Website Design, Marketing and Inspiration Blog

6 Great Ways to help convert website visitors into leads for Mortgage and Real Estate Agents

November 21, 2016

You see you have websites visits each month but you're not getting any phone calls or leads, what gives?

It's unfortunately a very common misconception that simply having a website should bring you leads and this could not be farther from the truth.

For mortgage and real estate brokers and agents it's a hyper-competitive industry and every agent knows they are in deep when it comes to competition in their local marketplace. Now more than ever a website is essential BUT you need to be proactive to take steps into trying to get your website noticed online and when it does help break down the barriers to people contacting you, give them a compelling reason to phone you up or email you a question.

Here are 6 ideas that we've come up with that will definitely help in terms of trying to help improve the chance that website visitors contact you.

Item 1)  Do you offer incentives for people to use your services? If so what are they?

For instance if you are a mortgage broker or agent do you offer better rates or some sort of rate lock-in etc.? As you are competing with many other brokers in the same local market, how do you stand out from the crowd? What incentive are you giving people to contact you? With that in mind make sure to include this on your website where people can easily find it.

A real estate agent example might be things such as a free home inspection, or a simply home protection plan you could offer a home buyer client. Maybe it's a special offer such as a free gift etc. It's always a very tough marketplace so these small little items can always help.

2) Get Personal and Authentic

Videos are an impressive and proven method to help gain trust with your website visitors. A personalized video of yourself discussing what your services are and how you can help people does go a very long way.

An example would be this site: http://www.delladwyer.com/

Notice on the homepage Della has a very well done video of herself that talks about her services etc. It definitely helps set her site apart from the pack.

3) Have your past clients help promote your services

There is nothing greater than when past clients can give you testimonials of how great your services were. These are a must have for your website and need to be kept up to date always.

To step this up a notch have your client or yourself take a simple video of them giving the testimonial. This adds even more impact as your website visitors can now put a face to the testimonial and hear the great things they have to say about you with their own ears. Yes this is definitely a bit more work but to get ahead of the pack doing more work is the name of the game.

4) Real World Case Studies

Simple case studies are also a great way to show how you solved a clients problem. Maybe it was client that needed to purchase that great home they wanted but had challenges in getting the mortgage they needed. By actually providing people with this type of information people can then put themselves into your past clients spot and see how you worked to solve the issue. Once again this helps build trust and shows you as an expert in what you do.

5) Live Chat Widgets

Live chat widgets are a great little add-on for any website. When you have website visitors the chat widget will pop-up and ask the visitor if they have any questions. It not only helps make you and your business look like your available and responsive but it also helps immediately answer a clients question.

The one caveat to this is that if you do use this on your website someone on your team needs to actually be manning the widget during your business hrs.

example live chat widget companies

https://www.livechatinc.com/
https://www.zopim.com/


6) Social Reviews = Increased Trust

Reviews of past clients that appear on your social media channels are a must have. The big ones being Google+, Facebook and LinkedIn. As humans we like to do research before we purchase a product or deal with a potential new business. As such social reviews are more and more important as they are used by the vast majority of people and have a real impact.

You need to ask your clients for reviews. In return you might want to offer people who give you a review a simple coffee card, or send them a personal email to say thanks.

Reviews as you can imagine are powerful items for people. We all use them before we buy a product or service to gauge things. This is no different for the mortgage or real estate market as people also like to get a good feel for who they are dealing with.

As a business we have been doing this quite a bit in last 6 months. Our work flow is one that once we complete a website for a client we simply ask the client we are dealing with if they wouldn't mind providing a review on our Facebook and Google + channels. Now people can easily read unbiased reviews from others about our services and it does have weight and meaning to people reading these.
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These are just a few ideas. There is no exact playbook on this however as getting people to call you or fill out a contact form on your website is always a struggle that will always exist for any business. There are other means for website conversions for sure but you can see that to really start standing out takes time, patience and unfortunately extra money to make some of the items happen.

If you have any questions at all we'd love to hear from you.