A lot of commercial real estate professionals are deciding against having a website. There is a common belief that commercial real estate website design is all cost with zero payouts. If you’re nodding along in agreement, this guide is for you.
Here is a guide to make your commercial real estate website design pay you.
Design for Leads and Sales: Commercial Real Estate Website Design
Home Page
Commercial real estate pros tend to go a little nuts on the home page. You do NOT need 1000 articles, every deal you’ve ever closed, nor do you need to stuff every keyword into the home page development.
Your basic architecture will look like this…
Headline
Your header should be a simple one-liner + tagline for what you do. Put a direct call-to-action here too. (Click the screenshots to see a larger image.)
You can get fancy with your home page opening with a video that streams behind your title and tag-line or a nice photo.
If you’re going to use a video, I suggest placing it on a streaming site like YouTube or Vimeo and running the video behind the text. This way, you won’t be dinged for the 20 Megs it takes to load a video directly from your server. The more megs it has to load, the less functional it will be – especially on mobile.
PRO TIP: Make the video show on desktops, and swap the video for a photo on tablet and mobile. This will improve your website’s load speed.
Not sure where to find a video? Shutterstock and Alamy have stock videos available for purchase.
Want a custom video? Consider hiring a local drone videographer to take video of the properties you’ve sold / leased to use on your website. Do a google search for “real estate videography near me” to find a local provider.
What could possibly go wrong?
After the headline, we’re going to remind them why they’re seeking help with their problem.
What’s the worst thing that could happen in their journey? We all know big brokerages like to shove every listing through the same process, regardless of client goals. Let’s remind them of that.
Build Value
We’re going to list 3 things your potential clients will get when they hire you. Keep this part simple, lay off the thesaurus and commercial real estate jargon.
About You / Your Company
Here’s where we communicate how you or your company is uniquely qualified to help solve these problems.
The Plan / Process
We’re going to show how easy it is to work with you. Even if your process is a hefty 50-point checklist, we’re going to break-it-down into three basic categories.
Explanation
Here’s where you get get into more detail with what you provide your clients. Have a title and short paragraph. Need more room? Add a “read more” button that opens to show more text.
Freebie / Lead Magnet
Not everyone is ready to schedule a call today. In order to capture leads that are still browsing or on the fence, offer a freebie or pack of freebies that will give them more info. Check out Lead Magnet Hero to create some freebies for your site.
Footer with all the stuff
“But I need to showcase my blog, newsletter, associations, state disclosures,…” etc. etc.
Whatever it is, put it in the footer. People will look for services and extras in the menu and footer.
Services Page
Duplicate your optimized home page, and use the same basic layout and functionality for each service page. Change the copy (content) so it’s worded for the service you provide.
Do I have to do ALL this work for EVERY service page? Yes… Let me tell you why! Most people will get to your homepage, immediately go to the menu and click on their preferred service. The likelihood of someone reading both your homepage and service page is pretty low.
That’s why you need to put in an equal amount of work for your home page as your service pages. Your target audience will likely only read one of your pages, so you have to make a solid pitch on each page.
About Us Page
Commercial real estate stories are pretty much all the same. “We have X years of experience and are the local experts…blah blah…” Let’s try something else to wake up our audience and enhance the user experience.
#1. Start with the problem.
What kind of problems do your potential clients have? Are your competitors churning clients through a strict process, but you provide a fully customized solution? Is it impossible to find someone who knows the downtown medical office in-and-out like you do? Identify your personal strengths and match them with your potential client’s pain point.
#2. Create tension.
Tension is what makes your audience think that their life would be better with you in it. You can use your unique selling proposition to create tension, especially if your process or strategy does something faster than other agents in the market. If they want to move fast on their deals, they’ll feel the pressure to call you. Or if your service will require less work and time on their part, they’ll feel the pressure to call you.
#3. “Wow” with the unexpected. (Optional, but effective)
Using a totally new, unheard-of process like using a press release agency to help market your listings, or using Google Ads Display Network, or using Google Map Scraping for potential tenants (you can get this on Fiverr, btw). A new, unheard-of service might be the tipping point in getting that deal.
#4. Limit access.
It’s counterintuitive to limit access to your services, since you want deals rolling in, BUT limiting access to only a handful of specialties (example: medical office purchases) allows you to focus on one thing, become THE expert, and lower the time it takes you to research and prepare for a meeting/sales presentation. This also gives a feeling of exclusivity to your current clients.
You can use limited slots, “My next opening to work on your listing is Monday.” That way it seems like you have limited availability. Your client can sign a contract now, but you won’t be available to work on their listing until Monday.
#5. Managing control.
Whether you’re taking away someone’s control or giving them control over something they have never had before, the world of control is ripe for creating tension.
Example of giving control: At a large brokerage a prospect may not have control over signage, but you provide 3 different options.
Example of removing control: The idea of a fully customized plan may be too much for a busy investor, instead, offer a set marketing process for each listing.
#6. Showcase other successes.
Testimonials and case studies are great ways generate the “fear of missing out”. Example, “Sally lowered her lease rate by 7% by hiring us to negotiate her terms of agreement.” Can make your client think, “What am I waiting for? I want a discount too!” Getting testimonials can be time consuming, but it’s worth the work.
Contact Page
Don’t put the contact page somewhere weird, like the second item on the menu. It’s traditionally all the way on the right side (last item) on the menu. This is where people are looking for it, this is where they want to find it. Don’t get creative with it, if someone is on your website to contact you, make it easy for them to do so.
Also, don’t name it something weird. It took me ten-minutes to find the “contact” page when someone named it “Carrier Pigeon.” WHY?! Just name it “Contact”.
If you have a physical office, I suggest adding an interactive map to your contact page. This will make it easy for people to find directions. If you only have a mailing address, make it clear by NOT adding a map and labeling the address with “mailing address” to ensure no one tries to visit you at the UPS store.
Here’s the basic layout of a contact page. Interactive map at the top (if you have a physical address, if not, leave it off), contact info, and a contact form. Anything else you want to showcase should be at the bottom.
