Web-box | Estate Agency Websites

Blog

We continuously refine and add new features to our websites. See our blog posts below.

DEC 2019 20

Happy holidays to all

20 DEC 2019

Our offices will be open during the festive season apart from the public holidays.

OCT 2019 24

You can now group your subscribers and send a different newsletter to each group. Some people want to receive your newsletter, but not property alerts (or vice versa) or you might have an investor newsletter and a homeowner newsletter which you would want to send to different people.

Subscriber Groups feature in your admin console.

You can add or remove subscribers from any group.

Add or remove subscribers from a Subscriber Group.

Your subscribers are also able to subscribe or unsubscribe from any group themselves by clicking the link in the property alerts or newsletter email which takes them to the screen below.

Subscribers can add and remove themselves from groups.

We are sure you will love this new feature - please give it a try and let us know what you think.

Please note that newsletters are only available on standard and premium responsive sites.

SEP 2019 19

Track What’s Happening On Your Website

19 SEP 2019

Activities happening on your website can be tracked in the admin console by going to the monitoring menu dropdown. From there the principal can easily see what is happening on the website, what their agents are up to as well as website communications to and from their agents.

Admin console monitoring menu dropdown.

Sent (Records of emails sent by the agency using the website.)

Owner Emails - List of all Owner Emails sent from website - showing owners their property on the different portals.
Emailed Properties - All property detail emails sent manually from the admin console. (Not to be confused with Property Alerts.)

Received (Records of emails and SMSes sent through the website to the agency.)

SMS Agent - Logs of any SMSes sent to your agents. (If you would like to buy more credit at 65c per credit, please email us.)
Enquiry Forms - All Enquiry Forms completed on your website.
Property Enquiries - A list of all Property Enquiries received by your agents.
Owner Email feedback - Logs any feedback received from owners to the Owner Email that was sent.

Misc

Quick Notes - List of all notes made on properties.
Stats - Details a history of your website visitors, as well as where they are coming from.

We are sure by checking this tab you will be able to run your business even more effectively, allowing you to focus on getting listings and making sales!

Don’t forget that we’re just a phonecall away if you need any help.

SEP 2019 05

Bulk Upload of Email Addresses

05 SEP 2019

Did you know you can send us a list of subscriber email addresses to do a bulk import into your admin console for you? How easy is that!

We do this because we want to help you get your property alerts to as many people as possible.

The property alerts are an incredibly powerful tool for a number of reasons:

Enables buyers to be immediately notified whenever you have new properties for sale.
Enables you to present properties to hundreds or thousands of interested buyers.
They happen automatically - no extra work (phone calls or emails) or costs (phone calls) are required to get your new properties in front of all of your interested buyers.
They happen fast - go out automatically at 7am the day after the property is uploaded or you can send them immediately (see how here). Sending them out immediately is especially important if its an open mandate as it could mean you are presenting it to the buyer before another agent … and therefore making the sale!
They ensure that all of your interested buyers are notified - there is no human error where you or one of your agents could forget to present the property to a buyer.
Builds brand recognition - people know you are professional and active.

A property alerts email.

We have noticed that agencies that have great success with their website are often the agencies with a lot of subscribers. These agencies continuously add email addresses to their website subscriber lists.

By using the following 3 simple sources for subscriber/buyer emails you will be surprised at how quickly you can build up your subscriber list and increase your sales.

showhouses
when talking to potential buyers over the phone
from your incoming emails

And don’t forget you should be uploading all your properties to your website as soon as you get them - so that they can automatically be emailed to your subscribers.

Please let us know if you have lists to import by contacting us. We love hearing from you so if you have any questions please let us know.

AUG 2019 22

Logo Design Services

22 AUG 2019

Your logo is critical to the look of your website, which is why the importance of a good logo can’t be understated - it is what distinguishes you from your competitors and establishes trust. A professionally designed logo shows you are a professional estate agent.

Why you need to stand out from your competitors.

You already have a logo, but logos are often updated and modernised.

Logo evolution of well known brands.

As we want to help you make your website look as professional as possible, we have added this affordable logo design service to our full service real estate offering:

*Logo Redraw (Create a high resolution digital copy of your logo - might be needed for print or your website.)

R2000 + VAT

*Logo Design - 2 options

R3000 (Includes 3 revisions)

*Logo Design - 4 options

R4000 (Includes 3 revisions)

* Prices may vary if scope of work changes.

To get started or if you have any questions please contact us. As always we are here to help you.

