Real estate might feel like a business rooted in the physical world, but according to the National Association of Realtors, nine out of ten real estate brokers are now using websites to sell their properties.
The fact is, running a business online is an excellent way to communicate with a broader pool of clients and ultimately increase profits.
If you haven’t yet created a website for your real estate business, now is the perfect time to do so, since most prospective buyers start the hunt for their future homes online.
In this article, we’ll explain how to start a real estate business using Zyro, an intuitive and powerful website builder.
Zyro – the easiest way to build a website
Starting a real estate business online
Running a real estate firm can be expensive, and the larger your company, the higher your operating expenses.
That’s why it’s wise to start a real estate business online. This way, you can expand your real estate business without the need for office space or hiring additional agents.
Besides saving money, you can also reach out to more customers at the same time.
Demand for online property listings is ever increasing. A recent study shows that 93% of people who want to buy a house will browse through websites to help them decide, and a staggering 50% of buyers now purchase their homes on the internet.
You can seize this huge opportunity by creating a website for your real estate business. All you need is a reliable hosting provider, a suitable domain name, and a useful website builder.
All these are offered by Zyro, meaning you don’t have to seek each out separately. To top it all off, you have the option to try Zyro for absolutely free.
Step 1: Create a Zyro account
To build a website, you’ll first need to create a Zyro account.
Zyro plans are the most affordable on the market, giving you unlimited storage and bandwidth from the get-go, plus a free domain for 1 year.
You’ll also get access to 100+ designer-made website templates, sophisticated AI tools and 24/7 customer support.
Step 2: Find the right domain
Keep in mind that a domain name is important; make sure that you buy one that fits your site.
We have a few tips for coming up with the perfect name:
- Keep it short – choose one or two words that have few syllables. Also, avoid using hyphens, symbols, or numbers.
- Make it catchy and memorable – pick a unique name that helps stand out from your competitors.
- Pick a suitable extension – choose a domain extension that represents your niche. A real estate business website usually goes with .com.
- Insert your target keywords – a relevant keyword on your domain will let people know what your site is all about, and aid with SEO efforts.
If you already have a registered domain name elsewhere, you can transfer it to Zyro.
All you need to do is go to the Domains menu and click the Connect a Domain button. To do this, you’ll have to first purchase Zyro’s premium plan.
Step 3: Pick your favorite template
One of the most useful benefits of using Zyro is that it gives you access to a huge library of free website templates.
Once you sign up, you will be able to look through designs perfect for anything from a creative agency or a bed and breakfast business to a portfolio site or a startup company.
Most importantly, you’ll have the freedom to choose a suitable template for your real estate business.
Look out for templates featuring relevant elements such as a listing search bar, a featured image header, a contact page, and a product page.
You don’t have to worry if the template doesn’t have all the elements that you want at first. All the designs are 100& customizable, so you can add important details later. Just find one that is close enough to start.
Zyro templates include all the important features you need to create a stunning and fully functional website, including:
- Drag-and-drop customization – you can easily personalize any element of your website in just a few clicks.
- SEO – all templates are SEO-friendly by default. You can change meta titles and descriptions to your liking.
- Responsiveness – designs are responsive both on desktop, tablets and mobile devices.
- Speed – every template is lightweight and designed to perform fast.
Zyro’s site builder uses an intuitive grid system, which allows you to organize your content as you see fit. There won’t be misalignment and awkward spacing because Zyro will take care of it automatically.
Recommended reading: 13 Inspirational Website Design Ideas
Generating content fast
Text content is an integral part of your website, both for informing users what you’re about and helping with search optimization, but it can be time-consuming or expensive to create.
That’s why Zyro made a really useful tool called AI Writer, which will make your writing process easier.
This feature is available for free and is designed to recommend personalized content about any topic.
All you need to do is enter your target keywords and choose the length, uniqueness level, and depth of your paragraph.
In a few minutes, this tool will generate engaging, search engine optimized content for you. How cool is that?
Matching content with your niche
Creating fresh, engaging content about the real estate industry might sound like a challenge, but if you follow some simple rules, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
Consider using the opportunity to expand on your real estate business profile, share testimonials, and advertise property listings.
While the information will be specific to your area of the business, the main goal of your content is to help gain the trust of your customers.
- Explain the benefits of buying and selling properties with your business
- Know your target market to personalize your content towards them
- Use real data to convince people to work with you
- Engage your customers by allowing them to give feedback
You might also want to visit established real estate websites to get inspiration and see what works for the competition.
