Entegral Blog

It might not seem like an important aspect of your homepage but compelling introductions are quite pivotal in hooking a potential client. For many visitors to your FLEX website , the first page they will land on is your homepage, and as the saying goes - first impressions last. Consider your homepage and what you are trying to do - as a real estate agency, it is not just about selling property, you have to sell yourself and your business to build those lasting relationships that turn into profit. How do you do this with a homepage? By introducing yourself as the leading expert that you are through a well-written introduction. How to write winning introductions Writing effective homepage copy doesn’t need to be complicated and these tips will help you not only introduce your business to visitors but also move them to action. Be concise Everyone visiting your website already knows that you are a real estate agent or agency, they don’t need an explanation on what you do. What they do need...

Most real estate searches today starts on mobile, so it makes sense to have a mobile optimised website for your visitors. So much so that in 2016 Google started including mobile friendliness as a ranking factor and also started advising of upcoming changes on how it crawls and indexes websites. Now Google has just made a big announcement: it's going to default to mobile 1st indexing for the entire web:   https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/03/announcing-mobile-first-indexing-for.html In their announcement, Google again clearly highlights their recommendation for running a responsive website: "...While we continue to support  various ways of making mobile websites , we recommend  responsive web design  for new websites. We suggest not using separate mobile URLs (often called "m-dot") because of issues and confusion we've seen over the years, both from search engines and users...." How to check if your real estate website is responsive What i...

We've found many real estate service providers still not offering this critical website feature. Here is why it is important to your estate agency . Almost 6 years ago  Google indicated HTTPS is a ranking signal for SEO. This prompted service providers like Entegral to offer this as  standard feature on it's latest generation Flex real estate websites , and optional on older websites. In 2018 Google made more 'visual' changes and started showing a  'Not Secure'  in its Chrome browser (most popular browser out there) as shown below: Now this doesn't look particularly good if you are a buyer visiting your agency website right?  There are various drawbacks for not having an SSL certificate on your agency website: Any information captured by your user (e.g. their contact details on an enquiry form) are transmitted insecurely to your service provider's servers. This data can easily be intercepted and stolen on public WiFi networks. It...

Article by Adriaan Grove, Entegral It is 2019, start investing in content if you are not already doing so One of the best investments you can make for your real estate website ( apart from creating a great user experience ) is to create valuable content that's relevant to your audience. Most estate agents have resorted to integrating news articles and in some cases area articles into their websites to achieve some level of personalisation. The main focus on real estate websites seems to be on the design (in most cases only the home page is customized), and not on telling your story, showcasing your expertise or giving visitors valuable sticky content. This goes skin deep when the rest of your website looks like that of your competitor. You need to start thinking further than the "one fit for all" template websites out there that doesn't encourage any creativity beyond the home page. In most cases customization beyond the home page cannot be done or you are charg...

Mobile traffic is not new and in years gone by a mobile version of a desktop website would have been enough, however, in the age of smartphones, tablets and an agile society that wants information right now responsive design is the only way forward. You can argue that a mobi-site is suffice for your business but you would be wrong. Not only is responsive design a key element in a strong SEO strategy, it is also a deciding factor for many consumers on whether or not they will make use of your services. Here are the latest statistics that prove that you can no longer wait to switch your site over to a responsive website: As mentioned before - mobile traffic is not new, in fact  Statista has found that it has been ahead since 2015, however with the technology behind smartphones improving turning mobile phones into mini laptops and the increase in mobile traffic, websites that aren’t responsive are losing progressively larger portions of their audience each year. The ...

By offering competitive industry tools, supporting an agent's personal brand, and investing in a collaborative workplace culture, agencies can make themselves indispensable to their agents and future talent as well. Invest in technology that makes agents better According to an Inman report, real estate agents overwhelmingly support tech tools provided by their agencies. The vast majority of agents at franchised agencies and independent agencies use tech products either on a daily basis or at the very least, a few times a week. Additionally, they have come to rely on their agencies sharing the costs of these technologies. Investing in technology that aids in their productivity will help you retain your current agents and will also become a great selling point for agents considering joining your agency. Here are a few examples of technology that will aid in productivity in your real estate agency: Document Management Contracts, inspection checklists and other real estat...