AUG 2019 01

New Feature: Email Properties From The Admin Console

01 AUG 2019

You can now send an email with property information from the admin console instead of having to compose them yourself.

Example of an email sent from the Admin console.

All you have to do is select which properties to include and then personalise the intro paragraph and click send.

Select properties to include in the email.

No more spending of time and effort finding and putting together this information. Instead you can send a personalised email that, while it looks professional, also has the look and feel of one composed by yourself.

All emails that have been sent this way are viewable from the monitoring menu in your admin console, enabling you to keep track of what emails you or your agents have sent.

We are sure this will save you lots of time, so please give it a try by sending yourself a test email and see how easy it is.

We would love to know what you think about this new tool, please let us know.

JUL 2019 25

Save Your Properties As Drafts

25 JUL 2019

Have you ever wanted to start uploading a property but didn’t want to publish it on your website yet, or wanted to remove a property off your website temporarily? Maybe you didn’t have all the information, time or the property wasn’t yet on the market.

We are pleased to tell you that you can now do so with our new ‘draft’ feature. A property can now be saved to a draft before being pushed live on your website, or a live property can be moved to drafts thereby removing it from your website.

Save to draft from upload property screen.

Your saved draft properties will be accessible via the Properties dropdown menu.

Access draft properties from admin console.

So no more uploading a property when it is not 100% ready and no more losing work that you started but unexpectedly could not finish. We are sure you will find this new feature very helpful.

As always, we love to hear your feedback so please contact us.

JUN 2019 27

Don’t forget: referring a new client to us is a WIN-WIN!

27 JUN 2019

We want to remind you of our ongoing refer-a-friend policy!

Refer-a friend!

If you send a friend our way and they sign up with web-box, both you and the friend you referred will get a 50% discount off your subscription fees for 3 months. All your friend needs to do, for you both to benefit from this amazing offer is to let us know that you were the one who recommended us.

We hope that this perk will help you boldly share your love of web-box!

If you have any questions, you can gladly contact us.

JUN 2019 14

Call Directly From Quick Notes

14 JUN 2019

Our Quick Notes are a great “on-the-run” tool for agents to make notes on each property. You can record things like viewings, owner interaction and commission splits.

Quick Notes for a property with clickable phone numbers.

Now, while viewing a Quick Note on your phone you can click on any phone number and your phone will call it. No need to copy and paste or try to remember or write it down before typing it into your phone - this will be much easier and no longer so frustrating!

For a refresher on how Quick Notes work you can read the initial blog post.

Hopefully this is another way your web-box website makes your life simpler so you can focus on making more sales!

Please give our Quick Notes a try and let us know what you think.

MAY 2019 30

Portal Update

30 MAY 2019

One of the free portals we feed to, HomeHunt, has closed down. However, we have two additional portals we now feed to: Residential People and Commercial People.

New portal we feed residential properties to.

New portal we feed commercial properties to.

Commercial People is one of the few portals dedicated solely to commercial properties. As with all the free portals, your properties are automatically copied to them and you can click from the admin console directly to the property on the portal to view it:

Link to view property on the portal.

Below is the full list of portals that we feed to.

Portals fed to by web-box.

We like to ensure you get optimum exposure via the available property portals. Load once and appear everywhere!

If you have any questions, don’t forget we are just a phone call or email away.

APR 2019 29

Improved Search Function In Admin Console

29 APR 2019

We have refined the search in the admin console properties page by removing the general search box and replacing it with a search field for each column.

New search in the admin console properties page.

This was done because the previous search sometimes gave unexpected results. The new search addresses this and gives you more precise search results as it is limited to one column.

It also gives you the ability to do searches like ‘show me all houses in the suburb birch acres’ as shown below.

Multiple column search.

These filtered results can then be downloaded as excel, pdf or printed - enabling you to create multiple report variations.

Download or print search results.

As always, if you need further assistance with this (or anything else) please contact us as we would love to help.

JAN 2019 31

New Portal: PropBay

31 JAN 2019

We are excited to let you know that RentBay, one of the current free portals we automatically feed your rental properties to now has a for sale section for residential and commercial property - propbay.co.za

New portal.

We have enabled the feed so your for sale properties will automatically be copied to this portal. Like the other free portals, you don’t have to do anything - it happens automatically. The link to the property on the portal will appear alongside the other portal links in your admin console.

Link to Propbay in your admin console.

We hope you get great exposure from this new portal and would love to know what you think so please contact us.