But something is holding you back. Your traffic isn’t converting and you’re feeling like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. You’ve created a great website with strong SEO, and your content marketing and PPC ads are driving lots of traffic. However, something is preventing that traffic from converting, and you feel stuck.
However, you’re still not converting your traffic into leads?
So what gives?
The words you use on your website can have a big impact on whether or not visitors convert into leads. The way we react to words is a major factor in purchasing decisions.
1. Keep it short and sweet No one likes to read a wall of text, so keep your real estate website copy short and sweet. Write in short paragraphs with plenty of white space to break things up. 2. Speak your audience’s language Your website copy should be written for your target audience. Use the language that they use to describe theirPain Points, and make sure you position yourself as the solution to their problem. 3. Use benefit-driven headlines Your headlines should be benefit-driven, addressing what’s in it for the reader. Instead of “Our Services,” try “We’ll Help You Sell Your Home Fast and For Top Dollar.” 4. Tell a story Stories are a powerful way to connect with your readers on an emotional level. Share a personal story about a time when you helped someone in a similar situation to them. 5. Use persuasive language Your website copy should be persuasive, driving the reader to take action. Use persuasive words and phrases like “you deserve” and “act now” to nudge the reader in the right direction. 6. Be credible
Focus On The Client’s Needs, Not Yourself
One of the most common mistakes real estate agents and brokerages make is not making their copywriting client-centric enough.
This means that they focus on themselves and their company rather than on their clients’ objectives and concerns.
But if you focus narrowly on these topics, you may miss out on a huge opportunity to connect with clients and prospects Highlighting your company’s accomplishments is important, but if you spend all your time talking about them, you might miss the chance to connect with potential customers.
If your explanation of the business model does not connect with how it will help the client, then it will be seen as meaningless marketing language and self-promotion.
Your website visitors care about what you can do for them and not necessarily about you or your business. Be sure to let them know what you can do for them.
Label The Client’s Problem To Demonstrate Empathy
Many realtors assume that their clients do not need them to state their needs. After all, it is clear what they want, correct?
…well, yes. It probably IS obvious.
Labeling a client’s need explicitly shows that you understand and empathize with them.
When you can empathize with your clients, it builds trust between you and them. Your clients are more likely to work with you if they feel that they can trust you.
You can’t afford to skip this step.
Show How Your Service Solves Their Problems
You can’t just label your clients’ problems, you have to show how your service can solve those problems.
Real Estate Creativ does an excellent job of providing solutions to various problems. Their service is top notch and they are very efficient.
If you do this, the client will be able to see how great it would be to work with you, and how you can solve the problem they have.
Find out what problems your potential clients have and offer a solution to each one. This will make them feel like they need your company and show them that they came to the right place.
Avoid Technical Jargon And Marketing-Speak
If you want to succeed in real estate, you need to be clear about what you’re doing. Donald Miller, a former screenwriter who is now a business guru, says that if you’re confused, you’ll lose.
Miller believes that people do not choose the best products or services when making purchasing decisions. Instead, they go for the options that are easiest to understand.
Clients are not impressed by industry terms and marketing jargon, instead they find it offputting.
If your website uses too much jargon and acronyms, people will go to a different website that is easier to understand.
Make Your Copy Easily Scannable… No Huge Chunks Of Text
In addition to the previous point, you need to consider how much content is necessary to persuade your visitors to contact you.
It may seem like providing more information to clients would create more value, but this is not always the case.
Wrong.
Today, people are too busy to read marketing texts that are long and detailed. Having a lot of text on a page is unattractive to potential customers and drives them away.
Your website’s visitors will rarely read through everything. So arrange your text and layout in a way that makes it easy to quickly scan.
When writing emails, it is important to communicate only the most important information and to do so as precisely and succinctly as possible.
Use Social Proof To Build Trust And Credibility
We tend to look to others for guidance when making decisions, as we are social animals. Because of this, social proof is an important aspect of any real estate website.
