SubscribeTackling the Single-Property Website Conundrum
April 11, 2007
For my upcoming “most Internet-advertised” listing, I — naturally — want a website for the property. There are lots of opinions out there about the efficacy of single-property websites (see, for instance, what Mary McKnight, Greg Swann, and Joel Burslem have said).
Here’s my take: they provide
- Great property marketing — If done well, a website provides a convenient place to get out your marketing message. The property I reviewed yesterday, for instance, has its own web site — www.655-14thAvenue.com — which is very easy to remember.
- Terrible SEO — No matter how well done, a single property web site is not going to have good SEO since it’ll be competing with sites like Movoto and Trulia for searches like, “Menlo Park Fair Oaks real estate” and “Homes in Fair Oaks neighborhood” and “655 14th Ave Menlo Park.” Remember: Real estate professionals and experienced home buyers and sellers may well know where the local MLS site is, but many people go to the same place they always do to get information: Google or Yahoo.
As an example, consider the property I reviewed yesterday. A search on Google for 655 14th Ave Menlo Park lists
- Movoto.com
- ListingProducer.com (the company hosting www.655-14thAvenue.com, but clicking on the link gives you all recently created ListingProducer sites, and the property in question quickly gets buried)
- My write-up from yesterday
The actual web site itself is nowhere to be found!
So how do you combine the marketing cachet of a single-property web site with the SEO benefits of an established blog?
Matt Dunlap from Realivent recommended purchasing an appropriately-named domain, and then redirecting that domain to a subdomain under an existing well-established site, and that’s what I’ll be doing for this project. PropertyAddress.com will be redirected to 3OceansRealestate.com/PropertyAddress.
I’m looking forward to building this site, using some of Matt’s expertise, widgets and plugins.
Stay tuned!
Update: Matt gives more of his thoughts on his blog.
Comments
18 Responses to “Tackling the Single-Property Website Conundrum”
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I edited my post. I shouldn’t say there are no benefits…there are and trailing folders can be very good.
I’ll talk about that later, but Page rank is king…you know that. Once you get to a high PR, your blog dominates and the only way to get high PR is lots of links back to your site.
[...] A great example of this what forward-thinking brokers and agents like Greg Swann, Kevin Boer and others are doing with single-property web sites. These sites have the potential to offer an intense amount of detail critical to the value of that property. What if that information was collected in a standard way and made available for valuation models or search tools? The long tail may never have been longer. Can this kind of detail be captured accurately by home owners themselves? Not likely. A great example of this is the description Dan Green’s agent wrote for Dan’s house. The detail provided in the remarks has all the key facts. This is the data that’s most valuable. The other stuff is important, too, but it’s not what sells the house. [...]
You make a great arguement regarding SEO for single property websites, and it’s becoming quite trendy. Like y’all said, rank is king- so you’re probably right about linking it to your website. Let us know how that goes!
We saw on the MLS a listing that noted the “unique domain [as] negotiable”- very funny! Umm… I’ll take the home, but only if the DOMAIN is at a discount!
“PropertyAddress.com will be redirected to 3OceansRealestate.com/PropertyAddress.”
Makes perfect sense.
Brought to you by Kevin “ObviousMan” Boer.
Nothing like stating the obvious. For some reason, it never occurred to me that the property address would come up as a result of my blog. It’s listed there. I wrote about it. Maybe I should be including the address in the title and keywords? Duh!
Why not simply build the single-property website within the blog? Granted, there’s more I can do with the few that I’ve created but the SEO is nearly instant. Pick a property and Google it – more often than not, the created blog site is at the top of the list.
It’s not much of a stretch to think someone may Google the address vs. looking for a www site for it.
While it would be wonderful to have a listing come up on page one during a search, I think it would take an enormous amount of SEO to get it there. Of course it could happen using some uniques terms, but using more general terms, as the general public does, would take a lot of time and effort. Maybe I’m missing something in my thought process?
Nonetheless, I love single property websites.