If you are looking to increase your business profile and by extension, your revenue, a large part of your marketing strategy should focus on healthy lead generation. Before you even start to generate leads, you’ll want to organize the ones you have. Leads should be segmented based on behaviour — one-size doesn’t fit all in 2018. Make sure that whatever lead nurturing techniques you are using resonate with the correct audience. Setting up a paid social campaign is a great way to get visitors to your site, and an easy-to-navigate listing page with a one-click form is an excellent way to capture a lead, but what’s next? If you don’t follow up with the lead, all the effort you put into securing it will be for nought. Segment your leads, provide them with customized content, connect with them on social and maintain an appropriate level of interaction with them. By doing this, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goals. If the new year snuck up on you and you haven’t had...

Voice search is here to stay - because it is easier to speak to a digital assistant than typing - so we take a look at three ways you can gear your real estate website towards voice search. To prove that voice search is the way of the future, take a look at these statistics: Voice labs found that there were a total of 33 million voice-first devices in circulation. In a survey of SEO trends for 2017 and beyond , voice search stood at the third spot. In his keynote, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that one-fifth of the queries on Google are voice searches. REA Group's move into AI with Amazon's Alexa With the increase in the use of digital assistants, optimising for voice search is critical to your SEO success. We take a look at three SEO strategies to help you optimise your website - it is easier than you think! 1. Claim your Google My Business Listing Probably the easiest thing to do is to simply claim your Google My Business listing! The reason why this is im...

Social media is a powerful marketing tool and with these tips and tricks, you will be able to improve your social media engagement this year. Marketing yourself or your agency on social media in 2018 should no longer just be about reaching a large audience, rather about having people reacting to your posts with not just likes but with much more valuable comments and shares. We take a look at how you can improve your social media engagement here. Share valuable content This goes hand-in-hand with our usual advice of writing fresh content for your website, at least once a week. Not only is it good for your search engine optimisation (SEO) it is also good for your social media engagement. These are the five marks your content should hit to make it valuable (and perfect for social media): Is it helpful to your audience? Are you actually solving their real estate problems or answering their property related questions? Is it saving time? Are you ensuring that your readers can ...

Finding worthy topics to write about can be a difficult task, especially if you are already managing a very busy day. But it doesn’t have to be - all it takes is a bit of planning! Before get to the actual blog writing part, we have to mention that for most people browsing social media from their phones, a responsive site is a must. If you are writing compelling articles, why wouldn’t you want to make it accessible to anyone no matter on what mobile device they are? You can find out more about our responsive packages by visiting www.entegral.net/flex and more about the importance of responsive design here: Mobile-First Indexing Plan ahead To ensure you have some copy ready for the year, plan ahead. Think seasonally and around holidays. Provide gardening tips, or winter home maintenance guide. Home safety around the holidays is another seasonal topic that is always welcomed. Write these articles now, that way you have them ready to publish when the time comes around. Weekl...

The digital landscape is fast moving and ever changing, and a stale digital marketing strategy won’t cut it anymore. We take a look at a few things you can do now to spruce up your strategy to ensure you don’t fall behind and miss out on valuable website traffic in 2018. Stop stuffing content with keywords This might have worked in the past, but search engines have changed dramatically and this won’t help you at all. You might even end up hurting your business as search engines might flag your page as spam. Keywords are still important but search engines (and humans) prefer long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are those three and four keyword phrases which are very, very specific to what you are selling. This means content with the phrase ‘Lonehill property for sale’ will fare better than simply ‘property for sale’ when you want to ensure you are getting better ranking in personalised search results. Step-up your social game Everyone is on some form of social media...

