Plenty of letting agents have a website that is really a brochure. Five pages, a photograph of the high street, a paragraph about local knowledge, and a contact form. Every property they manage lives on a portal that charges them per listing and puts three competitors underneath each one.
The brochure is not wrong. It is just not doing the job, and the job is specific enough that a general small business site cannot do it either.
Listings are structured data, not pages
The difference between a listings site and a brochure with photographs is that a tenant can narrow the set. A page per property is a start. A property that carries proper fields is what makes searching possible.
For lettings that means the facts people filter on: property type, bedrooms, price, furnished or unfurnished, whether pets are allowed, parking, a garden. It also means the facts people read but almost nobody filters on: receptions, EPC rating, council tax band, heating, year built, minimum term, deposit, whether bills are included, whether it is student friendly.
That split matters when you build. Filtering on everything sounds generous and produces a search form nobody finishes. Filter on the handful that people actually narrow by, and let the rest be read on the listing where they belong. Our letting agent website builder ships that split rather than leaving you to guess it.
The enquiry is the product
A brochure site has one contact form and it arrives saying nothing. That is the single biggest gap between a lettings site and a general one.
An enquiry needs to arrive knowing which property it is about, what kind of enquiry it is, and who is dealing with it. A viewing request, a valuation request from a landlord and a general question are three different jobs with three different responses and three different urgencies, and treating them as one inbox is how the valuation gets answered on Thursday.
It also needs to become a record rather than an email. The same person will enquire about three properties in a fortnight. If those are three unrelated emails, nobody can see the pattern, and the follow-up that lets the third property is the one nobody makes. Handling property enquiries covers the operational side.
Status has to be true today
Nothing costs an agent more credibility than a property still marked available that went a fortnight ago. Every enquiry it generates is a wasted reply, and the tenant who drove past the board learns not to trust the site.
Let, let agreed, under offer, withdrawn. Whatever your states are, they need to be a field somebody changes as part of the job rather than a paragraph somebody remembers to edit. A listing that quietly moves itself out of the search when it goes is worth more than any design decision on the page.
What tenants actually read
They look at the photographs, then the price, then whether it will take them. In that order, every time. So:
- Photograph every room, in daylight, in the same order in every listing. Consistency reads as competence.
- Say what is included. Bills, parking, white goods, garden maintenance. The absence of an answer is read as a no.
- Be explicit about the terms. Minimum term, deposit, pets, students. Every unstated restriction is an enquiry you have to answer by hand and a viewing somebody wasted.
- Write the description for a person, not a portal. How to write a property listing is the practical guide.
Area pages are how you get found
An agent's own site will not out-rank a national portal for "flats to rent". It can absolutely win the searches the portals treat as an afterthought: the named district, the suburb, the village, the school catchment. One page per area you genuinely cover, with real detail about the place and the properties you actually have there, is the most reliable traffic a lettings site earns. Local SEO for a one-location business is the method.
Not instead of the portals. Alongside them
The portals will keep sending you tenants and that is fine. The point of your own site is that the enquiry arrives without a fee attached, with your name on it rather than someone else's, next to no competitor listings, and it stays yours. Every listing you publish in both places costs you nothing extra and shifts a few enquiries across.
Advertising a rental property online covers where else the listing should go once it is written.
Frequently asked questions
What should a letting agent website include?
Listings structured as data rather than pages, so tenants can narrow the set. Enquiries that arrive knowing which property they concern, what kind of enquiry it is and who is handling it. Status that is true today. And one page per area you genuinely cover.
Which filters do tenants actually use on a lettings site?
A small set: property type, bedrooms, price, furnishing, pets allowed, parking and garden. Detail like EPC rating, council tax band, heating and year built gets read on the listing but almost nobody filters by it, and offering every field produces a search form nobody finishes.
Should letting agents use portals or their own website?
Both. Portals will keep sending tenants and that is fine. Your own site produces enquiries with no fee attached, with your name on them rather than someone else's, with no competitor listings underneath, and it keeps them. Publishing in both places costs nothing extra.