Most professional corporate marketing teams across almost every industry sector use website landing pages for lead generation.
These standalone web pages are designed to capture visitor information for the purpose of further marketing efforts, such as follow-up from sales teams or marketing automation (i.e., emails that offer or sell something).
Typically, a paid digital advertisement (e.g., Google Search or Facebook ad) or social media drives traffic to a landing page.
As part of a robust Inbound Marketing strategy, website landing pages play a crucial role in driving new leads for the business and converting them into customers.
So why don't real estate agents and brokerages use them more?
Landing pages are a great way to get more out of your marketing budget and drive more leads to your business, but they are not the easiest things to create.
They're even harder to do well.
Read on to learn how to efficiently use landing pages to generate more leads for your real estate business with or without paid ads.
What's a landing page anyway?
A landing page is a single website page that captures a visitor's information through a lead form.
It is typically used for lead generation or to provide visitors with additional information about a product or service.
Landing pages are usually highly targeted, meaning they are designed to capture the interest of a specific audience. This is done by creating a message that is tailored to that audience.
For example, if a company sells products to people over 50, its marketing team might specifically create a landing page targeting them and their interests.
The main goal of a landing page is to capture a visitor's information, such as their email address, name, and phone number, to generate a lead for the business.
Once the visitor has submitted their information, they will be taken to a “thank you” page (to track conversions) or another page that will give them additional information about the product or service.
How do you get traffic to your landing page?
Landing pages need visitors to work, so you need to get the right people to your page (i.e., those most likely to be in need of the product or service you are offering).
The most common ways to get visitors to your landing pages are:
Paid Search Ads: Paid search ads are a great way to generate traffic for your landing page. These ads appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) when someone searches for a keyword related to your page. Paid search ads are targeted and cost-effective, making them a great way to drive quality traffic to your page.
Social Media Ads: Social media ads are a great way to reach a targeted audience and generate traffic to your landing page. By leveraging the power of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you can create ads that target users based on their interests and demographics.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO can effectively generate traffic to your landing page. It involves optimizing your page content, titles, and meta descriptions to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO involves optimizing your website’s technical elements, such as page speed and security, to ensure search engines can crawl and index your pages.
Referral Traffic: Referral traffic is a great way to generate traffic for your landing page. This involves promoting your page on other websites, blogs, and social media platforms. When someone clicks, they're taken to your landing page, where they can convert into a lead.
Typically, SEO is not as much of a factor in generating traffic for landing pages since most search engine marketing activities revolve around techniques that require more sophisticated content than is optimal on a landing page designed to get a specific audience to take one specific action (e.g., download an eBook or get a PDF guide).
If you're operating on a budget and can't afford to pay for traffic, social media is the best way to get people to your landing pages without any cost (other than your time).
By developing a robust social media strategy designed to grow your audience and drive traffic to your landing pages, you can generate more engaged leads at a lower cost over the long term.
How do you get people to convert on your landing page?
The most popular and effective way to get people to become new buyer or seller leads via your landing page is by creating what is called a "lead magnet."
You offer landing page visitors a lead magnet in exchange for their contact information.
Lead magnets can come in the form of valuable information, such as downloadable PDFs, e-books, or checklists, as well as "how to" videos, a free trial, a discount, or even an opportunity to win something.
In real estate, you may not have a free trial or discount, but you can create a landing page that offers things like:
- A Guide to New Construction Communities
- Real Estate Market Activity Reports
- Home Buying Checklist for First-Time Buyers
- List of Local Mortgage Brokers
- Free In-Person Home Valuation & Report
The key to converting more people this way is ensuring your lead magnet is as attractive, valuable, and helpful as possible.
If you put yourself "in the shoes" of local home buyers and sellers, it's easy to come up with ideas for lead magnets for which visitors will gladly trade their contact info.
For example, if you live in an area with many golf course communities popular with retirees, you might offer a free report on "The Top Golf Course Communities in _______ for Retirees" that lists the most popular courses in the area and the amenities each one offers.
