6 tips to optimise your real estate website

A real estate website is far more than just a catalogue of properties.

Or at least it ought to be, as when users visit a website for a real estate company, agent or developer, they’re looking for information, not just a portfolio of available properties. They want to know who they’re going to be dealing with, who the people are who will be carrying out the purchase process, who will clear up their doubts and who will save them time house-hunting and negotiating.

Here, we share 6 of the best tips for preparing a real estate website and correctly positioning it before its target audience.

1. The real estate company’s catchment area

The real estate market is local, and even hyperlocal.

Not all real estate companies are the same, but what they do have in common is that the properties they deal in all fall within the same area, which may be very small or a little larger but is almost always in a limited area (a neighbourhood, district, town or county.)

Yet its users, especially the buyers, can be from further afield, even from other regions or countries.

The perspective of a website for a real estate company in a medium-sized town in inland Spain has very little in common with that of an agency that works on the Costa Blanca, which requires its contents to be translated into English at the very least to ensure an adequate positioning in other countries through key terms.

The portfolio of properties also determines the audience the site reaches, depending on whether they are destined to be permanent residences or holiday or second homes.

In the first of these cases, the target is very much limited geographically, while in the case of a second home it spreads to include people from geographical areas which demand holiday homes in the area.

2. Contextualise the messages

“Contextual Marketing” consists of providing each user with valuable information, personalising the contents shown on the page depending on their preferences and needs.

It’s about informing the user on their specific query at the right time and in the right place.

A user who is visiting the page for the first time is not the same as one who has consulted it before. Neither is somebody who has filled in a form on the website and is going to use another form the same as a user who has never provided any information before.

A user can arrive via an Internet search or through a link from another page. If we have information on each user’s place of origin, such as the city or country they’re connected in, we can include personalised messages.

When managing a chatbot, these factors help send messages directed to the user, who is more likely to interact when he/she receives personalised messages.

One tip that’s always advisable: offer more information than your contacts expect, which will give make them feel that you’re an expert on the matter who they can consult on everything to do with the property sale/purchase process.

3. Attractive design without overloading

Whether a page is considered to be “pretty” depends on personal taste, but what matters is that it displays detailed information in a clear, simple way with a design that is not overloaded, either for the user or for Google as loading speed is essential for its positioning algorithm.

Responsive design is what makes the content adapt itself to different screen resolutions without the browsing experience being affected. When a website is redesigned, mobiles should be considered more than large screens:

• 94% of people use their mobiles to look for local information.
• more than 58% of all visits to real estate websites and portals are made from mobile devices.

Tools that allow you to check the page’s loading speed and the elements that could be optimised:

• Pagespeed (Google),
• Website loading speed analysis (detail of the elements that are loaded on the website.)

Another tool to validate websites and see whether they are mobile-friendly, as recommended by Google, is:  Mobile-Friendly Test

4. Extensive information

Concealing basic information such as the price of the properties leads to a bad user experience.

The same is true for property listings which do not include photos or information on the location and surroundings.

All properties, whether they are second-hand or new development, or have yet to be built, should be duly documented.

In the case of construction not yet being complete, Infographics, virtual visits or virtual decoration can be used.

Interactive maps help the user to discover the area, see what services are available and get an idea of the way to and from the property.

For new developments, it’s advisable to provide access to

• Plans, Paperwork,
• Building specifications,
• Availability and prices and
• the state of construction.

Whenever possible, use videos of the outside and inside of the property:

5. Legal aspects and data protection

The European GDPR law: (Regulation (UE) 2016/679 ) is a regulation that concerns all companies operating within the European Union which manage data of a personal nature.

All websites that have a form to collect user data, even if it’s just their email address, must ensure that the user has given their consent “in a free, specific, informed and unambiguous manner.”

The legal texts must be displayed clearly, on all the pages (preferably at the bottom of the page and on web forms) before the button used to send information.

The legal information consists of:

• Cookies policy,
• Legal notice,
• Privacy policy.

You can see an example on the subscription form at the end of this article.

6. Security

Install an SSL certificate so that the pages are displayed under the HTTPS secure protocol and data travels in a safe, encrypted format.

Search engines, with Google at the head, take this information as one of the key factors when it comes to positioning.

You should also use Google Recaptcha Technology so as not to allow spam on web data collection forms. There are various options, for the user to validate.

You can use this secure site verification tool, which gives you results like these:

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Filed Under: Real Estate Agents Costa Blanca Tagged With: real estate marketing, real estate website