Entegral Blog

While businesses of all shapes and sizes can benefit from social media - the real estate industry is uniquely suited to the community-driven platforms that make up this digital space. To ensure you kick off 2020 on the right footing online we take a look at three platforms that will help you gain more eyes on your business and more importantly your listings. Facebook Last year the National Association of Realtors released a study that revealed that a whopping 99% of millennials - and 90% of baby boomers - begin their home search online (as opposed to in-person referrals.) This statistic can be seen in action in the various community groups on Facebook where users regularly ask for referrals for estate agents active in their area or asking for rental properties that might suit their needs. Simply put, if you are not active on Facebook you are missing out on a large slice of the pie. Get a Facebook Business Page Instagram What makes this platform so great for real ...

The word “marketing” conjure up images of complicated strategies and pricey campaigns - however, there is a way you can market your real estate business without spending a dime! We take a look at our top choices in our latest blog post. Video marketing You would be losing out on a large audience if you ignore the proliferation of video over the past few years. Jump on the bandwagon and start engaging in some video marketing. Begin by setting up a YouTube channel. You don’t have to create Hollywood-esque movies – just a simple video blog will do. If you’ve got something useful to say, then say it on video. It also makes for highly shareable, marketable content – put it on your website, push it out on social, and include it in your emails (more about email marketing later) Post to Facebook It goes without saying that social media is one of the most valuable marketing tools out there. And it’s free. This doesn’t mean you should sign up for every platform but rather focus on ...

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...

In a competitive market and jam-packed weekends filled with open houses, is the mid-week open house the new frontier? Do home buyers even care about open houses? It is easy to assume that in the digital age an open house isn’t as relevant as it used to be - however in polls posted by MyProperty , an overwhelming amount respondents argued that even with all advances in digital technology an open house is still relevant. Does this reflect the number of visitors on show days though? The truth of the matter is that with weekends jam-packed with events, errands and other open houses many home buyers opt to only see a few open houses on a day and therefore the chance of them seeing your listing in person dwindles. There are many ways you can ensure you host the perfect show day - whether it is on a Saturday or Sunday - but have you considered hosting an express mid-week show day? The thinking behind this is that buyers who simply don’t have the time over a weekend would prefer ...

You have been in the game for years and people in the areas you operate in know your name - so does it matter if you are still using the branding you had when you started 10 years ago? Two sides of the logo Perception matters and in our visual driven society an outdated logo or branding can hurt your chances of scoring business from the younger generation entering the property market. It is not just clients you might lose - you might be missing out on hiring the next big real estate rockstar because they don’t like the image you project with your outdated branding. However, there is something to be said about staying consistent throughout the years. Take a look at Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Nike as examples. You know exactly how their branding looks because it has stayed consistent throughout the years. So what are you supposed to do? Rebrand or stay the same? Meeting in the middle In most cases you don’t need to rebrand completely - all you really need is to refresh your c...

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...

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...

Our creative thinking is not just applied to our industry-leading tech to make your responsive real estate website load faster, deliver more accurate results and provide you with a powerful online marketing tool. We also apply it to design better-looking websites to ensure your site doesn’t just work great but also looks great. With that in mind, we have updated and revamped one of the variations of our Elegant theme . The upgrade has enhanced the way the featured properties are displayed on your Flex responsive website - making for an overall better user experience. Current clients with this variation of the theme will now see the change on their website, while new clients will automatically have their featured properties displayed in this format. As always all our Entegral Flex real estate websites are responsive and backed by the cloud and managed by our Office Management System. Take a look at the theme in action by visiting some of the sites already using this variation on t...

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...

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...

With more than 13 years of experience in the property industry, Kainos Properties, are industry leaders that have built and expanded their brand from the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town to now include the breathtaking properties along the Western Seaboard. www.kainosprop.co.za Situated in the picturesque Welgemoed, Cape Town affords the dynamic real estate agents of this busy agency a unique understanding of the old saying that you are not buying a home but the neighbourhood - they know that finding the right home also means finding the right lifestyle. With this in mind, their newly launched Entegral responsive Flex website is not only a showcase of their latest listings but also an online marketing tool for their agency and the areas they work in. From here they can market their for sale properties, feature their recently sold listings and attract tenants on the hunt for new rental accommodation on any screen size without compromising on design and most importantly functiona...

Real estate agents should not only have an updated and responsive website as an online marketing tool but also have other avenues of marketing to maximise their online marketing impact. We take a look at some tips in our latest blog post. By increasing exposure through online marketing efforts, you can boost performance, raise the profile of the site and its brand, and stand out from your competitors in new and exciting ways: Launch a newsletter Email marketing isn’t dead and still, shows a high response rate. Not only does a regular company newsletter allow you to stay in touch with your most valuable prospects and customers, it provides a means to showcase the activity of your company, offer valuable free information, and build a relationship that transcends the anonymity of your website. Find out more about our automated newsletters Get active on LinkedIn  LinkedIn has built itself into one of the premier networking platforms for various professionals over the ye...

By writing content that acts as a neighbourhood guide, real estate agents are making their websites - and by extension their brands - the number one source for community and property related information. Content marketing is a necessary investment for real estate agents that want to stand out online and attract clients, and nothing works better for real estate agents than local content marketing. How to develop highly effective location content  Most people head online to use search engines to find resources in their local vicinity and the clued-up real estate agent will use this as a way to drive traffic to their real estate website . Another benefit of local content is that it requires little upkeep and acts as evergreen content on your website . A win-win situation for both your brand and SEO. Here are some tips for developing high-returning neighbourhood and city guides. Quality over quantity Keyword stuffing will get you nowhere. Don’t use the name of the city ...

