#434 - The Mail-Right Show: Advice On How To Create Real Estate Landing Pages That Convert

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Advice On How To Create Real Estate Landing Pages That Convert

Expert Advice on Crafting Real Estate Landing Pages for Maximum Conversion Rates!

Looking to supercharge your real estate marketing efforts? Look no further than our latest video, which offers essential advice on building successful landing pages that convert like never before! Explore innovative tactics for capturing attention, nurturing leads, and easily driving conversions. Take action now and watch the video to revolutionize how you attract clients and grow your business exponentially.

#1 – A compelling “above the fold” section

#2 – A strong, catchy headline

#3 – Creative copy with clear language and benefits

#4 – A transparent and compelling offer

#5 – A single call to action

#6 – High-impact visuals or videos

#7 – Genuine social proof

#8 – Final Thoughts

Episode Full Show Notes

[00:00:00.000] – Robert Newman

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to episode 434 of the Mailright Show. There is so much going on today, but if you join us now or later, we’re incredibly grateful. Today’s episode is number 434, which I already said. The subject that we’re going to give is some advice on how to create real estate landing pages that will convert and get people to provide you with their information. So without any further ado, John, please, you are the maestro; you are the producer. You’re the producer of the show; you’ve done so many things. You’ve got two podcasts, you’ve been in the WordPress world forever, and you know almost all the movers and shakers in the WordPress environment. Could you please introduce yourself to the audience in your own words?

[00:00:46.040] – Jonathan Denwood

Oh, thanks, Rob. And thanks for that introduction. I’m the co-founder of mail-right. Com. We build fantastic-looking websites on WordPress that you own. Plus, we got a CRM landing page generator and a lot of other cool stuff. Also, if you want to have any questions, you can join us live and put your questions to us during the show at 2:00 PM Pacific Standard Time on Thursday. To get there, all you have to do is go to the Mel Wright Facebook page or the Mel Wright YouTube channel. Back over to you, Rob.

[00:01:27.600] – Robert Newman

Beautiful. Well, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Robert Newman. I am a guy who focuses on SEO inside the real estate space, and I’ve been doing that for 16 years now. It’s rare that anything interesting happens in my space, but it is new and genuinely Earth-shaking. But right now, the whole SEO world is staggered by the fact that Google had its first significant data breach in the search space. We basically get to see how the Wizard works behind the curtain. Anyway, if you want to find out what I’m going to update you on, please go to my website, inboundrem. Com. I shared the show on my Facebook page, which I’m going to do since John has been really good about saying, Join us Live. Anyway, let’s dive right into it today because we’re on a clock. Unfortunately, I have to be in and out on time today, which means no bonus content, but you are going to get 30 minutes of compelling data on how to convert landing pages. So when you look at the show notes, guys, there’s this one through eight lists, and number one on the list that John put, there is compelling above-the-fold section.

[00:02:41.750] – Robert Newman

99% of the people who listen to the show do not know what you mean when you say above the fold. So why don’t we start there and say, what is that?

[00:02:52.130] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, it depends. It has altered quite a bit because you’ve got so many different devices. That’s why you need a good, responsive website. And what does that mean? A responsive website is that it can change how it looks depending on the device that is viewing a particular page or website. And that is achievable. You usually do have to alter a website slightly depending on the platform; what can work on a very large monitor is typically different from what will work on a mobile phone, but it can adjust. So what above the fold means is that first area that shows when you hit a particular page, what will show first? That usually is, like I say, in an era of all different types of devices, what is meant as before the fold. It comes from the old world of the newspaper world, where people bought their newspapers from the newsstand. It was the headline. It was the first… The paper was folded, and it was the first page of the paper. It’s what the lead story would be with the paper being folded. That’s where that term comes from, Robert.

[00:04:29.620] – Robert Newman

And that term has remained the same, and in essence, design as it relates to advertising display design has had alterations but hasn’t changed that much. As an example, here is Facebook’s above the full landing page. Sorry, taking me a minute to figure out how to do this. Okay, so you’ve got content on the bottom and images on the top. That design standard has been in place for 50 years. Advertising geniuses in Madison Avenue invented it a long time ago, case-studied it, and multivariate tested it ad nauseam, and it’s what people respond to. Images first, content later. That’s literally what every single newspaper does. When we say a compelling above-the-fold section, the section that the eye is drawn to first is the easiest way to phrase it. You look, what do you see first? Capture their attention with a good image and a compelling way of writing the words. You could do fire sail with big, bold, animated words and little flames coming out. Anything that captures their attention is what you want when somebody’s eyes hit your advertisement for the first time. Now, here’s my favorite thing. Some people have made millions, if not billions, of dollars off. It’s crazy, it’s crazy.

