It is no secret that most people are exploring the internet for almost everything they need via smartphones and other handheld devices. Today, almost everyone connected to the internet logs on via a mobile device. These are people who are shopping for new homes, looking for places to eat and even trying to find business opportunities in the homebuilding industry. If your homebuilding business does not have a mobile-friendly website, there is a good chance you are missing out on all this traffic that could bring in more sales.
In recent years, Google has expanded its website ranking factors. On that list, which includes relevant, high-quality traffic, videos, backlinks and so on, they added on ‘mobile-friendliness’ as an important ranking factor. What this means is that Google now pays special attention to websites that are mobile friendly and those that aren’t will slowly get ignored or ranked lower by the search engines. No matter how well your website is doing now, if it is not mobile-friendly, soon you will start ranking lower on search engines and losing valuable organic traffic. Aside from that very crucial aspect, there are other benefits that having a mobile-friendly website brings to the table.
How to make your home builder web site design sales driven
Make it mobile friendly
Smartphones are becoming more popular and cheaper by the day. According to research, about 187 million Americans own smartphones today. That number jumps into the billions when you take the rest of the world into consideration. Market research shows that about 40% of these people use their mobile phones to find out information and make ‘buying’ decisions. This is a big opportunity for those with mobile friendly sites and a huge loss for those who do not have responsive websites.
Design it with “SEO for Homebuilders” in mind
For your new homebuilder’s website to be more sales oriented, you need to have it designed with SEO in mind. This means that it has to be aesthetically pleasing, load quickly, include nice images, and it has to have high quality and relevant content. Long gone are the days when you could just load your website with keywords and hope for it to rank in Google for search term “homebuilders.” Now you have to include social media plugins and other elements such as videos and meaningful text. Additionally, you should pay close attention to various digital marketing techniques that have worked well for other homebuilders.
Create landing pages for your buyers
Nobody is going to purchase a home from you on the spot through your website, but they will provide their information for a phone call or consultation meeting if your website is laid out accordingly. Build a landing page (or multiple landing pages!) targeted towards your ideal customer. Offer an incentive to download, such as a free PDF or homebuilder interview checklist. Assuming you set up your website analytics correctly, you’ll be able to eventually learn the value of every visitor that comes to that page based on your conversion rates.
Want to learn more? Download our free homebuilder marketing guide below for more specific homebuilder marketing strategies!