Despite the rise of e-commerce, the majority of shopping still happens locally. A study from May 2014 showed that 72% of consumers who searched for local info on a smartphone visited stores within eight kilometres of home - and this year data shows consumers stay even closer. So what does this mean for your marketing efforts? As a real estate agent, we are all trying to become the neighbourhood expert and one of the ways to establish yourself as an expert is by popping up in search results. There are two ways to achieve this - making sure your agency has a Google My Business listing and by ensuring you are providing vital area information on your website . Here we take a look at how to approach hyper-local advertising and here we find out more about the importance of Google My Business. Local agencies must adjust their marketing reach to account for the small radius of their audience. However, that audience might include local residents, commuters who work nearby or out-o...

The holiday season is upon us and with that comes a well-deserved break, but don’t let your news section go stale in the time you’re away. Write your blogs ahead of time and schedule them to publish on your website. Scheduling your blog Before we cover a few topics to get through the holiday season, we take a look at how you can schedule your posts to be published on your website. It really is as easy as selecting a date and time from your OMS dashboard. Once you have written your post, select the date and time as shown below and hit the save button. That is all you have to do! Real estate blog topics for the holidays End of year recap and an overview of what to expect in the coming year Create a year-in-review broken down by neighbourhood, type of home or other criteria. If you want to get fancy, you might create an infographic or chart for easy sharing as well. You can use our suburb reports to find the data you are looking for! Local lights and events Inclu...

No doubt you’re providing the best service, but how do you ensure a quality experience translates into a positive review online? Getting a customer to take the time to share his or her thoughts can seem challenging, but there are a number of strategies you can utilize to increase the odds that reviews will be posted. Why do I need online reviews? Consumers are increasingly relying on the Internet to obtain information about businesses. Reviews not only serve as a guide to customers but also provide free advertising. Your customers can be valuable references for people they don’t even know, just by posting their experiences on your public profiles. Get followers on social media Having a following on social media speaks wonders for your brand. A strong digital following shows that customers are satisfied with your business and more importantly, they want to continue that relationship. After you’ve worked with someone, you should think about reaching out on social media to thank...

As we reach the fourth quarter of 2017, it’s time to start thinking about the year ahead and what to expect from SEO in 2018. Here are some of the trends you should be keeping an eye on in order to stay ahead of the curve. Voice search and digital assistants  Voice search technology presents a big opportunity for changing the way we communicate and process information. The rise of digital assistants has presented a growing market that can change the way search queries are performed. According to Google, 1 out of 5 searches already come from voice queries. The rise of voice search brings out the need to focus on more long-tail search keywords and a natural language that matches the user’s conversational tone. As accuracy improves in digital assistants, there will be more people using voice search from their mobile devices, seeking for quick and relevant answers. It becomes important to research the voice user intent will provide more accurate results, helping the algorit...

You’ll never generate more leads or attract more visitors to your website if it isn’t credible - but what determines the credibility of your website and what influences it? In our latest blog, we take a look at what influences your credibility and what you can do to build and maintain it. Visitors are skeptical from the get-go Scientists from Microsoft Research analyzed page-visit duration for 205,873 web pages (with more than 10,000 visits to each page). Using data from a popular web browser plugin, they were able to find the answer They found that 99 percent of web pages have a negative ageing effect*. When website visitors hit your landing page, they’re skeptical. They’re quickly scanning the page looking for a reason to abandon your site. Get your website visitors past the 30-second mark and they’ll spend a lot more time on your site. So how do you get them to stay longer? Credibility! They are looking for signals that show your organization is reliable, trustworthy, a...

A high-quality real estate blog is one of the most powerful marketing tools a real estate agent and agency can use right now. People want answers to their burning questions and turning to search engines to find them. Make sure your blog is used right by avoiding these four costly mistakes. Full steam ahead, all the time Somewhere along the line, it became commonplace to say that a blog or news section is only valuable if new posts are shared every day. This is not entirely true. The truth is consistent posting is important but the quality is much more so. There is no magic number for how often to post blogs, but ensuring that each blog is high quality and posts are consistent can do wonders for building a strong audience. Depending on your staff, your workload, and your audience’s needs, this might mean posting once a week, twice a week, or more often. Not sharing your hard work If you are writing quality blogs but not sharing them you are losing out on vital business. Shari...