Table of Contents
- What Are Real Estate Website Design Companies?
- What Do Real Estate Website Designers Do To Help You Stand Out?
- How Much Do Real Estate Website Design Companies Charge?
- 5 Reasons To Hire A Real Estate Website Design Company
- Do You Need A Real Estate Web Design Company? Here Are Some Telltale Signs
- How To Hire A Real Estate Website Design Company
- 10 Questions To Ask Real Estate Website Designers
- Takeaways On Real Estate Website Design Companies
What Are Real Estate Website Design Companies?
Real estate website design companies are experts in creating websites that attract this high-purchase-intent user base.
Whether creating new or upgrading the existing web properties, these experts know how to optimize the UX and UI designs to incentivize more appointment bookings, listings, sales and rent inquiries.
Similarly to any other web design firm, their responsibilities are:
- Planning, wireframing and sketching
- Optimizing user experience for desktop and mobile devices
- Some offer search engine optimization
- Creation of layout, graphics, images, structure and unique content of the website
- Maintenance and site updates
- In some instances, hosting services
However, what sets real estate website design companies apart is:
- Their ability to create and upload big databases of houses, prices, plans and other data relevant for realtors and buyers
- Creation of lead-generation techniques and features
- Integration of third-party real estate listings to the website
- Creation of virtual tours of the real estate
- Addition of mortgage calculator and other relevant functionalities
What Do Real Estate Website Designers Do To Help You Stand Out?
The best real estate website designers understand the finer points of the market including the laws and regulations behind it. They also know how people who are looking to buy houses and apartments think and operate.
The best teams of these companies have divisions working on specific tasks:
- Programmers who code using HTML, JavaScript and CSS languages
- Designers working on the aesthetics and user experience of the website
- SEO experts that are in charge of improving websites rankings on search engines
- Teams working with brokers and realtors in order to update the site with the latest market and legal guidelines
The best real estate website design companies follow these best practices:
- They create listings database: For people that are looking for houses and for agencies that have a lot of properties, real estate website design companies should create big listings of these. Listings must be easy for your agency’s buyers to use and to quickly find what they are looking for. The new properties and new pages can be easily added thanks to a simple CMS backend system that a web design agency installs.
- They add custom and unique elements: Your real estate agency’s website should fit your corporate style, colors and tone of voice. Your partner will help you stand out from the competition by adding personalized elements to it that engage users, such as 3D virtual tours of homes.
- They add email signup fields: For effective capturing of leads, the thoughtful real estate web design agencies will add an email signup bar or pop-up boxes on the broker’s web page. This way, you can inform your prospective clients whenever a new property is added to the listing, simply by signing them up.
To help you stand out more, real estate website design companies will also:
- Conduct market research and analysis of your competitors
- Analyze your clients’ persona, their needs and changing trends among house buyers
- Create photo galleries and implement house plans in a way that is optimal for site visitors
- Take care of every aspect of the user interface and user experience
- Design images and other visual images in a consistent and uniform way for a professional look
- Optimize site navigation to be user-friendly and intuitive
- Create a lightweight and fully functional smartphone version of the site
- Update your website and provide it with security measures
- Track your website performance and send analytical reports
How Much Do Real Estate Website Design Companies Charge?
Like all other web design agencies, those specializing in real estate offer their services based on several pricing structures:
- Fee per hour
- Project rates
- Result-based rates
The fee per hour varies drastically and it primarily depends on the companies' size, experience and stature. So, you can expect these experts to charge you between $12 and $200 per hour.
When it comes to the billing per project, the average cost for a real estate website ranges from $5,000 - $100,000.
However, the actual cost of creating a real estate website varies greatly and the factors that dictate what the final price are:
- The number of web pages
- The size of the real estate database
- The amount and complexity of features
- The complexity of site structure
- The location of the real estate web design agency, whether it’s onshore or offshore
If your website simply needs an update, your cost will be minimal. However, for a greater level of customization, be prepared for a higher cost.
The result-based fee depends on what KPIs your partner will deliver.
Make sure you follow what your budget dictates and get the final price of your website from the prospective partner. If a web design agency is not displaying their prices clearly, inquire about this when interviewing them.
5 Reasons To Hire A Real Estate Website Design Company
As many as 93% of house hunters turn to real estate and other websites to research the options on the market.
Here are the top five reasons why you should invest in a real estate web design agency:
Reason #1: Professionalism And Good First Impression
It takes a mere seven seconds for visitors to form a first impression of your website. (Forbes)
A website that reflects your real estate firm’s image improves your brand recognition and credibility.
These are particularly important considering the value of the assets your business rents and sells.
The best real estate website design companies know what your target market needs and responds to in terms of user experience and interfaces. The expert you partner with will help you create a website that inspires trust.
Reason #2: Optimization For Mobile-First Market
In 2019, 52.6% of all website traffic was generated via mobile devices. (Statista)
The world is turning into a mobile-first global market very fast.
As over half of all internet traffic is happening on smartphones and tablets already, no real estate agency can afford to be left behind and without a website that is optimized for users on the go.
A real estate web design company can create a responsive site that runs smoothly on mobile devices.
This will help you improve user experience and increase your conversions.
