Entegral Blog

In keeping with its commitment to help rebuild the property industry and to bring about a lasting change, Gumtree is offering an option to upload all your listings via Entegral for free  from 1 June onwards! The functionality for this is already set up and by simply contacting your account manager you can get your listings feeding through today! From 1 June 2020 , Entegral clients will be able to automatically feed all their listings to Gumtree for free   – adding massive additional exposure without adding budget pressure! Gumtree South Africa is committed to helping rebuild the country’s property industry. While the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically suppressed activity and the ability to trade, you can significantly boost your leads ahead of a return to trading conditions. Whether your listings are Sales, Rentals, Residential, Commercial, or a combination of these, you have nothing to lose and over 1m monthly property visitors to gain! (An optional extra to automatically...

We've introduced a great way for estate agents to promote themselves through the MyProperty channels via our neighbourhood expert profiles as can be seen below: Neighbourhood expert profiles on MyProperty South Africa You can now also showcase neighbourhood videos at no additional cost, which is a first for a South African property portal.  You simple need to create a great YouTube video where you give an overview of your neighbourhood and send the link to us for evaluation. This offer is only open to estate agents that already have neighbourhood expert profiles on MyProperty (We will open for new submissions again later). As can be seen in the example below, we will include it as part of your neighbourhood overview, which will give you some awesome exposure. Now that's not all, great area overviews will be promoted on our social channels, including the MyProperty Facebook and Twitter channels at no additional cost to you.  see how the Raptors View nei...

We will soon launch a brand new initiative to help you grow your real estate agency and attract the right talent. The MyProperty Job Board will launch next week and we are inviting Entegral clients to advertise their vacancies for free. This is a limited offer and opens to the 1st x20 entries so capture as soon as you can . How to claim your free job ad Follow this link and pick the STANDARD PACKAGE , capture your job ad including the company logo and website address. Click on the pay button and once you reach the payment page, you can close the form - our team will pick up the 1st x20 entries and place a free ad for you that is valid for 2 months. https://www.myproperty.co.za/jobs/advertise Should you want to promote it via our social channels and have it featured, you can pick the ENHANCED PACKAGE. This will cost you R299 but will provide some great exposure for your agency on MyProperty's social channels. Once we have a few real estate job vacancies we will then off...

Entegral provides a complete mobile real estate solution for estate agents , from listing & contacts & document management using Base , to it's  100% uptime, serverless responsive real estate websites, Flex . We recently got our hands on the latest Samsung Galaxy S5e tablet . One of the best Android tablets you can buy at around R10,000: a slim design, awesome battery life and incredible display. The keyboard cover is what makes this tablet the perfect companion for estate agents who are always on the move and need quick access to listings, contacts or office files. Combine with a Rain mobile unlimited data deal (R250/month) and you are empowering your agents with a true mobile office solution. Here is what Base looks like on the Samsung S5e, editing a property listing: With the keyboard folded away (and in portrait mode), you can still access all the features, here we are capturing a new property listing: Even when you only have access to your phone,...

Creating a professional online presence has never been more important and to ensure that we offer the very best to our clients, we continuously work on not just the way your website works but how it is presented to visitors. With that in mind, our designers and developers have made it possible for clients to choose from new themes that adhere to the latest design trends without losing what makes our Flex product unique in its offering. As always all our websites are responsive, hosted on the cloud and backed by our unrivaled tech to produce a 24/7 lead generating machine. Starter Theme Our Starter theme no-frills, no-fuss cost-effective real estate website solution you have been looking for. We have worked tirelessly to create a product that would offer real estate agents the perfect base to get started from in the digital landscape. Our new Starter theme boasts with all the basics you would need to get started and will be available as either the Normal Starter theme or as ...

Having a multitude of lead conversion strategies and systems in place might seem like the right approach to converting leads - however, all your efforts might be moot if there is no accountability. We take a deeper look at how you can make sure accountability is a part of your real estate agency culture. Setting goals You cannot grow a culture of accountability without having a set of clearly defined goals. Lead conversion will fail every single time if agents do not know what they are working towards - are you trying to grow your business in a new area? Launching a new property management division? These plans and corresponding goals for your real estate team will serve as the backbone of your culture of accountability. If you or a member of your team falls short of a goal, it’s much easier to pivot and address problems if you have a strong foundation in place. Increasing productivity with management tools  This is not about policing your agents - after all, micromanag...

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...

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...

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...

A recent firmware upgrade to Matterport 's existing technology has reduced the amount of time it takes to capture footage when creating an immersive 3D listing tour. The firmware update increases the speed at which the camera rotates, allowing more square footage to be scanned in less time. The company published a comparison video that shows a new Matterport scan finishing 50 percent faster than it did prior to the upgrade. Matterport vice president, Mark Tepper, told Inman in an email that "real estate agents who own a camera and choose to do their own scanning can now save time, getting in and out of a property listing in a fraction of the time it would have taken previously.” He added that customers using Matterport Pro2 and an iPad Pro should also be able to capture a space in half the time it previously took. Customers wanting to try the update can register on Matterport’s website. The update is free for current customers and requires no new equipment. Tepper ...

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...

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has announced that the company will overhaul the algorithm for the social media platform’s news feed. This is an effort to gear the platform towards more “meaningful social interaction” and away from what it deems “relevant content.” So what does this mean for you? As a real estate agent and born salesperson, Facebook has become one of the greatest marketing tools. However, this won’t be what Facebook would deem as a “meaningful social interaction.” As marketers, real estate agents have to adjust and step up their game if they want continued success with Facebook as a business tool. Build relationships You are already a great networker - that is what makes you a great real estate agent - and you should be using that natural instinct to build relationships with your followers on Facebook. An agent’s social media strategy should be an overall experience for the consumer — and a transparent, honest and clear picture of what you are about. ...

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...

When marketing your real estate listings and agency, often times real estate agents focus on generating as many leads as possible - but is that the best approach? Once you have generated all your leads, you have to spend more money and time to convert the leads you already paid for. You are just going round and round the cycle and spending money to hopefully create more business for yourself. Can we not break this cycle in 2018? Even the leads you are marketing are tired of being marketed at. So what is the solution? The answer is relationship building. Real estate is a relationship business, and maintaining that relationship is not only going to be way more cost-effective it is also going to ensure that your social proof will increase. Why? Because you are investing in people, adding value to their lives and adding value to your business relationships. You already have interested leads from your property alerts , social media pages and even previous clients. In 2018, buildin...

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...

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...