It can be very frustrating to find your real estate website not getting the traction as you expect it to be- especially when you see its performance trickling in drops.
Worse, people find it difficult to determine the cause of the problem making it more challenging to figure out what they should do next to reverse the situation.
In the real estate industry, the need to stay visible and relevant online is critical to the survival of a real estate business, considering the pandemic’s impacts that have driven the industry to resort to the virtual environment.
Is there hope for poorly performing websites?
Fortunately, there are ways to find out what is causing a real estate website to perform poorly. Some of these causes are poor graphic design, page layout, user interface, etc.- all of which can be determined by analysing web metrics to determine the weak and pain points of a website.
Here are several proven strategies that can help you find out what’s wrong with your real estate website so you can get up and start moving again.
Practical strategies to boost your website performance
Here are three common yet effective strategies used by digital marketers to address the current challenges affecting businesses through poor website performance. Implementing these strategies can help you identify opportunities to address and help you move back on the right track.
Simplify your client journey
As a real estate agent, you understand that one of your client’s needs is to have a seamless and smooth experience, regardless if they are selling or buying property.
The same principle applies to your real estate website. Ask yourself if your website takes good care of your clients by guiding them through their online experience conveniently and satisfactorily?
Do you offer a good value proposition? Do they get the answers they need when they go to your website? Are your services or property listings appealing to make people take action to buy or sell?
In short, people want to go through a simple sale or buying process, period. This is how people gauge your trustworthiness by making things easy for them and sparing them from the difficult obstacles that lie in wait for their real estate experience.
Start by ensuring that you have a transparent and straightforward process. For instance, you are sharing with your audience the usual process and timelines for closing a property deal, loan or mortgage application, etc.
It can also be in the form of FAQ’s that inform and guide readers on common concerns and issues regarding real estate matters.
You can take it to the next level by providing crafted solutions that can be found on your website, such as those needing more advise, providing them with downloadable forms, and providing a resource to help compute standard rates and costs, etc.
You can then provide a registration form that can be filled out, such as their contact details and so you can personally contact them should they need more questions and how you can cater solutions for them.
Split testing and web analytics
It is essential that you know and on top of your website’s performance, lest you end up losing money and valuable time when it is not performing as per your expectations.
But there are ways to assess your web performance intelligently, and that is through web analytics as it can help provide you with data and insights as to how your website is performing. For instance, analytics lets you see the average amount of time spent by readers per page and which pages readers end up exiting your page.
This will give you an idea of which of the pages may need a thorough review and allow you to address it, such as revamping or redesigning that specific page.
Also, note that when your readers spend too much time navigating through a simple step in your sales process, that can be a significant pain point for your website. Don’t forget that the shorter time they spend on a page, the better it is for them.
This is where AB split testing comes in. This means that you create two different versions of a page for other visitors, which will help you identify your page’s weak points and resolve them based on the vital aspects of your better-performing split page.
For instance, if your landing page causes 70% of your audience exiting immediately after accessing it and with 30% continuing, you might consider creating two landing pages with modified features for each to help determine your click-through rate for each of those pages. At the end of your testing period, you choose which one performs better and implement it.
Testing in-person
In-person testing is also known as remote testing when you recruit a person to help test your website by making them undertake tasks like what readers would generally do when accessing your website.
It can provide you uncover problems that occur, especially during the web-building process, so you can take steps to prevent issues from occurring before your website goes live.
Doing in-person testing early in website development can help save you time, effort, and resources by launching your reliable and performing website.
For those with existing websites, in-person testing lets you test those pages and provide you with insights as to which pages are performing and those that are not, so you can plan on redesigning or overhauling those pages by patterning them with the performing ones.