The UK has approximately 18,000 estate agent branches, and the competition for instructions has never been fiercer. Here is the reality that every agent needs to understand: 97% of property buyers now start their search online. Rightmove alone receives over 127 million visits per month, and Zoopla is not far behind. The major portals dominate property search, but that does not mean your agency website is irrelevant. Quite the opposite.
Your website is where vendors decide whether to instruct you. It is where landlords research your lettings management credentials. It is where your brand lives independently of Rightmove's template and Zoopla's layout. In 2026, the estate agents winning market share are the ones treating their website as a lead generation tool, not just a digital brochure. Whether you operate a single branch in Cardiff or a multi-office agency across South Wales, this guide covers everything you need to know about building an estate agent website that actually works for your business.
Why Estate Agents Still Need Their Own Website
The most common objection we hear from estate agents is straightforward: why do I need a website when all my properties are on Rightmove? It is a fair question, and the answer comes down to three things: cost, control, and vendor acquisition. Rightmove charges the average UK estate agent between £800 and £1,500 per month depending on location, branch count, and package level. Some central London agencies pay significantly more. Zoopla charges separately on top of that. These fees are non-negotiable, and they increase regularly.
Your website, by contrast, costs a fraction of that to maintain and gives you something the portals never will: complete control over your brand and direct access to your leads. When a vendor searches for 'estate agent Cardiff' or 'letting agent Swansea', your website can appear in those Google results. When they land on your site, every element reinforces your brand, your local expertise, your track record. On Rightmove, you are one of dozens of agents listed side by side, competing purely on price and portal prominence.
The real value of your agency website is vendor and landlord lead generation. Buyers and tenants find properties on portals, but vendors and landlords find agents through Google. When a homeowner is thinking about selling, they search for local agents, read reviews, and visit websites before making their shortlist. If your website looks outdated, loads slowly, or does not showcase your track record, you are losing instructions to competitors with a stronger online presence.
There is also the diversification argument. Rightmove had a well-publicised dispute with Countrywide in 2019, and OnTheMarket spent years trying to break the Rightmove-Zoopla duopoly. Agents who rely entirely on portals are vulnerable to fee increases, algorithm changes, and platform decisions. Your website is the one marketing channel you fully own and control.
Essential Features for an Estate Agent Website
Not every estate agent website needs every feature under the sun, but there are certain elements that separate the websites generating leads from those gathering dust. Here is what actually matters in 2026.
Property Listings with Search and Filtering
This is the foundation. Your website needs to display your current properties for sale and to let with proper search functionality. Visitors expect to filter by price range, number of bedrooms, property type, and location at a minimum. Each property listing should include high-quality photographs, a detailed description, key features, EPC rating, floorplan, and location map. The listing pages need to load quickly and work flawlessly on mobile devices, because over 60% of property searches now happen on smartphones.
The good news is that you do not need to manually upload every property to your website. Most estate agent CRM systems, including Alto, Reapit, Expert Agent, Jupix, and Dezrez, offer API feeds or property export functionality. Your website can pull listings directly from your CRM, meaning properties appear on your website automatically when you add them to your system. This eliminates double-entry and ensures your website listings are always up to date.
Book a Valuation: Your Most Important Call to Action
If your website has only one call to action, it should be 'Book a Free Valuation'. This is the entry point to your sales pipeline. Every vendor instruction starts with a valuation, and your website should make requesting one as simple as possible. The form should ask for the property address, the owner's name, contact details, and their preferred time for the valuation. Keep it short. Every additional field reduces completion rates.
Place the valuation CTA prominently on your homepage, on every property listing page, and in your site header or navigation. Some agents use a sticky banner or floating button that follows the user as they scroll. The key principle is that a vendor should never have to search for how to request a valuation, it should be visible within seconds of landing on any page.
