Since the beginning of the year 2021 the real estate industry is recovering and by the mid of the 2021 the market gained momentum. The market is projected to keep growing in the second half of the year and the first half of the 2022 as well and hopefully this pace will continue throughout the year 2022. As the Expo 2020 is about to start, and its announcement has a very positive effect along with the government efforts and special programs and reforms for the real estate industry. In fact a report from a popular news outlet, the Khaleej Times is suggesting that the property and real estate industry is witnessing a record breaking growth since past eight years. The banks are also offering lowest interest rates, the government reforms and Expo 2020 are the major contributors. The market is very promising and growing rapidly and steadily. This attracts more investors, the real estate businesses are popping up everywhere on daily bases which increase the competition. Apart from the competition the real estate businesses should have to understand the impact of the 2020 situation on customer behavior and market trends.
Now a days the customers and prospects are more likely to visit less properties. Some even prefer to short list properties from the websites and then after comparing those they tend to visit only a few properties and make a decision. This is a huge change in the behavior of the real estate customers. Hence the businesses will have to focus more on their real estate website and online channels. That is the reason we are writing this blog to help real estate businesses to understand the new trends of the real estate websites in 2021 and 2022. Here are some important trends that you should consider while revamping your online presence and website:
Real Estate Website Trend No. 1: Smart Search and Simple Navigation
The most important feature of any real estate website is its search engine and the navigation. Earlier there the web designers in Dubai were focused on building highly sophisticated search engines with tons of parameters. Actually earlier the technology was also not so smart so in order to return a precise result the user must had to put several inputs, however, things have changed, these days the smart search engines have completely replaced the ordinary search engines. Now a days the real estate web designs are becoming more interactive and smart, the customers can utilize interactive user interfaces to search for the properties. The search result pages are also optimized for lead generation with engaging content and encouraging features. The real estate website navigation must have to be very simple and easy to understand. Avoid nesting too many categories, rather try to provide access to each category or page within a few clicks. The best way is to use mega menus and some also use stepped navigations in 3 or 4 columns to further simplify the navigation. The smart search and simple navigation is vital for customer journey and better online lead generation.
Real Estate Website Trend No. 2:Schedule Showing/Viewing Feature
The Schedule Showing/Viewing is another very important and effective feature of a real estate website. It simplifies the scheduling process to view the property for both the customers and the agents. This button should be available at a very simple and easy to access place, the ideal is with each property card or thumbnail. The button should allow the customers to schedule a tour to the property they are interested in. Here in Dubai the real estate web designers are divided in two parts on that, one is in favor of using a popup window to take the user through the scheduling steps and the other is convinced that a completely dedicated page is a better option. However, as per our experience the popup window has more conversion rates, but it is a little bit harder to optimize it for the mobile phones. No matter what approach you use, the important thing is the scheduling process should be simple and very easy. Once the visitor clicks on the button, the next step should be a calendar, time setup options and the last step should be the contact information. That is it. Nothing more or less.
Real Estate Website Trend No. 3: Oversimplified Customer Journey
Another real estate website trend gaining popularity in Dubai and all around the UAE is having an oversimplified customer journey. The customer journey has a huge effect on the lead generation rate and conversions. If a customer journey is too complex, the customer churn rate will be skyrocket. The customer churn rate is the measurement of the number of potential customers who have initiated the process of purchase or are interested in a purchase but left half way through due to the difficulties of the process. There are so many different ways the business can minimize this, for example:
- Fast Search Results
- Fast Loading Time
- Interactive Design
- Simplified Processes
Loading speed is always crucial for a website, if any website takes too long to load the visitors will simple quit it and move to the next. So, it is extremely important that your website renders within a few seconds, the ideal website load time is 2 to 3 seconds. For a real estate website as the website contains a lot of images and other features that can consume more time to get load, so the web designer and developer have to utilize special programing technique to reduce the load time. Similarly the search feature can also be optimized for speed utilizing latest programming and database techniques.
