A seller researches three agents online. Two have basic brokerage or LinkedIn profiles, yet the third has a detailed interview page showcasing their expertise. Who gets the listing?
The real estate industry is fiercely competitive, with agent credibility one of the key factors when home sellers look to make a choice of who to trust and work with. It isn’t surprising that home sellers often look toward the online world to help them make a decision, backed up by the fact that 76% of customers often search a company’s online presence before visiting their physical location.
Search results matter. What your online presence shows matters. This goes further when you realise that 81% of sellers contact just one agent before making a decision, highlighting the narrow window available in real estate marketing.
What Are Sellers Looking For?
Research shows that 85% of buyers and sellers prefer a real estate agent with a strong online presence. It creates trust, giving them a sense of knowing what they’re dealing with. A realtor personal brand showcases not only past successes, but other key features, such as values, expertise, qualifications, and real-time experience. For this reason, most sellers head to Google as their first port of call.
A quick online search with an agent’s name and city, or simply the name and ‘real estate’ yields several results. From there, sellers can compare multiple options simultaneously. While doing this, they’re searching their track records, local knowledge, credibility, and their general market expertise. All of this information allows them to make their decision before they’ve even picked up the phone.
Ultimately, your online presence either makes you or breaks you.
Personal Brand Versus Brokerage Brand
A brokerage website is a solid starting point, but what does it do in reality? It showcases the company. It doesn’t highlight the individual broker’s expertise and doesn’t correlate with positive real estate agent branding. To most sellers, all agents look identical on these sites, making it difficult to make a solid choice that is right for them. Instead, they’re given generic agent profiles that feature a headshot and bio information. It isn’t inspiring, and it’s one reason why talented real estate agents fail to stand out amongst the crowd.
Agent credibility is often created due to word-of-mouth marketing these days. Around 39% of sellers using a real estate agent found them through referrals, usually from friends or family members. Additionally, 24% simply go back to the same agent they worked with previously.
Understanding the difference between personal brand and brokerage brand is key. In most cases, high-value listings often go to agents that have established personal authority. This involves demonstrating specific value and building trust.
Interview Formats to Win High-Value Listings
Luxury real estate positioning requires a more nuanced approach, focusing on realtor personal brand aside from generic profiles. Research shows that 73% of homeowners prefer to list with an agent that uses video formats. This is telling, and highlights the reason why so many generic online profiles often fail.
Instead, interview formats are becoming more popular, allowing real estate agents to rank in search results, avoiding general invisibility. Platforms such as Discussli tick this very box. By answering a series of curated questions and uploading a headshot, real estate agents can provide true value to buyers and sellers. They’re no longer generic; they’re answering questions that customers generally want the details of. AI search engines also love this Q&A style content – they use it to influence and index within their systems when generating answers. It helps with premium positioning and avoids the credibility trap that generic bios too often cause.
Visit discussli.com for more details.