Area Guides and Local Knowledge
Area guides serve two purposes. First, they demonstrate your local expertise to potential vendors and landlords. An agent who has written detailed, genuinely useful guides about the neighbourhoods they cover signals deep local knowledge, exactly what vendors want when choosing who to trust with their biggest asset. Second, area guides are extraordinarily powerful for SEO. Pages targeting terms like 'living in Pontcanna Cardiff' or 'best areas in Swansea for families' attract organic traffic from people who are actively considering moving to your area.
Each area guide should cover schools, transport links, local amenities, average property prices, the character of the neighbourhood, and what types of properties are most common. Include original photography where possible. These pages become long-term traffic generators that bring potential buyers and vendors to your website month after month, completely independent of portal advertising.
Reviews and Track Record
Social proof is critical in estate agency. Vendors are making a decision worth tens of thousands of pounds in fees, and they want reassurance that you will deliver. Your website should prominently display Google reviews, testimonials from satisfied sellers and landlords, and your sales track record. Include specific numbers where possible: properties sold in the last 12 months, average time to sell, percentage of asking price achieved. These concrete metrics build confidence far more effectively than generic marketing copy.
A sold or let history section is also valuable. Showing recently completed transactions demonstrates that your agency is active and successful. It also gives potential vendors an idea of your experience with similar properties in their area. Some agents display this as a map view, which has the added benefit of showing your geographic coverage at a glance.
Portal Integration
Your website should work alongside the major portals, not in isolation. Properties listed on your site should also feed to Rightmove, Zoopla, and OnTheMarket through your CRM system. Many agents also choose to display Rightmove or Zoopla badges on their website to signal to vendors that their properties will receive maximum exposure. The goal is not to replace portals, it is to complement them while building your own independent lead source.
Letting Agent vs Sales Agent: Design Differences
If your agency handles both sales and lettings, or if you are a dedicated letting agent, your website needs to account for a fundamentally different user base. Sales-focused websites target vendors who want to sell and buyers who want to purchase. Lettings-focused websites target landlords who want management services and tenants who need to find a home, pay rent, and report maintenance issues.
A lettings website should include a tenant portal where existing tenants can log maintenance requests, access their tenancy agreement, and view payment history. Landlords need a separate section showing your management packages, fees, legal compliance information such as EPC requirements and deposit protection, and a landlord valuation request form. If you handle both sales and lettings, your website navigation needs to clearly separate these two sides of the business so visitors can find what they need quickly.
For sales agents, the focus should be on vendor-facing content: your marketing packages, sold boards, professional photography, floorplan services, and what makes your sales approach different. Chain-free badges, price reductions, and new instruction alerts are features that help buyers while demonstrating activity to potential vendors browsing your site.
Estate Agent Website Costs in the UK 2026
Website costs for estate agents vary enormously depending on what you need. Here is a realistic breakdown of what to expect in 2026.
A basic brochure website costs between £500 and £1,500. This gets you a professional online presence with your brand, services, team profiles, and contact details. It will not include property listings or CRM integration, but it is a solid starting point for new agencies or agents who rely primarily on portals for property display and want a website for credibility and vendor lead capture.
A mid-range website with property listings costs between £1,500 and £4,000. This tier includes CRM integration so your properties display automatically, search and filtering functionality, individual property pages with galleries and maps, valuation request forms, and area guide pages. For most independent agents, this is the sweet spot that balances functionality with budget.
A full-featured agency website with portal integration, tenant portals, landlord dashboards, and advanced features costs between £4,000 and £10,000 or more. This level is typically required by multi-branch agencies or letting agents who need comprehensive tenant and landlord management features online. At WebDev Wales, our packages start from £135 for startups and scale with your requirements. Contact us for a tailored quote based on your specific agency needs, or use our free website cost calculator at /calculator for an instant estimate.
Local SEO for Estate Agents
Local SEO is arguably the highest-value marketing channel for estate agents after portal advertising. When someone searches 'estate agent Newport' or 'letting agent Bridgend', they are actively looking for an agent. These are high-intent searches from people ready to take action, and appearing prominently in those results can deliver a steady stream of vendor and landlord enquiries.
