22
May
Are you neglecting your commercial agent’s website?
Over the last few weeks we have spent time talking about how the
commercial property sector can use video. How video can deliver SEO
value. We’ve talk about which social networking sites are
best for Chartered Surveyors. How commercial agents setup a
LinkedIn page and even whether you should bother with Facebook.
In some shape or form, all of these topics are designed to
ultimately drive traffic to your website. So have we been
neglecting the commercial agents website or more importantly have
you been neglecting one of your greatest marketing tools?
Your Universe
Your website sits at the very centre of your company’s
digital universe. The activity across social media, SEO, apps,
eMarketing, video etc. point to your website and if done well
deliver more traffic to your website. And if you have a truly
integrated approach to your marketing communication, your website
could sit at the centre of your entire marketing activity.
So what is happening when the audience that you are trying to
engage with, land on your website via any of these channels? Sadly
all this hard work could be going to waste if your website does not
impress.
Making The Right Impression
It is widely understood that anyone landing on your website for
the first time will give you 3 seconds to impress them. During
those 3 seconds they make a judgement on your area of expertise,
knowledge, market position, personality and what it would be like
to work with you. First impressions count, the perception that they
form of your business and you will be hugely influenced by how that
website ‘visually’ communicates to them.
With the web, you are constantly on show to the wider property
market, all the time being judged and compared. Existing clients
will refer back to your website for assurance through out their
relationship with you. Prospective employees will judge you as an
employer and a place to work by your website. Competitors and their
employees will compare themselves against your website. Most
importantly around 80% of your prospective clients will see you
first on the web. Whether they contact you or not will often be
based on your website and the image that it projects.
Why Should A Client Engage Your Services?
Is it because of your knowledge, your people, the year you where
established, your integrity, your professionalism, your size or
number of offices? Most Commercial agents will use one or all of
these ‘words’ as reasons for a client to engage
them…even the bad ones. So who’s telling the truth and
whom does the client believe?
In 3 seconds its unlikely that anyone viewing your website would
read any of these words anyway. The look, shape, colour, imagery,
navigation and speed of your website will convey more to your
audience about the type of company you are than any collection of
commercial cliché. Even the typography of the words can
sometimes say more than the words themselves.
The Power Of Form
The visual elements of your website are those that make the
fastest connection with your audience. They are also the most
powerful, because they are often subconscious factors that can
appeal to the most irrational emotional beliefs.
These visual elements will be based on your brand. The brand
that will ‘cloth’ your website so to speak. Now
that’s a discussion for another day.
Philip Burrows Marketing
Consultant
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