Take a look at NJ Lux, for example. They feature a section on their website to showcase customer reviews, their property listing maps, as well as their achievements.
With this type of content, NJ Lux manages to improve its brand image and clearly demonstrates the advantages of buying properties from them.
Converting content into profit
In order to make a profit in the real estate business, you have to persuade people to sell properties with you or buy properties from you. An attractive property listing, then, is integral to the success of your website.
This is where you display the buildings and houses that are available to purchase or rent. To create a good listing, you’ll need to balance the amount and quality of information and visuals.
Have you written enough information regarding the properties? Have you taken enough pictures of rooms, furniture, or unused space in the building?
By giving plenty of details to your customers, you are one step closer to completing a deal; they’ll already have a good idea of the properties they’re interested in when they call you for more info.
If you need another way of monetizing your website content, try writing educational information on your blog, or offering skills courses.
This way, you don’t only rely on selling and renting properties to make you money.
The importance of promotion
Online real estate businesses are everywhere. Therefore, you need to promote your website relentlessly to make it stand out from your competitors.
Thankfully, website promotion can be inexpensive. Here are some cost-effective ways to drive more traffic and eventually improve conversions on your website.
Taking advantage of social media
Billions of people use social media. For a business owner, this is a great opportunity to boost your website popularity.
These platforms are the most popular and profitable solutions to draw visitors from:
- Facebook and Instagram – perfect places to post your products and ads, as well as connecting with your customers.
- Quora – allows you to answer people’s questions and encourages them to visit your website at the same time.
- YouTube – a suitable platform to share video content and ads about your business.
Alternatively, you can also consider starting a social media endorsement. This promotion method requires you to pay a popular public figure or account to promote your business on their platforms.
Just make sure their content is relevant to your niche and bear in mind that social media endorsement can cost a lot of money.
Improving SEO to get more traffic
Most potential customers start looking for properties on search engines.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing your website in order to get more organic traffic from search engines. It is one of the most affordable and effective ways of making your online business grow.
If your website is SEO-optimized, it is more likely to appear on the first page of the search results and attract more valuable traffic.
Thankfully, if you are using Zyro, your website is responsive and SEO-friendly right out of the gate.
Still, there are other factors that dictate whether your website will rank higher. To boost your SEO performance, you can try the following:
- Create high-quality content – your content has to bring value to your customers. Make it easy to read by using bulleted points and proper headings.
- Start blogging – sharing updated and factual content will get your customers to come back again.
- Research your keywords – look for trending keywords for your niche and create content based on them.
- Submit your website to Google – register your website to Google Search Console and submit your sitemap. Thus, Google will crawl your website faster and more thoroughly.
- Build internal linking – helps Google understand the relation of your website content and its importance.
While you are making these improvements, we highly recommend you to use tools that can make your job easier.
- GTMetrix – a website speed test tool that will suggest what improvements you need to make in order for your website to become faster.
- SurferSEO – creates SEO templates and provides recommendations for content optimization.
- Ubersuggest – provides keyword insights, and lets you inspect your competitors’ SEO performance. Available free-of-charge.
Using email marketing
This is pretty simple to understand: promoting your business by sending emails to your target audience.
It is an efficient way to engage with your potential customers and update them on your available properties.
Before you start an email marketing campaign, you must first build an email list.
Start by displaying a submission form on your website so people can easily join your newsletter. You can also offer them some discounts or freebies if they write down their contact details.
Once your email list is large enough, you can begin sending out your emails to promote your website. Here are some tips on how to boost your open rate and click-through rate.
- Gain the trust of your customers – use your own name as the sender and address your customers by their titles as well.
- Include powerful call-to-action words that encourage people to open your mail and click on your link.
- Keep your messages short and make use of white space.
- Make it easy to unsubscribe from your newsletter and offer mobile-friendly content.
- Schedule your email – choose the best time to send (i.e., Tuesdays at 10 AM, according to this report).
- Split test your emails to see which one works better for your business.
Recommended reading: SMB Marketing: 103 Ideas for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
Start your business today
One of the best ways to expand your real estate business is to make it online. Having a website allows you to reach more potential customers without having to spend a fortune.
You should now have a decent idea of how to start a real estate business online with Zyro:
- Create your website, choose your template and domain.
- Build high-quality content and make a profit out of it.
- Promote your website through social media websites, search engines, and email marketing.
Now, it’s time to try and create a real estate business website of your own.
Zyro – the easiest way to build a website
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