Creating a Digital Presence Without a Website
In today’s digital age, having a website feels unavoidable. A website can drive real estate leads from blog content, search functionality, digital downloads, and more – plus, it’s a way to give potential clients a quick glimpse of credibility.
BUT! What if you don’t have a website? This could be the case for many reasons: maybe you’re just getting started in real estate so it’s not at the top of the priority list or maybe it’s just not something you want to be putting energy into. Remember, around here, we only implement marketing strategies if they have a distinct, defined purpose in targeting ideal clients; a website might not be part of your targeted marketing strategy!
Even if you don’t have a website, you might be looking to build up your presence online. Your online presence will help you accomplish two core goals: establish credibility and bring in new buyer & seller leads. There are several ways you can do these things without the traditional website model. Keep in mind that the most important factor to consider is what purpose each of these alternatives is serving in your marketing strategy.
Website alternatives:
A strong social media presence. This is a great way to establish credibility because of the log of past successes a social media presence creates. There will be posts about sold listings, clients you’ve represented, and updates about the local real estate market. A strong social presence is also a crazy efficient lead generation strategy because you’re able to reach so many new people who aren’t already in your orbit. This could be on any social platform that feels the most natural for you:
Important implementation tips:
Don’t share too many random things to your social platforms. Posting enough content is important but, in this case, it’s crucial to allow people to scroll somewhat easily through your past content to see your recent closings and experience. Too much content will make this impossible!
Give a clear call to action in all of your posts. Ask people to call you or to take some other very clear action if they have questions or are curious about the value of their home, etc. On Facebook, you can change the button at the top of your page to be any kind of link – make a phone call, send a message, go to a link, anything. Use this to your advantage too!
Keep content engaging by sharing information your target niche truly cares about. Don’t worry about “chasing other people away”; remember that if you’re not appealing to one specific person or group, you’re actually not appealing to anyone. Check out this blog post for more about why niching is so important.
Landing pages. What is a landing page? This is just one page on the worldwide web that’s independent of any particular website. You can set up just one landing page and be done if that’s what you need. A landing page will allow you to collect lead information in exchange for some kind of item of value. This is an important component of any marketing strategy – but you don’t need a full website to do it.
Important implementation tips:
You’ll need some software to set up your landing pages. I recommend LeadPages, which is really the industry leader for landing pages and isn’t too difficult to figure out. To get more technical, you’ll need to create a landing page with an opt-in form to collect lead information and you’ll need to set up a thank you page.
On the back end of every successful landing page is some kind of CRM software, like Propertybase, Hubspot, Follow Up Boss, etc. You’ll need to connect your CRM to your landing page to make sure all of that new contact information is sent over to a place where you can access it. You’ll also need to create an auto-response email that sends whatever information your leads are opting in for!
Zillow reviews. Yep, the “z” word! Even though Zillow isn’t exactly a real estate agent’s best friend, having reviews there bolsters credibility like crazy – especially if you’re paying for leads from Zillow. If you’re not paying for their leads, this isn’t likely to be a stunning lead generation strategy, but it will definitely be a great way for leads from other sources to confirm your expertise and credibility.
Important implementation tips:
Ask every client to write you a review after their closing. This is a habit you’ll need practice to form so start now! You can ask all of your past clients who’ve closed in the last 6 months or so to write you a review to get started – the worst they can say is no.
Make a point to copy all those testimonials over to a Word doc or something similar once a month or so. Your testimonials are invaluable and if anything happens to Zillow (or if they somehow delete your page or … xyz), you’ll want to have those backed up somewhere.
Homesnap for client searches. The aspect of a website that tends to be the most expensive and difficult for real estate agents is the home search functionality. Unfortunately, this is also a pretty important feature to have as an agent! If you want to skip out on a website, you’ll need to offer this in a different way and Homesnap is a great alternative. You can collaborate with clients about available homes and see what homes they’ve saved to their favorites. It’s a great solution to keep clients’ eyeballs away from those Zillow ads and there’s plenty of other great functions for agents on the back end as well.
Important implementation tips:
Set the expectation with clients up front that this is the app you recommend and use for home searches. Keeping them in Homesnap is crucial to keeping track of their favorite properties so just be clear from the get-go.
Link everything listing-related from social media platforms to the listing page on Homesnap to drive traffic straight there and build familiarity with the software for your future clients.
You can build an online presence without a website if you want to. The key here is to make sure that each technique you’re implementing is accomplishing a clear goal of your marketing strategy – and not just adding to the confusion of your everyday life. And, as always, make sure to only implement one thing at a time, perfect that one thing, and then move on to the next thing you’d like to implement!
REFERENCE GUIDE:
Social Media Content for Real Estate Agents
This quick one-sheet reference guide covers the five types of content real estate agents should be sharing to social media. Plus, there are a couple of tech recommendations to make life easier!