A new trend among web designers is creating a website for a mobile-first, with the desktop version being of secondary importance. This has a nice side-effect, in that the desktop site ends up being faster.
Reason #3: Better Google Ranking
The #1 result in Google’s organic search results receives 31.7% of the clicks. (Backlinko)
There is a great deal of technical SEO in making a website that ranks well on Google.
Aspects such as site’s page load speed, site’s security protocols, mobile-friendliness, optimized photos and written content all play a big role in where your site will be placed in Google search results hierarchy.
The top real estate web design agencies are experts in seacrh engine optimization and can create a website that not only caters to the aesthetics and branding of your business - but also for better search results ranking.
Reason #4: Increased Flexibility
The real estate market is facing rapid and thorough changes.
Realtors and brokers with dynamic websites, that can be updated quickly and easily, have a greater degree of adaptability needed in this shifting environment.
Customized websites allow for greater flexibility - right from the unique homepage, over the integrated blog with helpful information and optimized conversion funnel down to special features such as virtual tours, video guides and galleries.
With the help of a professional real estate web design company, you can update and adjust all this very quickly, with minimum effort and complications - and under the watchful eye of their support team.
Reason #5: Business Focus
Real estate is a complex business that takes a lot of effort and time to run.
You don’t have to be hands-on in every aspect of it, though. When you leave the question of your real estate agency’s website into the hands of experts, it’s one less worry for you that lets you concentrate on other aspects of your work.
Do You Need A Real Estate Web Design Company? Here Are Some Telltale Signs
The reasons for hiring a real estate web design agency can range from having an existing website that is poorly designed to repositioning on the real estate market.
In order to get that decisive nudge towards being recognized, you need a top-class website with great user experience.
Here are some of the top signs that you need to invest in a new real estate website:
Sign #1: Your Sales Numbers Have Stagnated For Some Time
Taking real estate sales to the next level is one of the most difficult things to achieve - and one that a real estate web design agency can help with. Their technical skills, inventiveness and industry experience will allow you to control your lead-generation efforts.
Backing a great-looking website with digital ad campaigns can further make your sales numbers thrive. And the best thing about it is that a website can be a very modest investment compared to the potential ROI.
Sign #2: Your Marketing Expenses Are Blowing Up
Whether your real estate business operates within a certain local area, an entire state or the whole of the country, having an effective site with that captures leads and informs them on new listings via newsletters can be much more effective than traditional marketing.
Websites and digital advertising are much more affordable in the long run than flyers, newspaper ads and postcards.
Sing #3: You Want To Try Out Digital Marketing
This reason leans against the previous point. Using digital advertisements really makes sense when you have somewhere good to send people who click on your ads to.
The lead capture and conversion rates will be much higher when people land on the impressive, perfectly functioning website with lots of helpful features.
Sign #4: Your Existing Website Needs A Complete Overhaul
A bad, outdated website can hurt your Google rankings which makes it harder for your clients to find you. It can also have high bounce rates and short page dwell times because poor design and lack of valuable content turns people away.
A website designed by following the latest best practices can hugely improve the user experience and your business’ visibility.
How To Hire A Real Estate Website Design Company
Once you venture into the search for the right real estate website design company, here are some factors to consider to make the process easier:
- Check out their portfolio: Real estate sites are quite big and complex and you will need the firm that is up to the task. The best way to determine if a web design agency is good for you is to look into their portfolio of past work. The track record they have designing real estate websites will give you a good idea of what clients they’ve worked for and how good job they’ve done.
- Look at the reviews and client testimonials on third-party sites: Authentic client reviews on independent third-party sites will bring you closer to the true worth of your prospective partner.
- Think of your budget: Determine how much money you can spend on a real estate web design firm and find a partner that can make the best work out of it so you generate ROI.
- Analyze your needs: Think hard about what exact elements and features you need on your real estate site. Knowing as much as possible in advance will make it easier to identify the partner who can deliver exactly what you need.
10 Questions To Ask Real Estate Website Designers
- How long have you been creating websites in this industry?
- Do you take the mobile-first approach and how closely do you follow trends in website design for smartphones?
- Can your team handle implementing large property databases on our website?
- Where can we see your case studies and previous work with real estate agents?
- How do you conduct the research of the real estate market and our clientele?
- Do you stay up to date with updated regulations on the real estate market?
- Do you offer post-launch services and will you be maintaining our website as well?
- Who will be our main point of contact in your team?
- How good are you in optimizing websites for SEO and what are your credentials?
- What is the cost of your services and will there be additional fees post-launch?
Takeaways On Real Estate Website Design Companies
The very best real estate web design agencies can help your business:
- Keep a steady influx of new clients
- Boost your real estate agency’s awareness and credibility
- Improve the user experience on-site
- Boost search engine rankings
- Create a quick, fully-functioning database of properties
The merit of hiring a real estate web design agency that fits your needs is even greater if your collaboration becomes long-term. Having a partner that will upgrade and update your website post-launch is very valuable.
Transparency and trust are important. So before signing a contract, make sure to:
- Communicate your expectations and wants clearly
- Define responsibilities for both parties
- Negotiate the terms and rates of the partnership
- Outline all of that in a legal document in the presence of a lawyer
Best of luck!
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