[00:06:02.460] – Robert Newman

But a strong, catchy headline. Jon, I have so much to say on this. Go ahead, but you start.

[00:06:10.830] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, sure, Rob. Well, it’s something I’ve learned with doing a fair bit of Facebook advertising with my partner, is that people tend to run Facebook campaigns, and if they don’t get an initial response, they can it. But changing the headline, a lot of people think it’s just they’re going to do a dramatic change, where changing the image, and especially changing the headline, you can get a totally different response to a Facebook campaign. And I think that applies to landing pages or Google Adverts or whatever. People think it has to be a dramatic change that will will result in it either being a success or failure, but it’s actually the word in the image. Small changes can make a big difference.

[00:07:11.570] – Robert Newman

Wow, couldn’t I agree with you more? Ladies and gentlemen, this is interesting. If everybody here googles tag lines for real estate, I’ve had a number one or number two article for that for four straight years, which is difficult with the way that the SEO algorithm works. It means that people are gravitating to my content over and over for longer periods of time, regardless of what else hits the top of the page. Why would you ask? Well, number one for the search result is luxury presence, 35, attention grabbing real estate slogans as taglines. Number two, us, five Five hundred. Big difference. We’ve done a lot of this, a lot of working in my-You’re a bit loud this afternoon, don’t you? Enormously loud, super-pumped.

[00:07:55.160] – Jonathan Denwood

I know.

[00:07:57.250] – Robert Newman

I’ll give you a few examples. Dreams Within Reach, Home Sweet Home, Invest in You, Lux Moving Life, Elevate Your Lifestyle, Live, Love, Home, keys to Happiness. There’s 500 of these. We’ve studied them ad nauseam. We add to this list every year. It’s one of our favorite pieces of content because there’s so much power in haikus, poetry, or put another way, tagalins. That’s what you are trying to do, three words that impact everybody deeply. Okay? So go check out our post, and let’s move on to the next subject inside this amazing subject that John has chosen for us today. Creative copy number three on the list for creating a landing page that converts is creative copy with clear language and benefits. So why don’t you open us up on that What do you do?

[00:08:45.450] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, a lot of content that a lot of brokerages agents produce is as boring as watching paint dry. It just is. And also they tend to use very flowery language, where we’ve touched upon this before. If you do any study, a lot of the gurus or the most influential people in copywriting, it’s very clear that you should really aim for a seventh to eighth grade level. And people tend… Obviously, that can vary. But in marketing, in advertising in this particular medium, it’s got to be interesting, but don’t use too flowery language. Aim at a seventh to eighth grade. That’s the general advice.

[00:09:48.100] – Robert Newman

Got you. I agree with that advice. Writing at a sixth grade level is best recommended.

[00:09:57.580] – Jonathan Denwood

Seventh to eighth, they recommend?

[00:09:59.080] – Robert Newman

I I don’t stick to that, personally. But then again, you have to decide who you’re appealing to. You want to appeal to everybody and go broad.

[00:10:09.720] – Jonathan Denwood

Obviously, if you’re writing for Old English geesers, you got to write much lower level for me to understand. That’s what John interrupted me to say, everybody.

[00:10:24.880] – Robert Newman

That was so important that he had to interrupt me to say that.

[00:10:29.620] – Jonathan Denwood

So It was urgent, Rob.

[00:10:32.260] – Robert Newman

Creative copy with clear language and benefits. If you really want to keep your whole advertising life simple, then keep your copy simple. If you want to get complicated, my advice is understand your audience to the greatest degree. There is no amount of money and effort that you can spend that would not justify understanding who your audience is, because once you do understand that, you have so many more tools in the tool belt of trying to create something that the people that you’re advertising to are going to resonate with. The more you know your audience, the better you can do, and maybe you keep it clear. Maybe you use some not so clear languages like legal jargon that might relate to real estate. Maybe there’s something happening in your marketplace that is somewhat like legal element of the real estate business, and you should advertise to that. It just depends. All right, number four, a A single call to action. I don’t know that I agree with this, but hit me, John.

[00:11:34.130] – Jonathan Denwood

I think you missed one, wasn’t it? A transparent and compelling offer.

[00:11:38.340] – Robert Newman

Oh, yeah, sorry. You’re absolutely right. Number 4, transparent and compelling offer.

[00:11:42.780] – Jonathan Denwood

See, I am awake, Robert.

[00:11:44.630] – Robert Newman

I am not. My brain, unfortunately, for all of us, is just connected to something else.

