Simon Parker
Real estate agency and property manager websites should focus less on tenants and instead look to provide prospective landlords with “compelling information” to do business with them, a prominent industry trainer has said.
Bob Walters, from the Bob Walters Team (BWT), said too many agency websites have a tab on their websites entitled “renting” or “property management”, but usually those sections contain information primarily targeted towards tenants, not landlords.
“What most business owners have not woken up to yet is that the vast majority of buyers and tenants when looking for properties will go to the portals such as REA [realestate.com.au] and Domain where they can see all properties, not just the properties of a particular agency,” Mr Walters told Real Estate Business.
“So why waste the agency’s prime internet marketing space on people who are not likely to visit the agency’s site in the first place?”
Mr Walters, who is also the executive director at Leading Property Managers of Australia (LPMA), added that most business owners across Australia want more listings - sales and rentals – “so why don’t they use the prime marketing space on their websites for attracting sellers and landlords rather than buyers and tenants?”.
“A best practice property management website should provide comprehensive, compelling information on why a landlord should engage the property management business to manage his/her investment property.”
Mr Walters, along with American property management specialist Todd Breen, will talk about websites as part of the BWT 'Re-Engineering Rent Roll Growth' seminar series. The one-day seminars will be held in Sydney on 23 October, followed by Melbourne on 24 October, Brisbane on 30 October and Auckland on 1 November.
The use of video will be another topic that be covered at the seminar series.
“The use of video on the website is also a good idea, because good videos (uploaded to You Tube, with good use of keywords) will greatly assist the business in its Google search ranking,” Mr Walters continued.
“YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the World and is owned by Google.”
More information about the seminar series can be found by clicking here.