No matter what action you want form your visitors the process should be simple and short. The simplified process leads to more conversion rates. There has been a lot of new technologies introduced in past few years which can enhance the customer experience and customer journey on the website. One of the best technique is to make your designs interactive. It doesn’t mean huge popups getting loaded upon click or hoover, or the entire background gets changed, but the minute details are what matter the most. Small interactions or micro interactions are a great way to bring any ordinary design to life. When the customers sees very small and tiny changes in the design elements or colors or font styles or any such thing, it increases their curiosity and users keep scrolling through the page providing business a chance to present more data hence increase the chances of the conversion too.
Real Estate Website Trend No. 4:Multiple CTA Buttons
The CTA or Call to Action button is plays an important role in online lead generation. Any lead oriented web design must have a proper planning for the CTA. Businesses have witnessed huge online conversions and sales difference when the CTA button is tweaked. A slight placement change or even color change could have huge impact on the online conversions. For the real estate web design the CTA is also very important. Here are some important things to consider while designing a CTA for your real estate website:
- CTA is a button with defined border, width and height
- It should have different color than surroundings
- It should stand out from the surrounding design elements
- It should have appealing text
- The text should be relevant to the surrounding text and subject of the page
The design and the text both are important for the CTA. It is important that the CTA text is persuasive, appealing and attracts more attentions. Rather than just using a single word or two, be creative with the text and try to make it more exciting and indicate value in it. The CTA button should be placed on very prominent locations, you can put it on several locations, but don’t overdo it. Keep it loud but not shouting. Place it strategically so that the user don’t have to scroll up or down, do not put it in the outer most corners, try to blend it in the main design and present it as a design element but with higher visibility. The CTA can have huge impact on online conversions so it is important to plan and design it with great care.
Real Estate Website Trend No. 5:Customer Centric Content
When it comes to the content of a real estate website the businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE often over looked it and don’t pay much attentions to it, instead businesses and real estate agents are more focused on providing the basic information about the property and such highlights. However, the content of a real estate website can really make a huge impact on the visitors. The content is what contains the most trust signals, the important aspects of the real estate website content such as company profile, mission and vision statements, other pages with additional details, case studies, customer testimonials, and such details are very crucial to build trust and a good relationship with your customers. The content is not only the text, the photos, videos, and downloadable materials, each and everything should be the part of your content strategy. Here are a few key points that you should consider while preparing the content of your real estate website:
- The content should be appealing and persuasive
- Highlight the advantages of the property, whether it is the location, the view or surroundings, make sure you are highlighting all advantages of that property
- Use appealing words as sale points, such as luxurious, see view, park view, parking, cost-effective, limited time offers, free, etc. these words can significantly increase the conversion rates
- Tables and lists get more attentions from the visitors
- Highlight unique features
- Use plain and simple language, short sentences and avoid long descriptions
- High Definition Images with Interactive view pane should be provided, the user should have facility to easily zoom and rotate images
- Images should be taken from various angles, use maximum 10 to 12 images
- Use multimedia content too, such as Videos and Interactive Maps, etc.
- Try to use design elements and styles to highlight important content, but don’t overdo it
The content is always considered to be the backbone of a website. It is important that the content communicates well and maintain user engagements. There will be no agent or staff to explain anything, so the content should be able to convey the message very well.
Real Estate Website Trend No. 6:Neighboring Information and Vendor Directory
Businesses everywhere are always dependent on supplementary vendors and suppliers, the real estate industry is not different. In fact in each real estate transaction there are numbers of third party vendors involved. For example, home inspectors, insurance brokers, maintenance service providers, movers and a lot more. The vendor directory will be a great value to your customers and visitors. Real estate businesses can also monetize their directory list and charge these vendors to list them on their website. Whatever the case is the vendor directory will save a lot of time and efforts of your customers. Similarly the information about the facilities in the neighboring areas such as the pharmacies, clinics, parks, grocery stores, shopping malls, restaurants, main high ways, etc. also attract visitors attentions. The main objective is to explain your customers and visitors about the benefits of moving in to this property.
Real Estate Website Trend No. 7:Simple and Easy Sharing Options
These days everyone is active in social media platforms. In UAE more than 90% of the population have access to the high speed internet and owns either laptop computers or smartphones or both. People love to share content on social media platforms. Integrate social media sharing facility in your website and also in individual pages/properties. Let the user easily share the property they liked either by Social Media Platforms, Private Messages, Messenger, Whatsapp, Email and SMS. If someone stumbled upon a good option but are seeking something else, they might share it with some friend or colleague who might be interested in that. People tend to share the content they liked all the time. This way your website will gain popularity and as many time as a page is shared on social media it generate free website traffic. Which increases the probability of more sales and conversions.