[00:11:49.890] – Jonathan Denwood

He’s buzzing. He’s been reading up on his Google SEO. He’s buzzed up. He’s pumped up, folks. He’s elevated.

[00:11:59.520] – Robert Newman

He’s In a way I can’t even explain.

[00:12:02.500] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, there you go.

[00:12:04.140] – Robert Newman

Fifteen years of a career validated, John. Fifteen years.

[00:12:10.990] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, keep it simple, folks. Compelling offer, transparent and compelling, and keep it simple. People have a tendency to want to build very complicated optimizations and complicated offers and all sorts. The geniuses in this industry have learned that the simple and well-trodden offers and tend to work the most. What do you reckon, Rob?

[00:12:52.550] – Robert Newman

I reckon… Okay, hold on, sorry.

[00:12:57.830] – Jonathan Denwood

Is that Google?

[00:13:00.640] – Robert Newman

No, it’s my dad. Sorry. Okay. I reckon that transparent and compelling is extremely viable. And I also, I’m going to say a whole bunch of stuff, and I hope you all hear me. A transparent, compelling offer does not have to be a sale, does not have to mean you have to slash and burn prices at your current shop. I have always deeply looked for service or informational add-ons that I can throw into my service that make it extremely compelling, but are also not me discounting my service or diminishing my brand or anything like that. I will do extra work like I am doing right now, reading 2,500 pages, so that I can come up with 10 things that are simple and straightforward so that you don’t have to read 20 hours worth of documentation and summarizes what is of interest to you. That’s what you’re getting. That’s the compelling offer is that. It’s like, Oh, there was a lot of work. I didn’t have to do it. Somebody did it for me, and I get to just see these 10 things. That’s compelling, in my opinion. And so a transparent offer is also something that is a hot button that John put down here because one of my least favorite things, one of like as a middle-aged dude, listen, if you say one thing and I hit a landing page and it is Clearly saying another, even slightly, I bounce off so fast, I don’t care how good the offer is.

[00:14:36.750] – Robert Newman

I don’t anymore. Transparent to me means honest. That’s how I interpret that phrase that John put here. So if you say you’re going to do one thing in your little advertisement, make sure that your landing page says, basically, reinforces it in the first sentence. Transparency is, in my opinion, equivalent to honesty in advertising. And I don’t There is never a time that it is right to say, Fire sale, and then you hit a landing page and it’s like, Just kidding. We’re not selling. Our products are already awesome. There is no sale. I hate that so much. So don’t create a lot of hate in your audience by doing anything other than being clear, honest, and compelling is understanding your audience and creating something that you think that they’re really going appreciate. I’ve got a client right now who has nine times the certifications as any other real estate agent and does a one % flat rate for his customers in San Francisco, which is not a discount market. And he does very, very well because he’s twice as qualified and charges half as much. I’m not a price cutter personally, but I have to admit for a certain audience, that’s going to be a compelling offer.

[00:15:57.420] – Robert Newman

And he’s an English bloke, just like you, Jonathan.

[00:15:59.600] – Jonathan Denwood

What could you ask for? You got two to deal with in one week. Shall we go for our break, Rob?

[00:16:08.930] – Robert Newman

Stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen. We absolutely shall, my good, good man. We are going to go to a break and we’re When we come back, we have four more compelling things to talk about calls to action, impacting visuals, social proof, and some final closing thoughts. So stay tuned. We’ll be right back. Thank you for giving us your time today. We really appreciate it. Three, two, one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to episode number 434 of the MailRight Show. We’re doing the show today on a historic day. There’s so much happening in the world. There’s a big Google leak, there’s a jury verdict coming out. There’s so many things happening today, but John and I are here with you talking about real estate landing pages and how that you can create a compelling landing page that converts. Next up on our list, if you didn’t catch the first half of the show, please find it and go back and watch it. It’s excellent. Our second part of the show, we’re going to start off with a single call to action. I don’t know that I agree with this, John, which is what I said a second ago.

[00:17:13.250] – Robert Newman

Why don’t you dive into this and make sure that I’m on the same page as you?

[00:17:19.120] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, I think I do agree with it, but I’ll be interested to hear your view. I think having multiple different offers and different calls on one page is not a great idea. I think it’s linked to the copy, transparent, compelling, and keeping it simple. Keep it simple, basically. One offer, compelling, transparent. Don’t have three offers on one page, on a landing page. I’ve been guilty of that a lot, having multiple offers on a landing page. And When I’ve cleaned it up and just had it as simple as possible and just had one offer, it’s always worked better.

