How to Excel at Lead Generation in Real Estate

How to Excel at Lead Generation in Real Estate

Generating new leads to drive a business forward can be difficult in any commercial sector but in the overcrowded property market, it represents a significant challenge. In this article, we take a closer look at the way you can maximize your online lead generation.

There are several ways you can generate new business leads including paid advertising, your website and its SEO, email marketing and content marketing. The best way to build a good database of solid leads is to regularly mix-up your lead generation strategies to best expand your reach and also build your authority in the real estate industry.

Here we take a look at the various strategies you can implement to get more clients through your doors.

Is your Website Fully Optimized?

Your website provides a window into your physical office and so naturally, it speaks volumes about your professionalism and quality of service. As this is the first point of contact for many of your prospective clients, it's worth checking to see if your SEO is in good enough shape to generate new leads.

Take a closer look at your website and ask yourself the following questions:

• Can search engines find it?
• Are there clear ways to navigate it?
• Are your contact details visible on every page?
• Is it quick to load?
• Is it mobile-responsive?
• Is it loaded with valuable and informative content?

If you answer no to most of these questions, you'll want to tweak your website and optimize it better for effective lead generation. Check that it's well-designed, easy to use and most importantly, informative and you'll attract more visitors that will hopefully convert to clients.

Create an SEO Plan

One of the most crucial aspects of your website is its SEO. This determines how visible your site is to search engines and potential new leads.

For example, if you're located in Sheffield, ideally you should be aiming at ranking for 'property for sale in Sheffield' or 'long-term rentals in Sheffield'. You can achieve this by creating content on your website that contains relevant keywords for specific services, property listings and rental inventory. This will drive interested parties to specific pages on your website and hopefully convert them to new business.

You can improve your optimization further by creating title tags and Meta descriptions and if you use images you can tag and title them as well. Titling images works particularly well for property websites as the text is still visible if the image can't be displayed, perhaps because visitors have turned off images in their web browser or are using a screen reader because of visual impairment.

Paid Advertising

This is probably the most widely used mechanism for lead generation in business as it allows precision targeting through keyword use that you can manipulate to appeal to specific demographics.

There are several platforms available to you for your PPC advertising campaigns including Google AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and you are free to set your budget according to your preferences.

Syndicating content is another way you can reach your audience. There are several platforms like Outbrain and Quora who offer PPC advertising in conjunction with your own original content. These are the kind of ads that usually appear as a 'Recommended Read' at the bottom of a wide range of media publications online.

You can choose the publication you want to align your agency with and place an ad that clicks-through to download your original content. This content is 'gated' so that a data form has to be completed before accessing the content download which can be a white paper, video of the inside of your best listings or a promotion of your local area.

Have a Call to Action in All your Content

You should bear in mind that every piece of content you create should have a value. Google's search engine is completely focused on adding value to its user experience and it's looking directly to you for the best content to match queries. Remember that poorly written content that's riddled with typos and grammar errors is going to be a poor reflection of your business. Even if you take longer to upload and publish content in order to meet the same standard as the service you offer, it's always worth the extra time investment.

To really get the best return on your marketing spend, make sure there's a call to action or CTA on almost all the marketing content you create. This is essential to maximize your conversion rate. You have to make it clear to the reader that once they're done reading, they are urged to perform a certain action to take things further.

Perhaps you've created a video about a premier listing and have an ad campaign linking to it, (either PPC or email marketing). You should consider a CTA button with something along the lines of 'Book your Viewing'.

If you're planning on generating new leads, you have to give them a reason to give you their details with a good, clear CTA.

Conclusion

Content lies at the heart of all of your marketing endeavors but most importantly for lead generation. If you make sure your content answers questions your existing clients routinely ask you and it's disseminated in the right way, you'll almost certainly attract plenty of new ones. If you are feeling adventurous enough, try building interactive elements into your content like assessments and calculators to enhance your website's user experience. That's an excellent technique to take your content marketing to the next level and strengthen your lead generation strategy.