Real estate landing pages are standalone pages on your website with a single purpose: to convert traffic into leads. When someone visits your landing page they should be encouraged to share their contact information in exchange for valuable content such as a property search, home valuation, or a market trend report.
If you need help putting together your custom landing pages, we suggest checking out Placester. Placester has great templates for all sorts of landing pages including Home Valuation and Property Search, and they also offer a FREE IDX website to anyone who’s a member of the National Association of Realtors. Visit Placester today and find out how they can help level up your landing page game.
In this article, we’re going to walk you through the essential elements of a great real estate landing page, as well as look at some landing page examples from top real estate agents that are up and running right now.
Why Your Website Homepage Isn’t Enough: You Need a Real Estate Landing Page
You know that feeling of joy when you look at your Facebook or Google analytics for the ads you’re running and see you’ve generated hundreds of clicks to your website? Pretty great.
You know that sinking feeling in your stomach when you click over to your CRM to see that not a single one of those clicks generated a lead? Not so good.
The most likely reason that you’re not converting your website visitors into leads is that you’re not sending them to a page that is optimized to convert them. By sending traffic to your homepage, visitors are set loose on your site to explore, to read, to maybe try a search, and then eventually get distracted and leave.
I know that sounds brutal, but it’s the truth. Studies show that the average website visitor will visit only about two pages on your website, and they won’t stay for longer than a minute or two. Since attention spans are so short, and the window to convert that visitor into a lead is so small, you need to be sending them to a page that is designed expressly for that purpose.
In other words, you need a landing page.
Actually, Multiple Real Estate Landing Pages Would Be Best
Real estate agents who are crushing the website lead generation game will tell you that the more specific and niche a landing page is, the more effective it will be.
Running an ad to generate new buyer clients? Make sure the landing page is tailored just to them. Have a large contingent of millennial homebuyers in your market? Get even more specific.
Remember, the purpose of your landing page is to convert your visiting traffic into leads, so the more chiseled your message is, the higher your conversion rate will be.
5 Types of Real Estate Landing Pages + Live Examples
Now that we know why real estate landing pages are important, let’s take a look at examples from actual agents that are out there converting prospects into leads. For the full experience, click the link or the image and visit the page for yourself.
1. Home Valuation Landing Page
This is where property owners can come and get an estimate on their home’s value at no cost! Actually, that isn’t true, there’s a cost: their contact information and the knowledge that they are at least considering the idea of selling their home, something we know is very valuable.
There are two different sorts of home valuation landing pages: Instant valuation and delayed valuation. While providing a visitor with an instant home valuation is a strong conversion strategy, those valuations are based on algorithms like the one used for Zillow’s Zestimate, and aren’t always very reliable.
A delayed valuation landing page allows you to put your eyes on a property’s data before confirming an estimated value for your visitor, ensuring a higher level of accuracy and detail, but converting at a little lower rate.
Experiment with both and see which delivers the best value for your time and money.
2. Property Search
William Fastow, Sothby’s International Realty, Washington, D.C.
This is where prospective buyers can come and search for available properties on the market. If they’re coming to your site for this search, they’re most likely not working with another real estate agent, someone who would be doing this searching for them. The cost to access these tools? Contact info.
3. Buyer Leads
Noctis Group, Blue Elephant Realty, Inc., Toronto, Canada
Marketing a particular property online, or prospecting for buyers in general? This landing page allows interested parties to schedule a request for a showing, making it easy for your buyers to connect with you on a sought after property.
For buyers who haven’t picked out a particular home they’re interested in, these sorts of landing pages are great for helping your soon-to-be clients identify you as someone who shares their values and is in line with their goals as homebuyers.
4. Local Guide
Holly Williams,RE/MAX Gateway, Alexandria, VA.
Becoming the neighborhood real estate expert has a lot of perks, including being able to offer exclusive neighborhood information and data that other agents can’t. By creating ads for particular communities, you capture the attention of both those who want to live there and those who already live there, making you a local expert for both buyer and seller leads.
5. Exclusive Content
Doug Willis, Up2Date Real Estate, Pasadena, CA
Offering content in exchange for contact information is a tried and true approach to real estate lead generation. Examples of this practice include offering things like an e-book of best practices for first-time homebuyers, or a guide to home staging for soon-to-be home sellers.
The 6 Essential Elements of Effective Real Estate Landing Pages
Now that we’ve seen some landing pages out in the wild, let’s take a look at what makes these pages so effective. Landing page providers like Placester have each of these elements baked into their templates, how would you tweak them to resonate with your particular community?
Here are six things your real estate landing pages can’t do without:
1. A Strong Headline
Your real estate landing page’s headline is the first (and sometimes only) thing that visitors will read from start to finish, so a clear message that captures attention and is easy to understand is a must. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel here either.