Your Google Business Profile is the starting point. Claim and fully complete your listing for every branch. Add your office photos, opening hours, services, and area covered. Actively request Google reviews from every completed transaction, because star rating and review count are major ranking factors in the local pack. Respond to every review, positive and negative, to demonstrate engagement.
On your website, create dedicated pages for each area you serve. If you cover Cardiff, Penarth, and Barry, each should have its own page optimised for '[service] in [location]' searches. Your area guide pages double as SEO content, targeting longer-tail searches that bring in organic traffic. Use RealEstateAgent schema markup on your website to help Google understand your business type, service area, and credentials. This structured data can improve how your listing appears in search results.
Common Estate Agent Website Mistakes
Having reviewed hundreds of estate agent websites across the UK, certain mistakes appear repeatedly. The most damaging is over-reliance on portals with a neglected website. If your website has not been updated in three years and still shows properties that sold in 2023, it is actively harming your brand. Vendors will find it, judge it, and call someone else. Either invest in keeping your website current or take old property listings down.
PDF property brochures are another common issue. Some agents upload property details as PDF downloads rather than creating proper web pages. PDFs are invisible to Google, slow to load on mobile, frustrating to navigate, and impossible to track in analytics. Every property deserves its own webpage with indexable text, optimised images, and proper structured data.
Poor mobile optimisation is still widespread in the industry. Estate agency websites tend to feature large property galleries, maps, and complex search interfaces that can break or slow down on mobile devices. Given that the majority of property browsing happens on phones, a mobile-first approach is essential. Test your website on an actual phone, not just a desktop browser resized to mobile width.
Finally, many agent websites focus entirely on buyers and tenants while ignoring vendor and landlord content. Remember, buyers find properties on Rightmove. Vendors find agents on Google. If your website does not speak directly to people considering selling or letting their property, you are missing its primary commercial purpose.
The Revenue Case: Website vs Portal Dependency
The financial case for investing in your website is compelling when you look at the numbers. A Rightmove subscription costs the average agent £800 to £1,500 per month. Zoopla adds another significant monthly cost. Combined, most agents are spending £15,000 to £30,000 per year on portal fees alone. These costs only go in one direction.
A professional estate agent website costs £100 to £200 per month to host and maintain after the initial build. If that website generates just one vendor instruction per month from organic search traffic, the return is transformative. A single sales instruction in South Wales is worth £3,000 to £5,000 or more in commission fees at current average property prices. Even a lettings instruction generates £500 to £1,500 in management fees over the first year.
We are not suggesting you cancel your Rightmove subscription. Portals remain essential for property exposure. But reducing your dependency on portals by building your own lead generation channel through your website is one of the smartest long-term investments any estate agency can make. The agents who recognised this five years ago are now generating 20 to 30 percent of their instructions through their own websites, significantly improving their margins.
Get Your Estate Agent Website Built Right
At WebDev Wales, we understand the estate agency industry and the unique challenges agents face online. We build websites that do more than look professional. They generate valuation requests, showcase your local expertise, and help vendors and landlords find your agency through Google search.
Whether you need a complete new agency website, want to add property listings to your existing site, or need help getting found on Google for local estate agent searches, we are here to help. Our transparent pricing starts from £135 for startup packages, with comprehensive estate agent websites typically ranging from £675 to £4,000 depending on your requirements and CRM integration needs.
Contact us at 07916 214843 or info@webdevwales.com for a no-obligation chat about your agency website. Use our free website cost calculator at /calculator to get an instant estimate, or browse our portfolio at /portfolio to see examples of the work we deliver. Your agency deserves a website that wins instructions, not just one that exists.
Serving estate agents and letting companies across Wales including Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Bridgend, Neath, Pontypridd, Barry, Penarth, and all surrounding areas. We are based in South Wales and available for face-to-face consultations to discuss your project in person.
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