Why Mobile-Friendly for Real Estate Matters

If you thought having a mobile friendly website was a luxury and not having one wouldn’t affect your business…. Think again!

Earlier this month Google Webmaster released this statement; “Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

What does this mean for you and your real estate business? That SEO and getting to the top of Google search results just got a bit trickier. Your website might currently be ranking somewhere near the top for desktops but that doesn’t mean it will when someone searches on a mobile device. And this might lead to Google bumping you down the list whilst other mobile friendly websites pip you to the post.

The fact of the matter is; the advancement and popularity of mobile devices has changed the way people are consuming online information and viewing websites; and Google is simply making the necessary changes to suit the ways the masses are operating online.

In plain English; this means mobile is no longer a luxury but a must if you want prospects to find your website.

Time to Get Responsive

The total number of mobile devices is set to rise to 2.6 billion by 2016 – up from 1.9 billion in 2012. That’s huge! And chances are that figure will grow even more with the continued development of mobile wearable devices (Android wear, Apple Watch, and Google Glass); therefore it’s crucial for business’ going forward to understand how design impacts engagement.

So what can you do to make sure your website provides the best user experience? Opt for a responsive design.

What is Responsive Web Design?

Responsive Web Design is a format that allows a website to flex and scale up or down to fit the size of screen it’s being viewed on. Meaning someone viewing your site on a smartphone will be shown the same site as the person viewing it on a desktop or laptop but the site will notice the constraints and automatically reformat to suit that device. This means no more zooming in to find the content you’re looking for, it simple re-adjusts to suit the viewer. Responsive design also acknowledges interaction and makes your site easier to use by taking into account and integrating things like touch screens to aid navigation and user experience.

Here’s an example of what we’re talking about

Propertyshowrooms.com responsive display

Or why not take a look at how Propertyshowrooms.com operates on your mobile device to experience a responsive website? Don’t worry I’ll wait for you to come back.

Responsive Emails

It doesn’t stop at having a responsive website, responsive emails are just as important.

Did you know that although you can near enough do anything on a mobile device nowadays email is still the most used functionality? According to Exact Target’s Mobile Behaviour Report (2014) a whopping “91% of consumers check their email at least once per day on their smartphone”.

That’s great news for everyone right? Well… not exactly, it’s only good news for companies delivering responsive emails. Why? Because users have a tendency to delete emails that don’t load properly on the device they’re using. In fact according to BlueHornet’s study on Consumer Views of Email Marketing (2014) “if an email does not display correctly, 71.2% of users will delete it immediately.”

Therefore failure to deliver responsive emails could fatally damage the ROI of your company’s email campaigns.

How We Do Responsive

At Propertyshowrooms.com we’ve been creating mobile responsive emails for over 2 years now, and we’re stunned that we’re still in the minority of businesses doing so. Let me explain why that is; we use sophisticated software to track the success of our email campaigns across all devices and we found that a whopping 48% of our email campaigns are opened on mobile devices, 35% are opened on webmail and just 17% on desktop. That means that by using a responsive email design we’re able to cater to 100% of our clients as opposed to just a mere 17% if we did not.

You can view some of the responsive email campaigns we’ve created for clients here.

Don’t worry we know that not everyone has the in-house resources to create responsive emails (there’s actually quite a bit of design work that goes into it) but there are plenty of email providers out there to choose from who you can pay for responsive email services.

And if it’s real estate specific emails you’re looking for get in touch with one of our agent account managers to find out about what we could create for you.

Got more questions about optimizing your business for mobile users? Let us know in the comments below.

Alex Evans

You May Also Enjoy

Breaking News

Biggest property put-offs revealed by homebuyers

Biggest property put-offs could see homebuyers offer £40k less or more – From flying flags to aggressive dog breeds The latest research from Springbok Properties has revealed the biggest property put-offs that could see buyers offer as much as £40,000 less, if not more, leaving many sellers struggling to achieve their asking price in the…
Read More
Rightmove logo
Breaking News

Southern buyers benefit most from static house prices and lower mortgage rates

Ahead of the Bank of England’s interest rate decision at 12:00pm on Thursday, Rightmove’s analysis shows that buyers in London and the south of England are benefitting most from improved affordability compared to last year Across Great Britain, the average monthly mortgage payment is now £84 lower than a year ago: In London, buyers are…
Read More
Home and Living

Kitchen Trade Expert Shares Five Benefits of Fully Assembled Units

The UK kitchen and bedroom fitting sector is currently facing a number of challenges. The UK Trade Skills Index 2023 report revealed that 937,000 new workers will be needed in the construction and trade industries by 2032 to meet the demands of the sector, impacted by the widening skills loss posed by Brexit, an ageing…
Read More
Breaking News

Why are HMO numbers falling?

The latest research from COHO, the HMO management platform, reveals that despite little change in tenant demand, house share availability has dropped by almost -60% in some parts of England, raising the question of whether we’re seeing an HMO landlord exodus. COHO’s analysis of house share listings data* shows that in England, the number of…
Read More
Breaking News

Only 27% of homes have been fixed in a £1.8bn Govt programme

Report shows only 27% of homes have been fixed in a £1.8bn Govt programme, as red tape and asbestos keep thousands in the cold Thousands of homes will face another winter of fuel poverty due to a raft of failures as scheme to fix them hits buffers Hundreds of millions of pounds of allocated grant…
Read More
Breaking News

UK House Price Index for July 2025

The latest index shows that: – The average monthly rate of house price growth in July was +0.3%. The average annual rate of house price growth in July was +2.8%, down slightly from +3.6% in June. As a result, the average UK house price sits at £269,735.   Director of Benham and Reeves, Marc von…
Read More