Wim, Copandi
What portals do well
Portals are where buyers and tenants search. Your listings need to be there, and that won't change.
Immoweb, Zimmo and Immovlan do their job well. They bring together listings from across Flanders, with filters for price, location and type. Prospective buyers know them and find their way around. For a property you want to sell or let, a portal listing is often the fastest route to a viewing.
So it makes sense that most enquiries about your properties come in through the portals. That doesn't mean your website is failing. It means the portals are doing their job.
What portals don't do for you
A portal sells your properties, not your agency. There are three things it doesn't do for you:
- Attract sellers. On a portal, people look for a home. Anyone who wants to sell their own home doesn't look for an estate agent there.
- Build trust. On a portal, your property sits among the listings of dozens of other agencies. Your agency appears as the sender of an advert, not as the story behind your work.
- Your contacts and data. Anyone who responds through a portal does so through that portal's system. On your own website, you decide what you ask and where it goes.
For an agency, winning new instructions is often the real challenge. You find buyers through the portals. New properties to sell or let, you have to bring in yourself.
Where a seller looks before calling
A seller chooses an estate agent, not a property. Before calling, he checks who you are.
His search often looks like this:
- He sees your name. On a for sale sign in his street, in an advert, or through a neighbour who sold.
- He looks you up. He types your agency's name into Google or asks an AI assistant. He reads your reviews.
- He visits your website. He checks what you've sold in his area, who works with you and how you work.
- He gets in touch. Through a valuation form, a phone call or an email.
Step three is where your website makes the difference. A seller visiting your site is comparing. He often has two or three other agencies open as well. What he wants is proof: that you know his area, that you get results and that he can reach you.
A website that shows this does more than make a good impression. It helps a seller decide.
How your website and the portals work together
Your website and the portals aren't competitors. Each does a different part of the job.
| Portal | Your own website | |
|---|---|---|
| Main goal | Show your listings to buyers and tenants | Show your agency to sellers and landlords |
| Who visits | People looking for a home | People looking for you |
| What happens to an enquiry | It goes through the portal's system | It goes through your own form into your CRM |
| What remains after the sale | The listing disappears | Your references, your reviews, your story |
Make them work together. Four practical tips:
- Put your listings on both. The properties on your website come from the same CRM as those on the portals. So everything always matches.
- Give the portals a short version. Don't send all your property data to the portals. An interested buyer wants to know more, and finds it on your own website: more photos, videos and all the features of the home. That also helps in Google and AI assistants. If your website has more and fuller information than the portals, it's more relevant to those tools. So you rank better and higher than the portals.
- Show what you've sold. An overview of sold properties per municipality convinces a seller more than any slogan. On Habbi, that works if your real estate CRM sends your sold properties too.
- Make a valuation easy to request. A clear form on every page, especially on mobile. 70 to 80% of visitors to an estate agency website use a mobile.
With Habbi, Salamander's website platform, your properties come automatically from your real estate CRM. Habbi also creates pages per type and municipality, such as "apartment for sale in Hasselt". That way, people searching in their own municipality can find your agency.
What you measure
Measure your website on what it should deliver: contact with sellers and landlords. The number of visitors says little if those visitors don't get in touch.
Three things to track:
- Valuation requests. This is the most important lead from your website. Count them per month.
- Enquiries per source. See which enquiries come from your website and which from the portals. That shows what each channel delivers.
- How new sellers found you. Ask at the first meeting. You'll learn how often your website plays a part, even if the seller simply called afterwards.
In Habbi, you follow your leads and website statistics in one place, next to your properties.
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