years of experience, extra tools, or industry specialization, but it’s worth it if you get a website that gives you a competitive advantage.
Landing pages are your secret weapon to beat your competition and convert website visitors to clients. Have questions about designing landing pages for your real estate agency? Please reach out so we can talk more.