If your real estate landing page’s purpose is to drive leads for an iBuyer platform, a simple headline like “Get an offer on your home with the press of a button” will do the job perfectly.
Remember, the visitors to this page are coming here seeking answers to a particular question, make sure your headline demonstrates that you’re ready to answer that question.
2. An Answer to a Frequently Asked Question
Image Courtesy of Easy Agent Pro
People visiting your landing page are doing so because they were prompted by a question they wanted an answer for. Questions like, “How much is my home worth?” or “Can I find a single story home?” Real estate agents who have their landing page game dialed in know that the most effective landing pages answer these questions and ONLY these questions.
If you’ve got someone who is looking for an answer, don’t provide them with unsolicited information, background noise, or further options that don’t answer the original question. This is why a homepage isn’t an effective landing page option: visitors arrive and are no longer directed to the answer they came there for, thus reducing the lead capture rate and the effectiveness of the landing page.
The ad above is driving a particular type of buyer to your page; a buyer that is looking exclusively for single story homes. An ideal landing page addresses this home trait specifically and exclusively so visitors know they’re in a place where their question will be answered.
3. A Fantastic Image
Great landing pages use strong imagery to reinforce (and not distract from) their message. The best landing page images represent the area where your prospects are either coming from or wanting to go to.
For instance, a landing page image for a real estate agent working in Manhattan could be the city skyline, it could be the interior of a swanky New York loft, it could be a shot of an attractive residential block, or the interior of a neighborhood coffee shop. All of these images capture an aspect of Manhattan living without distracting from the visitor’s directive.
Pro-Tip: Stay away from videos on landing pages. Though many landing page providers offer it as an option, there are some great reasons to avoid it. First of all, a video is naturally distracting. Yes, it can provide ambiance and look really cool, but remember, the attention span of your visitor is incredibly short, don’t waste that with a video.
Secondly, videos can slow down the load time of a website, especially on a mobile device. According to a study done by Kissmetrics, more than 40% of your prospects will abort their visit to your site if page load time exceeds two seconds. Your cool helicopter shot of the skyline isn’t worth losing 40% of your prospects before they even arrive.
4. A Purpose For Every Word on the Real Estate Landing Page
The best landing pages don’t have superfluous ad copy. Every single word and punctuation mark has a purpose that has been deemed essential. This isn’t to say you should be deliberately short with your words, but if you can say something in seven words, there is no reason to say it in 12.
Remember, your audience’s attention span is extremely short. Seriously, we’re talking seconds. When it comes to landing pages, if your text doesn’t directly answer the question you’ve posed in the ad, you don’t need it.
The best way to go about sharpening your copy is to get others to read your work. Editing, especially by those people who have a writing background and can provide you with good feedback, is an essential step to narrowing down your words to only the ones you need.
5. An Optimized Lead Capture Form
The most important part of any landing page is the lead capture form, where you’re asking your visitors to give you their personal information. According to a study by Wordstream, top of the funnel lead conversions will drop significantly if a landing page has more than four fields to complete. So, stick with only the information you absolutely need.
Our suggestions are: Name, E-mail Address, Phone Number.
Also, take advantage of the messaging your button allows. “Submit” feels clinical and boring, and doesn’t solicit feelings of urgency. Try button messaging like “Sign Me Up” or “Get it Now” to convey a conversational tone.
If you have the option to A/B test your landing pages, performing tests on lead capture forms is easy and provides meaningful results. Does a red button or a green button do better? How about three forms to fill out versus four? Perform the tests, take the data and make your landing pages better through ongoing optimization.
You’re going to need right around 1,000 data points to really start understanding any sort of statistical significance, but those findings can make a big difference in the long run.
6. A Mobile-Friendly Experience
Some 88% of Facebook sessions occur on a mobile device, and if you’re running ads on Facebook to drive traffic to your landing page, making sure the mobile experience is a good one is key. After creating your landing pages, visit it on your mobile device to make sure the process is smooth and looks as good as it does on desktop.
If you are an iPhone user, find someone with an Android device and ask them to visit. This little bit of testing takes a couple of minutes, but can have a major impact on your lead generation results.
Bringing It All Together
Your real estate landing pages are an important part of your website lead generation plan. If you aren’t directing your leads to landing pages, you’re missing out on important conversion opportunities. If you need help putting together your landing pages, Placester is a great place to start, and with their free IDX website for members of the National Association of Realtors, you can’t beat the starting price.
Let me know your pricing.
Hi Howard –
You’ll have to check with the individual providers on specific pricing. Placester has a FREE platform for anyone who’s a member of NAR, otherwise their plans start at $99 per month.
Chris