Property Website, Why you must use WordPress

In the property game, renting is a waste of money, you’ll get a much better return if you own your property. Websites are the same, if you are serious about your businesses online presence you need to own your own website.

Myhome offers a turn key website solution that any estate agent that uses their service can get up and running within a few days for a relatively small cost. The problem is they will do essentially the same website for you as they will do for every other agent you are competing with.

Under the skin all these sites are produced without little thought about how you can gain an advantage over your competitors.  In the eyes of Google they have the exact same content as the myhome website. Did you know that Google penalises duplicate content and as a leading property website the main myhome website is going to get the credit for the listing you put up online.

What’s the problem? I get all my business from the property website such as daft and myhome.

Myhome and daft are great connecting you with buyers and renters but what is your strategy for connecting with sellers and landlords? Do you have one?

Shop fronts, Your “For  Sale” Boards & newspapers all do send you new customers but did you know that 97% of consumers search online before buying locally.

Getting in front of these people is essential for attracting new consumers to your business. To get in front of these people you need to own your own website and it needs to be better than your competitors as getting the top position on Google will deliver you 31.5% of the people who are interested in your services. (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics) 

WordPress for Estate Agent and Auctioneers Websites

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open source piece of software. It is FREE to download & use. It is the most popular CMS and it currently runs over 25% of the world’s websites.

If you want to use WordPress you have 2 options.

Option 1: (Preferred Option)

Download your own copy of WordPress from https://wordpress.org/ and install it on your own hosting.

Option 2:                                                                                                                     

Sign up for an account on WordPress.com and get started straight away. This is the easier option but there are many restrictions especially if you need to customise it later on. Remember, it’s better to own the land where you build your new website.

  Customising WordPress for your Estate agent business.

To customise WordPress you will need a good theme and also you will need an array of pljugins to make the site do what you want it to do.

Recommended Themes:

• Divi (Affiliate Link)
• Check out the property themes on ThemeForest: 

Recommended plugins.  

There are some common plugins that I recommend you use on every site. You can find a list of them here. 

If you are considering building your own property website I would recommend that you evaluate the following.

WP-Property

 Easy Property Listings

 WPL Real Estate

What estate agents are doing wrong.

• Estate agents don’t see a website as their shop window.
• Focus on listing properties rather attracting new customers via their website.
• They set up and forget.
• Don’t optimise their listings.
• Don’t keep their website software up to date.
• List all services on one page of their website. Each service needs a dedicated page that is optimised for search engines.

How to get the most from your Website

• Write Unique content for all your services
• Add new properties to your website first, then add to the property website. This is a great trick to give your site real credibility
• Optimise your images.
• Set up your own social media channels and build your own audience.

Extra Options:

• Accepting Payments
  • Currently here in Ireland, the local enterprise boards

Marketing your Property Website:

• Search Engine optimisation
  • Add each property individually.
  • Optimise your images. Both filename & Alt Tags
• Paid Search
• Social Media
  • New Properties come online.
    • Post the video
  • Weekly Roundup.
  • Guide
  • Offer them practical tips on how to sell their house
  • Survey your customers
  • Announcements
• Social Advertising
  • People work with businesses that they know. It’s important that via your social media channels that people get to know you and your business.
  • Type of Ads to Run
    • Awareness Ads.
    • Valuations
    • Vary the pictures/rotate the pictures
  • Google Ads

Keywords you should consider optimising for.

• Auctioneer yourtown
• Auctioneer yourcounty
• Estate Agent yourcounty
• Estate Agent yourcounty
• Estate Agent sell my home
• Valuations in youtown
• Valuations in yourcounty
• How much is my home worth