How do you build a landing page that's designed to capture leads?
Great landing pages are built using a proven formula that you can easily duplicate for your local real estate business.
The highest-converting landing pages all use the same time-tested recipe:
1. Simple design: A high-converting landing page should focus on one goal and be easy to navigate. Keep the design simple and uncluttered with the main message, lead magnet, and form "above the fold," which means in the topmost visible portion of the page.
2. Strong headline: A strong headline grabs the readers’ attention and clearly explains the benefit of your lead magnet (i.e., why they should want it). It also should be short and to the point.
3. Quality images: They can help draw users in and make them more likely to stay on your page. Use high-resolution images that are relevant to your product or service.
4. Testimonials, Reviews & "social proof:" Testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers can help to boost conversions. Using a social proof element like a customer count can also help to improve conversions.
5. Concise copy: People don’t want to read long blocks of text. Keep your copy concise and to the point. Be sure to emphasize the benefit of your lead magnet versus the features. For example, if you offer a free ebook about how home sellers can stage their homes before putting them on the market, you might want to write something like "How to Stage Your Home for Sale without Spending Any Money" versus "How to Stage Your Home for Sale with My 20-Page eBook." See the difference?
6. Clear call-to-action (CTA): Make sure your call-to-action stands out and is easily understood. Don't confuse the visitor by adding multiple versions of your "Sign Up" button or offering more than one action. Keep it focused and make it clear there's one thing you're trying to get them to do.
7. Multiple formats: People consume information in different ways. Use a combination of video, text, and images to engage your audience.
8. Mobile optimization: People increasingly use mobile devices to access websites, so it's essential to ensure your landing page looks good, no matter the device they use to view it.
It may seem formulaic, and it is. But it's also the best way to increase your chances of success. We see the results repeatedly when we build landing pages for our real estate marketing clients.
What's the easiest way to get started with landing pages?
Landing pages are simply extra pages on your website designed to convert visitors. If you already have a website, you can quickly create landing pages by adding them yourself or having your web designer add them.
If you're into DIY digital marketing, there are many tools you can use to quickly create great landing pages from pre-built templates, such as:
- Leadpages: https://www.leadpages.com/
- Unbounce: https://unbounce.com/
- Swipe Pages: https://swipepages.com/
Most Customer Relations Management (CRM) software packages and email automation systems have landing page tools built in - plus, by doing it this way, you capture, store, and communicate with your leads in one place.
Some easy-to-use and low-cost options for creating landing pages with a CRM or email automation system include:
- Mailchimp: https://mailchimp.com
- ConvertKit: https://convertkit.com/
- Hubspot: https://www.hubspot.com
- GetResponse: https://www.getresponse.com/
- MailerLite: https://www.mailerlite.com/
No matter which direction you go, it's vital to plan your landing pages carefully around who you're trying to reach - and what you're trying to reach them with (i.e., your lead magnet).
Setting up your landing pages
Whether you're using a third-party tool or creating your own, at a minimum, I'd recommend you initially create one landing page for home buyers and one for sellers.
If your website domain is, say, https://myrealty.com, that means your landing pages would live at short, simple URLs like https://myrealty.com/buyers and https://myrealty.com/sellers.
If you use a third-party tool, all of them include templates you can use to set up a draft landing page quickly you can then tweak to make your own.
Once you have an initial design set up, you need to create your lead magnets for each type of visitor you want to attract.
For example, you might offer a free home valuation report for sellers or maybe a local market report on where the highest-appreciating neighborhoods are for buyers.
As a tip, I'd recommend using Canva to build your downloadable PDFs, slide decks, or other lead magnet formats.
