Online presence, availability, and accessibility are among the major elements of a real estate website.
Having a real estate website is ideally beneficial if you want to remain competitive in the industry. But what happens when something goes wrong with your online platforms such as downtime or technical issue.
In such cases, it would be practical to have alternate web traffic sources for two smart reasons- you have a functioning channel that ensures business as usual and expands your capabilities to reach out to more people.
Why give attention to web traffic?
Make no mistake, web traffic is your lifeline to the online sphere. What would your website or social media channels be without web traffic? Of course, you lose the opportunity to connect to the audience that eventually causes you to lose money through lost sales without people visiting your website.
Several years back, the Australian government had an issue with Facebook and decided to restrict several services such as news sharing, as well as blocking government-related sites that provided key information to the public in terms of pandemic news, updates on emergency services, mental health, etc.
These restrictions also affected digital marketing campaigns especially those using Facebook to channel readers to their websites.
While the matter was immediately addressed after an agreement was reached by Facebook and the Australian government, the traffic lost during that time has cost millions of dollars on missed opportunities during the downtime.
Forward-thinking
There have been lessons learned from that incident and surely demands you to think about how to prepare and plan for instances like these.
A great way to address this is to diversify your web traffic sources by developing your backup solutions to address such situations in the future.
Here are some steps to take and tips on how you could plan and strategise diversifying your web traffic sources.
Know your audience
Of course, in the real estate business your ideal audience is homeowners, right? Well, that’s just one but you also need to identify other audience profiles that you need to consider as your ideal readers.
For instance, if you specialise in commercial property management services, other than investment property owners you also need to target the investor market, especially those looking at start-up investments and may dip their toes in real estate.
Identifying more than one reader profile can help you expand your network and be able to help you tailor your digital marketing efforts and ensure that you get more traffic from multiple sources.
Provide solutions to common yet nagging issues
Now that you have identified your target audience or readers, you may want to develop ways to catch their attention or stir up their interest.
For instance, your target audience is first-time home buyers and a good way to attract them is to share solutions to common issues that affect them such as advice on how to apply for a loan, increase their chances of getting approved for a mortgage application, break down the costs of getting a new home, etc.
The more relevant the topics, the better.
Guest posts and actively engage
You can also get additional traffic by offering to write guest posts or blogs. Not only will you be able to stir interest in your page through others, but you also get to direct traffic to your online channels especially those who are would like to know you more.
You can also actively comment on posts and allow people to hear your insights and opinions that can help you gain credibility and authority in your niche.
By doing this you also get to expand your network and at the same time allow you to diversify your traffic sources.
Newsletter and encourage people to subscribe
Two of the most common yet guaranteed ways you get control over your content is through email and newsletter.
You can get more people to subscribe and provide you with their contact details but make sure to do your part in sending out a regular newsletter or update so that your audience will not doubt your intentions of getting their contact details and make you more trustworthy and reliable.
Reach out and interact with readers
Making sure that you touch base with your readers is an effective way of gaining their trust and confidence, which also makes them feel that they are interacting with a human instead of a bot or automated response system.
It can be a simple as responding or reacting to their comments to show that you notice them and acknowledge their ideas and insights on your articles or blogs.