Single-property sites might have bad SEO, but are creating good search rankings their main function? I would argue that a single-property site is more of a marketing add-on for potential buyers than a lead generator. You can still put the property on major property sites to up its profile online, but also include the site address for those interested in learning more.
Or to spread the word, just do like you did, and write about it in a blog post.
Some really nice innovations. Thank you very much for this post! Blogs like this one which string comments out in the open are much more proactive about sparking dialogue.
http://www.Johnbeckssuccessstories.com/
[...] your property to get maximum exposure to drive-by traffic in the neighborhood! Kevin Boer of 3 Oceans Real Estate comments, after Tackling the Single-Property Website Conundrum: If done well, a website provides a [...]
I am a bit late on this post but I wanted to share what I do with my single listing sites.
I usually try and get creative with the names by using the neighborhood/area name (WapatoRemodel.com and HistoricHilltop.com)
I use the web addy on the top and bottom of all of the flyers for the home.
I have my local sign company make rider sized signs with the web address and I nail them to the sign posts.
I submit the site as virtual media on the MLS system and on own website.
Submit the site to all of search engines.
Link all of the single property sites together on each listing website.
ListingProducer is now allowing Google Analytical to be embeded so you can keep track where your hits are coming from.
I agree that SEO is something that is hard to tackle with any new site that pops online. Especially when you are working with google to make your site more organic. The best place for a single property website is on a sign rider on the for sale sign and injected in different other marketing materials. Just using the domain in a classified ad saves hundreds in the long run, for an example.
$19.95/yr @ http://www.welistings.com doesn’t hurt either. =)
The single property sites were cool to get a listing and show you are advertising them. However, marketing a single property is sooooooo much more expensive than advertising a site or place to see all listings in the area. Much more economical which provides more consumers looking into the listings.
I’m also a bit late to this post, but I agree with an earlier post that maybe SEO shouldn’t really be the the focus at all when it comes to single property websites. As agents we’re marketers, and single property websites let you control the marketing message much better than a simple MLS posting. My problem was how overpriced/ cheesy they were, and as a side project (I’m a broker in SF) I’ve developed my web app at http://mysinglepropertywebsites.com... if anybody has any feedback I’d be happy to set you up with a few sites.
[...] http://3oceansrealestate.com/blog/tackling-the-single-property-website-conundrum.html [...]
(Sorry for the double post, I just noticed my first one has a broken link!)
I’m also a bit late to this post, but I agree with an earlier post that maybe SEO shouldn’t really be the the focus at all when it comes to single property websites. As agents we’re marketers, and single property websites let you control the marketing message much better than a simple MLS posting. My problem was how overpriced/ cheesy they were, and as a side project (I’m a broker in SF) I’ve developed my web app at My Single Property Websites. If anybody has any feedback I’d be happy to set you up with a free site.
Since it looks like this post has been resurrected, I’ll throw in my 2 cents worth.
I do a Single Property website for every listing, and I also do a property website for my out of town buyers. Nothing shows off a home better to a client that is relocating to my area than a single property website.
“My problem was how overpriced/ cheesy they…”
I have found a solution to this… ePropertySites.com! They have GREAT looking websites and are only $10 bucks! ($10 each, or what I do is $10 per month, which gives me 10 active websites at a time… this way I can build website for out of town buyers, and delete them as needed).
If you think you would be interested in a single property website, you NEED to check out ePropertySites.com!
I have been on both sides. I sold money for years as a mortgage lender and now am selling homes. In regards to search engine results, I have found that after posting to CL & BP for a few weeks that my single prop site gets ranked pretty good
Craigs List and Back Page postings are invaluable to me and I have several web sites. I used eproperty sites for years, they have a solid product looks ok. I like that it allows your mortgage guys to pay for the sites for realtors. I recently started using http://www.1-prop.com/dev they are a new singly property site, have great looking product and are cheaper $5.00 bucks each or %1.00 per site per month. right now because they are new they are letting you have the first 5 sites for free