Here are two examples of live landing pages I built for my wife, who's a Realtor® in Huntsville, Alabama:
https://huntsville.homes/home-buyers-guide
https://huntsville.homes/sell
Since her area gets a lot of investors, I also built her a page that offers a free investment guide for real estate investors:
https://huntsville.homes/huntsville-real-estate-investing
I'm also constructing landing pages for new construction neighborhoods, golf communities, and "trailhead" neighborhoods in the surrounding areas targeting specific niches of buyers.
There's no limit to the number of landing pages you can build, but it helps map out your target audiences based on what consumers in your local market need and then tailor your lead magnet offers to each one.
Remember to keep the landing page simple and get the wording (i.e., the "copy") of your headline and other text just right.
If you're not a wordsmith and don't know how to write compelling landing copy, you can use new tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT to help. In fact, AI can design and build your entire page in seconds if you want. Check out this guide for more info.
Once you have your design, lead magnet, and copy, you must add a form for to collecting signups.
As mentioned above, if you're using a CRM or email automation platform to build and host your landing pages, you can simply create a form that will be hosted by the tool and then add it to your landing page.
If you do it manually, you can use a service like Typeform or Jotform to build a form that can be added to your landing page by copying and pasting the embed code into the page.
If your website is maintained by a web developer or designer, you can ask them to add the form and route the signups to your CRM or email address.
The most important part of adding a form to your landing page is ensuring you can capture the information for later follow-up or future marketing.
I'd highly recommend using one of the abovementioned email tools, such as Mailchimp or a CRM like Hubspot, to manage your landing page forms and data collection.
Following up on new leads is the crucial part of generating more sales
As traffic increases and you build a steady stream of form submissions, you'll want to make sure you're communicating with them to spur active engagement and build a relationship.
For starters, you'll want to ensure any form submissions are being added to your CRM or email automation tool. The good thing about using one of these software systems for your landing pages is that almost all of them let you easily set up automated email autoresponders.
You'll want to set up an automated response that's triggered when someone submits. This can be a simple welcome email, but it can also be an excellent opportunity to get your lead talking.
Use these tips when writing your autoresponder email, and you'll improve your chances they communicate with you further:
- Keep it short, casual & personal: People are used to autoresponders and are likelier to read them if they don't feel canned and impersonal emails.
- Ask a question: One of the best ways to use human psychology to your advantage is to ask an open-ended question like "So, what's the most important thing you're looking for in your next home?" People are more likely to respond because of something called the "Zeigarnik Effect," which says that people are more likely to remember unfinished or incomplete tasks.
- Offer more value or help: Every chance you get to interact with a lead is an opportunity to add value. Try offering something additional in your autoresponder emails relevant to the lead's demonstrated interest. If they downloaded a guide to golf course communities, you might include links to all the golf course websites or perhaps a list of local golf stores.
- Include another call to action: The more contextually-relevant opportunities you give a lead to interact with you, the better your chances of getting them to reply. For example, let's say a lead downloaded a guide to the highest-appreciating neighborhoods in your area. In your autoresponder email, you could offer to provide a list of the top-rated schools by neighborhood if they jump on a quick web conference call with you.
- Use visuals to convey personality: Images, videos, emojis, and GIFs can capture the reader's attention and make the email more engaging. They're also great ways to showcase your sense of humor or insights into your personality. The internet basically runs on cat videos for a reason: people are disarmed and more receptive when they're at ease or laughing.
As I've said, using landing pages for lead generation is a formula. Email outreach when someone signs up is a vital part of that recipe for successful engagement.
Landing pages are an effective tool for real estate lead generation because they are designed to entice people to take a specific action. They can be tailored to target specific audiences and be used to build relationships with potential customers.
They often include a brief offer description, a form to fill out, and an incentive to sign up.
Landing pages also provide an easy way to track campaign performance, measure marketing success, and make improvements.
If you're tired of spending lots of money on SEO, digital ads, or local advertisements and getting not-so-great results, try adding landing pages to your site with great lead magnets that you promote via social media posts.
You'll be surprised how effective - and low-cost - these pages can be for growing your clientele.