Some real estate agents and agencies are now questioning the relevance of their own website and whether this can be replaced with the 3rd party portals they market their brand and service on.
These websites include:
- Social media channels like Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn
- Real estate portals like Realestate.com.au and Domain.com.au
- Rating & Review websites like RateMyAgent, OpenAgent etc
The above sites are driving a massive amount of audience to real estate agents in the way of property seekers, vendor & landlord along with new staff. Agents and principles within the real estate community can be forgiven if they see a lack of relevance in relation to their own personal or agency websites.
It’s clear the audience of a real estate agent’s website has shifted from property seekers to vendors, landlords and future staff as discussed in a recent article we published. However, a website is still the centrepiece of any agent’s or agency’s digital solution for one distinct reason.
You as an agent or agency own the audience that frequent your website and who subscribe or contact you. This is in contrast to the audience you are “leasing” from 3rd party websites. If those 3rd party websites ever decided to change their revenue models or turn the tap off in relation to free marketing to your followers then your traffic and leads would disappear.
When building a brand, whether it’s an agency or your own personal brand, within the real estate industry make sure it is being built around real estate you own (a website) rather than property you lease from someone else (3rd party websites).
Founding and operating digital web services businesses, Ryan has a passion for technology and over 10 years experience delivering online services to the classifieds verticals in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.