Social proof is important because it helps show that other people have had success with your product or service. A common and effective form of social proof are client testimonials, which are when past clients or customers provide a positive review of your business.
Your past clients’ positive reviews are the best way to show potential customers that your business is credible and trustworthy.
There are other ways to show your customer satisfaction rates Fathom Realty and Chase International show that customer satisfaction does not always have to be shown through testimonials. There are other ways that customer satisfaction can be displayed.
Industry Awards, accreditations, press attention, endorsements, and impressive business statistics can help to build a positive reputation for a business. They can act as social proof, demonstrating to potential customers that the business is reliable, trustworthy and successful. This can help to generate new business and build customer loyalty.
Use these techniques in your real estatecopywriting to build trust, establish authority, and generate more leads from your website.
Give Them A Plan To Follow
Humans love to postpone things, make bad decisions, and find excuses not to act.
First-time buyers may think that the real estate process is complicated and difficult, which may prevent them from contacting you.
Use your website’s real estate to inspire your visitors to take action, countering the natural human instinct.
Make it clear to your website visitors how the process of doing business with you will work out. Show them that it will be easy and they will be less likely to procrastinate.
Tell them what they need to do in simple, direct language that is easy to understand. Make sure each step is specific enough that they can follow it without getting confused. Give them a clear idea of what they need to do and what they can expect from you after they complete each step.
Call The User To Action. Tell Them What To Do Next.
The most important element in website copy is the call to action (CTA). This is the part of the text that tells the reader what they should do next, and it is important to make sure that the CTA is clear and concise.
The CTA is where you invite the visitor to take an action, such as visiting another blog post, scheduling a consultation, providing their email, or visiting your Facebook Business page.
Do not expect that users will already know how or when they should contact you. You will need to explain it to them, and do so in a way that makes it seem like the most logical next step.
Being assertive instead of pushy or aggressive is a good idea. People like having the guessing game of knowing what to do next taken away.
Explain The Risk Of NOT Doing Business With You
People are more averse to losing something than they are to gaining something.
You can use the power of loss aversion in your website copy to make visitors want to take the desired action.
If clients don’t do business with the speaker, they will miss out on an opportunity. The speaker highlights the stakes for the client by saying that they will lose out if they don’t take this chance.
Although choosing another company may result in giving away home equity and paying too much, Hill Country Flat Fee Realty provides an example of why this may not be the best choice.
But use this tactic in moderation. The great majority of your real estate website copy should instead focus on the positive benefits for the client.
If you show your visitors what they could miss out on, they will be more likely to take action and contact you to prevent that loss.
Reduce The Risk Of Engagement By Offering A Guarantee
The best way to ensure that your real estate copywriting will be effective is to offer some form of guarantee or risk minimization to the reader.
If you offer a guarantee, the visitor will have no excuse not to contact you.
Ryan Coleman guarantees that he will sell your home, and if he doesn’t, he will buy it himself.
He minimizing the risk for his clients by offering this guarantee, which will make them want to take him up on his offer.
Other forms of guarantees that reduce risk include offering free consultations and money-back guarantees.
You can increase the number of visitors who contact you and turn into leads by reducing the perceived risk of engaging with you.
Make Your Realtor “About Us” Page Personal
A real estate copywriter can help you write a personal About Us page or real estate agent bio. This is because as a realtor, you are in a business where you sell a service. Part of selling the service is selling yourself.
The About us page and realtor bio are opportunities to show some personality on your real estate website. Too many realtors write generic copy about “quality and service” that their competitors have used. Nothing memorable about that!
Your About Us page should be seen as an opportunity to connect with your visitors. It’s the beginning of what you hope will be a great relationship, so make sure it’s a good representation of who you are and why you care about your clients. Here are some examples of unique ways to write your About Us page / realtor bio.
Real Estate Case Study #1
A residential realtor in Florida told me that she runs marathons in her spare time and that it has helped her become a better realtor.