Along with top-notch content, exceptional backlinks are the ultimate in local SEO rankings.  Once you commit to creating content your audience finds valuable, they’ll start sharing it across the web. This will give your page(s) what are called social signals and backlinks — a notification to search engines that your content is being shared and is useful for particular purposes, which helps it determine your website quality and how you’ll rank. If you feel as though you’ve spent a lot of time chasing backlinks from other reputable sites, here are some ways you can gain backlinks to further improve your local SEO. Continue to create and share valuable content that’s relevant to your audience. The search engines love long form, meaty content that fits with exactly what people are hoping to learn. Try your hand at writing a guest blog post on a website that represents the niche you specialize in. This isn’t a technique that’s recommended to be done just for the sake of obtai...

The look and feel of your marketing materials can influence your business a lot more than you think - but how do you know whether or not it is time for a boost? The simple answer - if you are looking at your marketing materials and they are not reflecting your brand now or even worse if they are sporting outdated information it is time for a boost. If you have outdated information on your marketing materials it is fairly obvious where you should start, if however you just need to refresh your brand to fit with the times, figuring out where to start is a bit like a simple science experiment. This means that you should have a look at your marketing materials and find the problem - is your brochure too cluttered, do the colours feel bland or overpowering - once you have identified the problem, you can use the guidelines below to boost your brand. Less is more : Do not try to tell everything about you and your business in a tiny space; this clutters the design and suffocates th...

With all that needs to be done in a day, there is hardly time to update and improve our social media profiles - but these tips and tricks can all be done in a few minutes and will improve your profile considerably! Size matters Take a few minutes and optimise your profile and cover photos for each different channel. This means that the photos fall within the dimensions the recommended size for each network. It greatly reflects on your brand if everything looks sleek and professional. Standard image sizes for major social networks are as follows: Facebook profile picture: 170 X 170 pixels Facebook cover photo: 828 X 465 pixels Twitter profile photo: 400 X 400 pixels Twitter header image: 1,500 X 500 pixels Google+ profile picture: 250 X 250 pixels (minimum) Google+ cover photo: 1080 X 608 pixels LinkedIn profile photo: 400 X 400 pixels (minimum) LinkedIn custom background: 1584 X 396 LinkedIn cover photo: 974 X 330 pixels LinkedIn banner image: 646 X 220 pixels In...

Many business-owners believe that the first website they invest in will stand the test of time, and that is simply not how it works. It has been said that a website can become almost obsolete after approximately three years. When was the last time you updated your website? Think about your top website from three years ago - does it still look the same? Chances are that unless they have undergone changes and updates, it is no longer the website it once was. The reasoning behind website updates should be obvious, however so many real estate agents and agencies continue to hang on to outdated sites. As technological innovations dictate trends, websites have to evolve to keep up with users’ demands. Things such as SEO is a continuous evolution and minor tweaks to searchability are always at the forefront of our development work, this is to ensure that minor tweaks do not become major redesigns. However, things like interface design may simply become outdated over time. For in...

Most of your marketing efforts are focused on external messages - but your real estate agency’s biggest brand builders are in fact the people inside of the business. We take a look at how you can turn your agents into brand ambassadors. Make the brand identity clear and simple A 2012 Gallup survey found that 41% of employees don’t know what their company stands for and don’t know what differentiates their own company from its competitors. How can people represent – or fully support – something they don’t understand? This is more than just having a mission and vision statement - agents need to feel a shared identity with their colleagues. To make employees brand ambassadors a brand should make them proud of the agency and what they do. Good news should be shared and the employees should be included, it should be easy to share content and professional visuals on social media will ensure that agents won’t feel embarrassed about sharing a post. Team members that feel valued wi...

The real estate game has always been about building lasting business relationships and in the digital age, this has become not only an in-person reality but also a digital actuality. Word-of-mouth marketing has (and still is) one of the most important tools a real estate agent has to gain new clients and in the digital landscape, word-of-mouth marketing presents itself as recommendations and testimonials. So how do you get your online reputation to match your offline reputation? We take a look at a few ways you build a formidable online reputation. Make it easy for people to give reviews Facebook remains one of the biggest social networks and also the easiest way for your clients to review and recommend your services. Therefore it is vital for you to have a Facebook business page for your agency and to display your social media icons on your website. Your Entegral responsive Flex website makes it easy for you to display your social media icons to ensure visitors can find...

We give you the ultimate guide on how to write compelling real estate listing descriptions by exploring the power of words, the language pitfalls to avoid and how to maintain the perfect professional balance. Redfin and online language writing-enhancement platform Grammarly, revealed in a 2014 study that nearly 45% of the 1 300 people surveyed would be much less inclined to tour a home if a listing description was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. While photos remained much more important than text, 87% of the survey participants said that descriptions were ‘extremely important or very important.’ Understandably writing the perfect listing description is not at the top of the to-do list of busy agents, however, it is important to at least have concise and clear listing descriptions on your properties for various reasons. Proof and then proof again Before we get into the thick of it, the first rule of Grammar Club is proof once, proof twice. Making sure that...