Real Estate Website Trend No. 8:Responsive Web Design
The statistical data have shown that the mobile searches have already surpassed the regular desktop/laptop searches since 2019. And this is increasing ever since. It is extremely important for the real estate businesses to facilitate their mobile visitors. These days in Dubai and all around the UAE almost each new website build is responsive. A responsive website is designed specifically to be able to detect the device and platform it is being opened from. This way the website can render its design components and elements according to the screen size of the device. This is what we call a responsive web design. This feature is achieved with several modern web designing and web programming techniques. The responsive web designs ensures a similar user experience on all platform, devices and screen sizes. Hence if a user is familiar with a regular version of the website, they will be able to easily locate and identify same features on the smartphone version of the website as well. Having a responsive web design these days is a must to have feature not only for real estate but for every business and industry.
Real Estate Website Trend No. 9:Integration with Central Information Center
Integration with central information center means that there would be so many features on the website that might be accessing data from other systems and business tools. The central information center is a joint database which contains the data from different systems and tools and link them with each other too. For example, the customer portals or complaint center or any such system could also be linked with customer loyalty system, or sales system, etc. The details of the properties must be updated in a central ERP or intranet system, which could be linked to the website to instantly update the status of the property automatically. Moreover the real estate business can also provide agent’s portal online through the website link, or any other system, such as appointment booking, or schedule for showing/viewing the property could instantly tell the customers and visitors whether any agent will be able to meet them as per their desired schedule or will everyone be busy at that particular time of the day, such things can add value to customer journey and customer experience and all such features can only be achieved by the integration of the real estate website with the central information center.
Read More: How to Start an E-Commerce Business: A Step-by-Step Guide
Real Estate Website Trend No. 10: Search Engine Optimization
The Search Engine Optimization also known as SEO is a digital marketing technique to generate free organic traffic for any website through search engines. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the most popular search engine is Google, some people often use MSN, Yahoo and a few others, but for all the search engines the basic remains the same. Any real estate website in 2021 must be search engine friendly and should be optimized for SEO to ensure higher visibility in the search results. People tend to do online searches to find certain information, the market research and studies have shown that almost 60 to 70 percent of the customers do online searches before making a purchase decision. The SEO is a combination of website programing, web design and web content optimization ensure the search engines can easily read the subject of the page and can have a better understanding of the subject and topic. It also includes link building and bookmarking. If a website is properly optimized for the search engine when anyone came to that search engine for example Google, and put a query then the Google will scan through the listed will rank them according to their friendliness and optimization. The search engine rankings can bring you more than 70% of your traffic, absolutely free. When people find a real estate website among the top ranked websites in the Google, they also get an impression of trust and quality. Which is very helpful for a real estate website to improve online conversions.
Read More: 6 Tips to Use Social Media for Local Business
Conclusion
The real estate industry in booming in Dubai and all across the UAE. The industry is reporting tremendous growth, the government, the banks, investors and everything is giving green signals. The real estate businesses are flexing muscles for the coming run. The real estate website has become a very important part of the entire strategy, since the 2020 the general trends have been changed, which have impacted across the entire market. The general population is more inclined towards digital solutions and communications. Which makes the real estate websites even more important for the year 2021 and 2022. Websites are also evolving but the real estate website is very different from regular corporate or business websites. The real estate website is designed to provide certain features which help the realtors to acquire more online leads. This blog has listed top 10 trends of 2021 and 2022 for the real estate websites. The search engine, navigation, user interface and customer journey are the major factor for the success of a real estate website.
Enhanced customer journey, business oriented content and features can improve the conversion rates a lot. Additional information to add value, responsive web design and search engine friendliness also plays an important role in bringing organic traffic to the website. RSI Concepts is a leading web design Dubai name, we are helping our customers in achieving their goals and objective. If you are seeking a revamp of an existing real estate website or even if you are a startup, feel free to reach to us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.
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