She said she was very familiar with every neighborhood in her city because she had run through them many times herself.
Bonnie believes that selling her clients’ homes is a long process and not something that can be done quickly. She thinks that it is important to find the right buyer and to get the best deal for her clients.
The website copy I wrote informed potential customers of my client’s dedication to her marathon training and how it sets her apart from other local realtors. It also emphasized her level of commitment and work ethic.
We included a photo of B.L. crossing the finish line at a marathon on her About Us page. B.L. said that clients often mention this photo when they first contact her.
Real Estate Case Study #2
I helped a realtor in Miami, Florida with marketing and copywriting who is also a licensed pilot. For years, she used a lot of her earnings to pay for flying lessons. Marlene said that flying over the cities she includes in her real estate territory give her a big-picture perspective of all the different neighborhoods.
She was able to provide her clients with an overview of the areas they were considering for a home purchase.
We created a realtor About Us page that featured a photo of her in the pilot’s seat of a plane, with headphones on. This, combined with “her story”, helped her stand out from other real estate agents. It was also a good conversation starter, making it easy to have small talk with customers before getting into the nitty-gritty about properties.
Tell YOUR Realtor Story
There is a story behind every business. Usually, customers feel more connected to the business when they know the story, because it provides them with information about the business’s history and how much the business cares about its clients.
Your realtor story can:
- Tell people who you are
- Explain your unique expertise
- Create confidence in your abilities
- Establish a connection
- Give insight into your excellent reputation
- Attract clients who are a good match for your services
If clients feel like they know you, they will be more likely to trust your judgement about properties. You can include your story on your real estate website to make this happen, like Roger did.
Real Estate Case Study #3
Roger is a home builder/seller in Texas. He loves his work and says that building is in his blood. He wants to convey this sentiment to his prospects.
On his website, Roger promotes the homes he’s selling. The copywriting on the website describes how his father had been a construction foreman and how Roger would accompany him to job sites from the time he was a little boy.
“During those tagalong days” refers to a time when the speaker was young and followed his father to work. He learned about different trades and the importance of quality work from this experience.
He always wanted to be in construction because he grew up around it.
We included a small photo of Roger as a young boy with his father, both wearing hardhats at a construction site, which brought home the point of Roger’s life-long love for building, adding value and appeal to the homes he sells.
Write About Your Specialty
Almost every city has plenty of realtors, which can make it difficult to stand out. If you want to succeed as a real estate agent, you can’t be just another residential agent. You need to find a way to make yourself unique.
Niche marketing is an effective strategy, especially for real estate businesses. To start, focus on broad categories such as commercial or residential real estate. Then, narrow your focus to be even more specific.
A commercial real estate agent may specialize in selling office buildings, while a residential agent may focus on selling condos. For example, a commercial agent might work with a company that is looking to lease space in a new office building, while a residential agent might work with an individual who is looking to buy a condo.
Your real estate niche is what sets you apart from other agents in your area. By writing about your niche on your website, blog and other promotional materials, you’ll be seen as the authority in that category.
Your specialty can help to brand you, and make you more recognizable which can then lead to more business.
Real Estate Case Study #4
A Miami real estate broker contacted Joe to help him market his properties. Joe specializes in selling condo hotel units, which are vacation condos that you own in a luxury hotel or resort. You use your condo when you’d like. When you’re not there, you place it in the property’s rental program and receive revenue that offsets your costs of ownership.
Because the condo hotel concept is relatively new, Joe wanted a website that would educate people about it, rather than trying to sell it to them.
I collaborated with Joe to produce content that would provide quality information on condo hotels and market him as the credible expert on this type of real estate.
Joe became successful not only from the new business inquiries he received from prospective buyers and developers, but also from the media coverage he began to receive. When new properties were being marketed or new trends emerged, the media would turn to Joe for quotes, which in turn would contribute to his success.