May 13

I’ve got a client who is selling their house and I put together a simple, yet effective web site for them. They kindly have given me permission to discuss the project here.

Below I mention some key areas of putting together a site to advertise a property as part of a wider strategy. It doesn’t go into detail or indeed cover everything from the client requirements to the technical aspect. However I’ve written about a few key areas to help give a ‘rough’ overview that hopefully will help inform people what is involved and whether it might be potentially effective for you. Hope it helps someone.

The Site Address (domain name)

It needs to be short and relevant. You can easily get a for sale board made up and you want people to be able to read the web site address from a reasonable distance. So a road name or mixture of house number and road name is a good idea depending on the number of characters. The larger the font, the less characters. It needs to be easy to remember.

This really brought in a lot of web traffic quickly to the site. People are being referred the web site to people across the country either via word of mouth or via email. However the house has a regular amount of traffic past it daily, so that is important when using a board with web site address.

The Search Engine

What I believed wasn’t going to be too important turned out to be extremely important as previously mentioned. People are told about the house and web site by friends and family. Sometimes people can’t remember the short domain name and use google to find it. So we often see different combinations of words used to find the site.

Also people are using google as a means to narrow down their requirements as they would using a property search portal. These are visitors who were not told by friends and family or saw the for sale board. For other sites possibly only more relevant if the property has specific characteristics. Due to relevant keywords in the site we receive a smaller amount of traffic via this method, but very good targeted traffic.

The site & template

It was decided that the template needed to be simple, fast loading and provide a healthy amount of content. Content is king and the site draws you to the text and pictures of the house and loads extremely fast. The site provides more information than you would find usually on a dedicated property portal and a decent selection of pictures.

For the clients the site ‘back end’ also allows them to edit the content via their browser if they want as they would use a word processor application. Minimal hassle and allows updates whenever either by the client or me.

The site includes SEO techniques (search engine optimization) to maximize the listing in google and other search engines. E.g. meta tags, keywords and other techniques. The SEO techniques are standard good practices.

Web Site Statistics

It is important to monitor the site and both myself and the client receive web site statistic reports. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of the site coupled with calls received etc.

Conclusion

Obviously if you are selling your house yourself or want to use a independant web site as part of the sales process there are other factors part of the sale and process to consider. I’m only writing about the site in this entry.

As stated a for sale board with a web site address generates good traffic if there is a reasonable flow of people past the property daily. If you didn’t have that or ’specific’ characteristics regarding the property I wouldn’t recommend a site.

Want to see the site? www.27pevensey.com

I would love to hear about other people’s experiences, suggestions and feedback. Feel free to comment.

May 13

It is important that you reevaluate your existing sites and online presence. From standard old static sites to fluid dynamic content such as a cms site, blog, myspace, facebook, linkedin or other online presence.

Initially ask yourself these questions…

  • Does the look need updating?
  • Is there functionality that I am missing?
  • Is the content relevant, need editing or removing?
  • Is it SEO (search engine optimized)?
  • Are there upgrades to fix security that I should install?
  • Is there data online that can be used as part of data theft?
  • Who will read this content today and tomorrow?
  • Does my site / page or the system I use fulfill my required criteria?

Here are some further brief thoughts on having an ‘online presence’. Each paragraph really is an entry in it’s own right…

Do you want prospective employers to see certain pictures of you? Are comments you’ve made going to impact on your employment prospects or even put your current job at risk? You could consider using a nickname instead and not leaving a trail of breadcrumbs (e.g. links to sites in a profile or comment).

The look (template + widgets) and content of a site or profile if left untouched for a while can get dated and poorily represent you. Update, edit or remove content. Change the template, change the colours and font, remove widgets. People don’t like a cluttered page that takes forever to load and is harder to find relevant information.

There could be functionality missing that is possible to add to your site via plugins or upgrades. Also vulnerabilities galore exist today with web sites that list the issues for all to find, be it those tackling the problem and those taking advantage.

SEO (search engine optimization) is a must. You might have great content, but is anyone finding it? Keywords, search engine friendly url’s, site maps are just the beginning of any online presence that requires marketing.

Make your own list of sites you run or communities you are a member of. Research each one and ask yourself the questions I previously mentioned.

Feel free to leave questions and feedback.

May 13

Welcome to my first entry on my wordpress blog. I had previously been using the Simple PHP Blog system, but it doesn’t have the features I now require and has some annoying bugs.

It is time to increase the quality of my entries and produce a better well written blog, such as Gary’s http://garymurning.wordpress.com/ . I hope all who have subscribed to the previous blog subscribe to the new feed and I look forward to writing more entries and receiving feedback.