Do you know if your website is actually
working to convert visitors to leads?
You cannot strategize without info & data (intel)!
A military leader cannot plan a route without knowing the landscape and who they will face. It’s the same for Realtors® – if you want more sales, that is.
Don’t design, update or pay for more traffic blindly. Understand your visitors and their browsing patterns to identify what really needs improvement.
A Must-Know for Realtors®: What is Google Analytics, and what is GA4?
Google Analytics is a must-have tool to understand visitor activity on a website, and GA4 is the latest version of Google Analytics. It provides data and clarity on how people use your website, and where the weak links are that are stopping you from getting more leads.
Recent studies show that 90% of people start online when it comes to real estate transactions. Even warm referrals will most likely Google you. Knowing how they interact with your website, and who they are, is critical to making the most of your real estate website.
What does Google Analytics actually track? We’ll focus on the most important metrics that matter for real estate websites, giving you valuable insights on how to actually improve your website’s capacity to get you more clients!
*Client data from a Brixwork dedicated SEO program
6 Engagement Metrics That Matter The Most
How easy, smooth and clean is your website? This is a critical factor in converting more visitors to leads on your website. High engagement on the website also leads to more brand exposure.
1: Time on Page ⏱️
Retail stores work to keep visitors inside longer and browse more aisles. Keeping visitors longer on your website means more brand exposure! If the time spent on key pages such as your about me (agent bio) page is too short, it means the page is ugly or boring (or both). Longer time on page often leads to deeper scrolls and more pageviews (the next 2 metrics).
4: Video Plays (New in GA4)
Home tours and presale showcase videos are expensive to produce, so you want as many plays as possible to recoup that investment. Every +1 view on your Youtube channel is a bonus, and so is the increased time on page. If this metric is low, it could mean your Youtube frame is poorly positioned, or the pages with videos are hard to find (low pageview).
2: Scroll Depth (New in GA4)
Who doesn’t like it deep? Well-designed web pages with good flow will entice users to scroll further down. This is especially important on single-page websites such as Langley City Industrial Park. Low scroll depth means the page is not captivating, reducing time on your website overall, and turning leads away.
5: PDF Downloads (New in GA4)
Floorplans, feature sheets or presale brochure PDF downloads indicate high levels of interest. Tracking this required complex custom event tagging in the old version, but GA4 offers it built-in, as long as you turn on the “File Downloads” tracking in the Enhanced Measurements section.
3: Pageviews
Captivated visitors will explore more listings, read more testimonials, and be more likely to contact you. Low pageview can be due to poor design, bad/broken links, lack of CTA (Call to Action). This metric has been a core measure of website performance for decades.
6: Conversion Rate
What counts as a “Conversion” varies across industries. For e-commerce, it’s the checkouts. A dentist’s website would count appointment bookings. For Realtors® or presales, we look at lead form submissions and phone link activity (you don’t buy a house online with a credit card).
*Client data from a Brixwork dedicated SEO program
3 Visitor Intel Metrics That Exposes Your Audience
1: Traffic Source – How Did They Find You?
Understanding how they got to your website is critical. It will give you a better idea of where your traffic is coming from and how visitors are finding your website.
Top 6 Traffic Sources That Matter The Most
While you can break down session source/medium into very fine granules, the ones Realtors need to know are these 6:
1. Organic Search:
People found you on a search engine such as Google or Bing! They typed in your name, the address of a listing, maybe the name of a presale project.Many people look up your name, followed by “realtor” or “real estate agent” instead of typing in your domain directly, so some organic traffic is actually just existing leads or referrals vetting you. Use Google Search Console to see the exact search queries.
2. Referral:
They clicked into your website from another website. Your brokerage website, Realtor.ca or REW.ca are common sources. The description on your Youtube video tour should have a link to your website too. Links from shoutouts on major news websites or media outlets drive not only referral traffic, but can also boost your organic ranking.
3. Social Media:
If you share your pages or listings on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, this is where those clicks are grouped. Diligent social media posting is not only great for brand awareness, but also great for SEO in the long term as it sends “social signals” of content popularity.
4. Email Campaigns:
If your newsletters are written properly to drive clicks to your website (not the long memoirs that people will delete right away), you will see visitors through this channel. Email campaigns are one of the best ways to maintain brand awareness too, so connect your website with Mailchimp if you have an account.
5. Direct:
This means they typed in your full URL into the address bar (old school!)
6. Paid/PPC/CPC:
Google Ads (formerly Adwords), or promoted posts on social media are the most common paid-for traffic sources. Be careful – PPC Campaigns need to be set up right from the ads, to landing pages, to follow-up emails, so you don’t just waste ad budget with little to no leads!
*Client data from a Brixwork dedicated SEO program
2: Who Are Your Visitors? What Are They Like?
What part of the country (and which countries) are they from? Analytics shows where your visitors are from by cities and towns too, providing valuable intel on who’s looking at you. You can even see their primary language, their age group, as well as gender (for certain visitors).
*Client data from a Brixwork dedicated SEO program
3: iPhone, Macbook or Windows? Chrome or Safari?
What portion of your visitors are using a mobile device? And yes, all of our websites are mobile-responsive. You can see the ratio of Windows users and Apple fans too.
You can break down how long mobile visitors stay (quickly look you up to see if you’re real) compared to how deep desktop visitors dig (reading your bio, looking at your listing service and marketing strategies) by filtering engagement metrics by device type.
*Client data from a Brixwork dedicated SEO program
Google Analytics – Not Just For Webmasters, But For All Small Business Owners (including Realtors®)!
If You Don’t Have Google Analytics Installed On Your Website Yet
Nobody should be without Analytics on their website. Creating an account and enabling tracking on our real estate websites takes only 5 minutes. Checking it once or twice a month is well worth the intel you’ll get for the very little time it takes to scan through.
If You Still Have the Old Analytics (UA), The Upgrade Is Long Overdue!
As of mid 2024, the old Universal Analytics (Version 3) has been completely disabled after a year long grace period. If you haven’t upgraded your Google Analytics to GA4 yet, do it now! For clients on our dedicated SEO program, we had you fully converted in 2023 ahead of your competition. We turned on advanced measurements along with a software upgrade to track video interactions better.
Become Even Better At Essential SEO for Real Estate
If you read this far, you’d love our Website Traffic & SEO playlist on our Youtube channel. Our Instagram has plenty of insider tips for Realtors® who want to work smarter. Also check out this Search Engine Land article on how to see which pages are performing best on Google.
Happy selling!
