President & CEO of Corberry Digital Marketing Agency, a full-service digital marketing agency offering web design, SEO, PPC, social & more.
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As a real estate broker in the modern world, you’ll need to have an online presence if you want to stay relevant in a highly competitive market. It makes it easier for people to find you online, and it opens your services up to more people. It’s a highly effective and cost-efficient way of advertising your services to such a large market.
The term “content management system” can seem overwhelming and daunting, but it’s not as complicated as it sounds. Let’s discuss it piece by piece so it’s easier to understand.
What Is A Content Management System?
Creating a website is tedious work. It involves a lot of code, and if you have zero knowledge of coding, you’re probably going to have a hard time. A content management system, or CMS, frees you of that burden so you can focus on creating content. It also allows you to organize and modify content on your website.
According to Research and Markets, the industry is expected to grow from $6.9 billion in 2021 to $14.3 billion by 2026. There are lots of CMS options out there, but the most popular one is WordPress. Other popular choices include Drupal, Adobe Experience Manager, Squarespace and Contentful.
What To Look Out For When Choosing A CMS
Here are some important factors to consider when choosing a CMS:
• Customizability
A good CMS should help you fully customize your website. This includes the placement of elements, colors, typography, media and the overall design of your website. It should not limit your creative freedom to fully make your website on your own.
• Media Integration
As a real estate broker, it’s important that you’re able to show your clients and prospects the properties that you offer, positive testimonials and happy customers. It helps a lot in advertising and marketing if you have photos and videos of the properties you’re offering.
Aside from that, media integration can also become social proof of your excellence as a real estate broker. Posting photos of successful transactions and happy customers can help convince clients and prospects that you’re good at your job. This is why your CMS should be able to handle all of this media on your website.
• Edit Existing Content
There are instances wherein your blog posts may contain misspelled words or information that has changed over time. An example would be when details about a property you’re selling have changed. In these cases, it’s important that you can edit the content you’ve already posted. This helps you stay accurate and trustworthy as a real estate broker.
• Key Analytics Data
Creating good content is only one part of the puzzle. Identifying strengths, weaknesses, what works, what doesn’t and all the other analytics is another important piece of the puzzle.
Your CMS must be able to show you key analytics data. These should include basic analytics like the number of visits, keyword performance, traffic sources and the like. These will help you identify which areas are effective in bringing in visitors. You can then allocate your time, resources and efforts to focusing on these areas.
• Access For Multiple Users
Creating content can be a challenging task. Content can range from writing articles, designing infographics, taking photos of properties and making videos of house tours. These are all very helpful for you as a real estate broker, but they may also be out of your field of expertise. In situations like these, it’s better to hire people who have more knowledge and experience. To make it easier for them to collaborate, all of them should be able to access the CMS.
• Chatbot Support
There may be situations wherein your visitors have questions. There may also be instances wherein your website visitors want to schedule an appointment with you ASAP. You should find a CMS that allows you to run chatbots that can help with common queries and actions like these. In 2019, twice as many consumers found chatbots “very helpful” compared to 2018. Statistics also show that 71% of consumers like chatbots if it reduces the time it takes to resolve the issue. It’s also a great way to make more conversions because you’re catching people at the peak of their interest.
• Multilingual Functionality
Making your website accessible to more people is an absolute must. It opens up your content to more people whose first language may not be English. This helps you gain more visitors and will ultimately lead to more clients and prospects.
What Are The Benefits Of Having A CMS?
Is a CMS really worth all the investment? Here are a few of the benefits that come with a CMS:
• SEO
Having a CMS will greatly help with your SEO. Most platforms will give you tips on the things you need to take care of to get ranked higher on search engine result pages. These include reminders for adding meta descriptions, optimizing your links, adding alternate text and more.
• Security
With a CMS managing your website, you’re guaranteed more security compared to running your own website. Cybersecurity can be extremely complicated if you have zero knowledge of it. A CMS will take care of these things on your behalf so you can focus on creating quality content instead.
• User-Friendliness
As stated previously, a CMS makes it easier for users to publish, organize and edit content. Users don’t have to worry about coding anymore and can just focus on creating quality content.
Key Takeaway
Being a real estate broker in an age of digitalization has its challenges. One of these challenges is getting your content out there so people can find their way to you. With a CMS, you’ll be able to create a website that makes it easy to offer quality content and establish your online presence. Overall, it’s a great investment for any real estate broker.
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