[00:18:15.450] – Robert Newman

One offer, yes. A call to action is responding to the offer. I found that through multivariate testing, that oftentimes there are compelling ways to set up multiple calls to action, not for different offers, for the same offer. Click here, click there. Not different offers. One offer, I agree with that. One offer. Absolutely no doubt about it, John. But multiple ways of asking somebody to engage with that one offer, which is how I’m seeing a call to action, a CTA, that I have just seen lots of proof that says that there are very effective ways to put multiple calls to action on the same page and get increased engagement. A call to action, ladies and gentlemen, is an action button. Get offer, sign up now, schedule with Robert. Those are all call to actions. They are the final thing that you do before you start getting into paperwork and such. Calls to action are usually short, sweet, to the purpose, and usually the content that you’ve been writing, that’s the transparent, compelling offer bit, is setting up the call. If you did a really good job, you might do the call. But here’s what you could do.

[00:19:32.040] – Robert Newman

You could do a great job. You could do a simple call to action. Are you ready? Schedule this call now. But now you get something interesting. The rest of the building blocks that John is doing, the most effective landing pages that are existing in the world are funnel-like. That’s what you all have heard about. Funnel-like is you build, build, build, and you take somebody’s temperature with a call to action, such as, Sign up now. You’re midway through, but you think you’re done because you’re sliding down a long landing page and you think you’re finished. Then you hit this CTA. Then you don’t want to click the button as the person reading the page. You keep scrolling down and you discover the landing page is not done. What could be next is a paragraph of text, and then as John has put down in number 6 here, a high impact visual or video. I’m going to continue on with my thought here, but John, why don’t you explain what you mean here so, again, we can be on the same page?

[00:20:29.220] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, number 6, How did that impact your impression? Well, basically, I did my MA in graphical design and visual design. Basically, we are visual animals, Basically, we can input visual messages into our mind at a much higher rate than through reading words. So you can transmit a message through your image at a much higher rate, and you haven’t got much time with a landing page to get the person to do something. So having some thought in the images. And the same thing with the first frame of a video and the first 20 seconds of a video, you’ve got a limited amount of time, but you can transmit more information at a higher rate than you can through the written word.

[00:21:30.360] – Robert Newman

I agree with everything. There’s no disagreement agreement to be had. I would just add that when you’re hitting… The way that landing pages really build momentum is you do a lot of compelling copy, transparent offer, so on and so forth. Then you take somebody’s temperature with, Hey, would you like to talk to me about this now? Or, Talk to me? Meet me? Whatever button, right? But let’s just say it’s like, Hey, I understand if this isn’t quite compelling enough for you yet, Just because I know you probably have some more questions, I went ahead and put a video together, and that would be slightly down the fold. Now you’ve got a compelling video that is slightly further down the page. As the video ends, what you’re going to say is, Hey, I’ve left some really great information. Like, right below this video. You keep getting people to basically digest information down the landing page. That’s how most… Like Motley Fool is doing landing pages like that. Everybody is doing landing pages like that. There’s a guy out there who’s named I forget, but he’s got a company named ClickFunnels. He’s built a whole company around this one principle, and so it works.

[00:22:39.570] – Robert Newman

But you’re going to do multiple calls to action on the same page, six or seven, to get it to work right for you. You can change up what you’re calling the buttons, even though that does increase the difficulty in the page design elements. But here’s what usually happens on these landing pages. You’ve got you. You write your video, you had your call to action below the first compelling offer, the video usually explains, then you do another call to action, and now a lot of people still need to be ready. So you add more logs to the fire in the form of, number seven on our list, genuine social proof. John, talk to us about that for a second.

[00:23:24.990] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, if you can get a video, that’s fantastic. But if you can’t, image a person and then link to their website or link to their social media account, so you can prove that it’s actually a natural person, it actually exists. The more you can prove that through testimonials or… We live in the age of cynicism. A lot of that cynicism is justified, but it’s all prevailing now. Social media has put it on steroids. So, the more social proof you can provide, but you have to prove that it’s real.

[00:24:16.080] – Robert Newman

Agreed. Social proof is where all the people who have already used the service bought the service, and so on and so forth schedule a call with you. I strongly believe that the service process is broken down into many elements of service and that if you can get people to review all those elements, such as what happens when you have a problem, it is social proof, right? Then you get somebody commenting about that. What happens when you sign up? Social proof. You get somebody commenting about that. What happens when somebody has been using this thing you sold for a while? You get a review about that. All these different elements because a long-term service-based relationship is like saying you used a plumber for ten years, and they fixed four different problems in the house. They could have gotten it right three times and messed up the fourth, and the fourth was the most significant job and cost you $20, $50, $100,000. Thus, that last review might actually be more impactful than the previous three. Social proof is how most people measure the viability of a vendor. That’s very important. On the landing page, you’d go to the call to action.

