Is Your Website Converting Visitors To Leads?

Leads are the backbone of your brokerage. Good leads keep existing agents productive and are a draw for new agents. With 92 percent of buyers using the internet in their home search, according to NAR, brokers using smart website visitor conversion methods have a competitive edge in the cultivation and generation of leads for their teams.

Website Traffic to Leads

Let’s say you’ve been diligent about your advertising and your team is actively working multiple social media channels to promote their listings and your brokerage. You are monitoring your website analytics and you can see a healthy rise in website traffic from your efforts. While you may be getting website visitors, how many visitors complete your contact form or, better yet, directly contact you by picking up the phone or sending an email?

Converting visitors to real contacts through your brokerage website is one of the most cost-effective methods of generating leads. In digital marketing, we look at the ratio of unique website visitors to contacts, over a period of time, and we call that your “conversion rate”.  Too many brokers leave money on the table by focusing exclusively on advertising, and not the more subtle art of optimizing your website’s conversion rate.

Steps To A Better Conversion Rate

Increasing and optimizing your conversion rate isn’t rocket science. In fact, in most cases it’s just applied common sense. But done correctly you will build a better conversion rate and help ensure a steady flow of clients by using a few tried and true website marketing principles:

• Calls To Action – Studies show that simply asking someone to contact you on a webpage, can increase your overall conversion rate 1-2%. Make sure you ask people to contact you on every page in context appropriate ways that are highly visible.
• Micro-Conversions – If they are not ready to speak to a realtor, offer them another way to stay in touch. “Sign up for alerts about this property”, or “Download our ebook on local schools”, or “Home Wish List”, “Report on recently sold nearby properties” etc. These “micro-conversions” may not lead directly to a sale today, but any interaction that allows you to capture their name and email, builds your ability to market in the future.
• Create a pop-up capture form on your landing page after leads have been viewing your website for 1-2 minutes.
• Change the calls to action on your website forms every three months to determine which wording performs better.
• Analytics – Keep track of your website traffic and form completions and regularly analyze the conversion rate of visitors to leads to see where and how they convert. Make sure all the leads are being followed up on.
• Ensure your contact information on all pages is easy to find and click on for quick communication. Modern websites lock the phone number of the brokerage in the header, so it is always visible to those who want immediate and direct agent contact.
• Humanize the non-MLS pages of your website where possible through pictures, stories, blogs, and talk about community events, being careful to stay away from text heavy pages where possible.

Finally, always remember that when you get that contact, you need to be ultra-responsive. Think minutes and hours, not days. The digital world is one of instant gratification, if not by you, then it will be by your competitors.

Lead the Way on Conversions

To win in real estate, you’ve got to do it all. In the digital case that means both getting the website traffic, and getting the contact from either a form, a phone call or an email. The more website visits turn into actual leads, the more the cost of creating and maintaining your site and buying advertising, pays for itself with increased sales for your agents. Don’t neglect the last piece of the puzzle, convert!
If you don’t have the type of resources outlined above to put into your website, you can still effectively take advantage of online consumer traffic by aligning yourself with someone who does. At Weichert, we make a significant investment in our website, Weichert.com and have the resources to continually optimize its results.  Our digital advertising and marketing strategy drives over 3 million visitors to weichert.com every month*, making it one of the top independent brokerage sites in the country and continually driving leads to our call center to connect with agents.  It’s one of our key benefits to our affiliates. To learn more about how this could fit into your business plan, go to weichertfranchise.com or call our team today at 877-567-3350.

*Google Analytics, January 2017

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