[00:25:17.800] – Robert Newman

People need more time to be ready. Social proof is the last and final weapon in the gun. It’s the biggest deal of them all. It is what’s probably going to kick somebody over the edge. You make sure that you list significant amounts of social proof. Maybe you have a video of somebody talking about the service, and then you do what you’ve been doing the whole time, and you ask, again, for a commitment, a call to action. Sign up now, call me now, and schedule a call with me, I’m still not convinced. I’ll show you some case studies, stuff like that. There is a way to give yourself a little bit of space. You can set up the final call by saying, Hey, a lot of purchasing calls to action are like, this is at the very end, after all that baloney, 10 minutes worth of a landing page, at the very bottom of the page, they go, Oh, by the way, there’s no risk to your commitment. You have a two-day money-back guarantee. There’s no risk in the purchase. The same thing could be said of a service-based offer where a call to me is free. My consultation, my wisdom, the value of my information, that I’m giving that all to you.

[00:26:34.130] – Robert Newman

What do you have to lose? Call me. So, John, we’re down; we’re between number 7 and number eight. We’re there. We’re doing final thoughts. So, do you have anything to add to what I just said? Do you have some thoughts that you want to share before we close the show out?

[00:26:53.970] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I underestimated it, but what you’re fighting is in action. It’s safer for the person not to get the offer. It’s safer not to fill in the form. It’s safer. You’re fighting in action. That’s what you’re fighting against. It’s safer to stay in your existing home. It’s safer not to do anything. There’s a price that must be paid for in action, which can be very painful and insidious. But you’re fighting apathy and inaction. And that’s why the things that we’ve discussed in this show have been proven because it Is there, based on the experience of hardened marketers who have had to fight back in action. Back over to you, Robert.

[00:27:56.300] – Robert Newman

And all of that, so a few things. One, remember what we said on the landing pages: succeed or die on the power of the initial tagline. That’s it. You are compelling somebody to get in there and read because oftentimes, these days, converting landing pages is very long. I don’t know if you all realized it, but I just basically said there’s text-based content, followed by a video or an infographic you spent some time on, followed by social proof, and there’s content in between each of these things. Then, there’s a form at the bottom, which oftentimes guarantees language. This is a big project to create a converting landing page. It’s worth it, of course. You can change your entire career trajectory off the strength of a single landing page. So it’s very worth it. It’s just not what most people think when a vendor hands you something and says, your landing page is your contact form. I hope you will all join me with this. A hearty guffaw because that is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. That is not a landing page. That is your contact form. You can use it as a landing page because people land there.

[00:29:10.750] – Robert Newman

Technically, they’re right. But if you think that people will just come to that landing page and fill it out just because my goodness gracious, that didn’t work ten years ago, why would it work today? I have no idea. All right, ladies and gentlemen, it has been John, and it’s a great honor to entertain and hopefully educate you a little bit on what is one of the simplest yet most important things that you can talk about, which is these converting landing pages. John, thank you so much for putting together the show notes. If you would like our audience to reach out to you and talk about what you do to create converting landing pages for them and make your websites work from a lead generation perspective, how would you like people to go about doing that?

[00:29:57.520] – Jonathan Denwood

Oh, thanks, Rob. I want to point out the MailRight system. It’s one of our strengths. We’ve got a pattern and library of different sections that enable people to build landing pages on our platform quickly. And it’s all based on Gutenberg. And I’m pretty proud of what we’ve built there. And the other thing, Rob, is we got some guests in the next couple of weeks. I’ve rustled up some guests, Rob. So we got some people to talk to. You don’t have to part with me, Robert. I know that’s great.

[00:30:29.340] – Robert Newman

Did you? Has anything happened with that young lady who sought me out and wanted to get out?

[00:30:33.550] – Jonathan Denwood

I think she’s one of the guests. Yeah, I think she could be.

[00:30:36.560] – Robert Newman

Right on. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I just saw some exciting news. Poor Donald Trump has been found guilty on all 34 counts. It’s hard to keep my feed not full of that stuff. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, if you’d like to reach out to me, Robert Newman, and talk to me about tagline story storytelling or anything like that, please go to inboundrim. Com. You can look at my About page and my Service page. I always encourage you to measure whether or not you should reach out to me based on the quality of the work you see yourself. You look at my website, decide for My website, decide for yourself, does this guy know how to create compelling content? I think that I do. If you don’t agree, don’t reach out to me. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. We so sincerely appreciate you, John. I appreciate you. Obviously, I’ve had too much caffeine, and I am having a life-changing day today. Until next time, sign us off.