Home : Blogs : Kristal Kraft ~Denver Real Estate~303-589-2022 : Denver Real Estate & Relocation

Single Property Websites - an idea who's time has come

When it comes to promoting your home, advertising dollars should be spent where they will bring the most benefit. Considering the high percentage of people who begin their home search online, advertising online makes good sense.

Where online will reap the most good? Realtor.com is a popular choice, but many people get tired of all the excessive, irrelevant ads. Craig’s List is a freebee advertising resource that works in some larger metropolitan markets, but it too has some drawbacks. Most MLS systems allow for IDX, a data exchange that allows co-operation brokers to show photos of each other’s listings.

Each of these online systems allow for much greater promoting of homes. They are all limited to a brief description and a few photos. Expanded listings will also offer visual tours of the home.

Taking promotion to the next level are “single property sites.” On a single property site the home’s address or street is promoted via its own URL (web address). The site presents not only the home, but offers links to pertinent data about the neighborhood and schools.

Single property sites were developed for ease in use. REALTORS® with various web abilities can create one is a reasonable amount of time. Actually, web skills are not even required! Data, links and photos can be added and up-dated as needed.

Extra conveniences are built into the single property site;

Printable Brochure
Documents can be downloaded i.e. disclosures, etc.
Links to interesting places in the area
Request info via email
Aerial View of the property
Local School links

Online advertising beats print media every time. Print media is expensive, often by the time it is released, the information is dated. With online advertising changes can be made in moments, updating prices, pictures whatever is needed.

It’s also easier to share. Family and friends can log onto a single property site to see the new home just purchased.

Tracking traffic for the seller and the REALTOR® is easy, there is a built in counter.

Some examples of single property sites are here:

http://www.realestate-washpark.com/

http://www.lookoutmtnroad.com/

In today’s high tech environment, it’s important to hire a REALTOR who knows how to promote your property in the most used medium, the internet.

Kristal Kraft

Broker Associate, ABR, CIPS, CRS, GRI, ePRO, PMN, PNG
TheBerkshire Group, REALTORS
3801 E. Florida Ave., Suite 400
Denver, Colorado 80210
303-589-2022 ~ direct 303-953-5362 ~ fax

Selling Colorado Since 1984, Serving the Following Areas:

Denver Home Search	Highlands Ranch Home Search	Parker Home Search	Englewood Home Search
Littleton Home Search	Search Denver Foreclosures	Greenwood Village Home Search	Relocation to Metro Denver

Posted by Kristal Kraft ~Denver Real Estate~303-589-2022 on 07/17/2006 12:45 PM

Comments (24)

promote listing, online advertising, sell home, single property sites

Originally posted at: Denver Real Estate & Relocation: Single Property Websites - an idea who's time has come

This post has been included in Colorado Information

24 Comments on Single Property Websites - an idea who's time has come

JUL

2006

Krystal, it sounds like you have found Paul Eastwood, founder of Single Property Sites in Denver. His product is very progressive and relatively inexpensive. For anyone interested in finding one of the best online tools available, go to www.SinglePropertySites.com.

This idea is ridiculous. It shows that people have no concept that what matters in websites is the amount of traffic that sees it. How could a website that lasts only as temporary as the legnth of a listing build a respectable amount of traffic. This is like advertising by using a plane to pull a banner over a beach at night.

Rory,

Ridiculous? How so? My Pearl Street listing has had 1147 total visitors (with 1078 visitors being unique). Is that poor traffic?

Lookoutmtroad has 1010 visitors (with 985 of them being unique).

My Single Property sites are built to drive traffic to them. I use the URL on signs, and a variety of other internet resources, not to mention my little old site at KSD.

My properties sell, because I work to get them exposure. After they sell, I use the site as an example of my work. I get more listings.

Actually I think by showcasing my properties online I am raising the real estate bar just a little bit more.

The site may never rank well organically, but with the power of my site or even if I were to PPC (Pay For Click - God Forbid) the single property site could and would get exposure.

Sometimes you must think outside of the box - a single site needs a single buyer ~ one site one buyer, not a ton of traffic.

BTW ~ Are you telling this Jersey Girl what you can see on the beach at night? :)

Haben Sie einen schönen Tag

I may be convinced if you could show how much of the traffic was attributable to humans and not spiders or bots. OR If there was a way to quantify how many of your listings were secured because people gave feedback that this was too good to pass up. Or if you could show that there was 1 closed escrow based on someone who had visited these sites. I think that the tendency is for agents to suddenly think that need to go buy a domain called 1234main.com when the could just as easily have KSD/1234main.html where the property has it's own spot within your domain. Bill has an article on this. The gist of which is MORE DOMAINS (NOT =) MORE BUSINESS. So if you want to advocate seperate pages, blog listings, or podcast segments for your listings, I say more power to ya. It is just my sincere belief that the MORE is MORE theory still has yet to prevail over the LESS is MORE & that over reaching does not provide quality.

Sorry about the rant Kristal, I thank you for the debate.

Aber, sonst, keine Nachrichten.

Rory,

It's about "personalization."

I go to Starbucks and order my chai the way I like it. I go to Burger King :( and get it MY WAY.

Sellers (just like you and I) want to stand out. I not only give them the tool to stand out, but offer a marketing solution that works.

All but one of my listings are sold because of the marketing they received. Some in record time.

Before I started using this service (which I am NOT associated with $wise) I built my own template and had a 26 page single property site. That too sold in record time.

You are right I could add a sub-domain to my site and do the same thing, but that's not personal.

There's also another factor going on here. The public is SICK of being sold. The new generation of latch-key kids gets satisfaction from 'doing things their own way'. THIS includes 'finding' real estate on the internet. Finding a slightly branded single property site is more appealing than having a realtor drive you there.

Think about it...don't your buyers show up with a pile of pages from IDX sites, etc? It's the new generation, they want to participate in the search. They don't trust advertising they are sick of it. It just doesn't reach them because they are numb to it. We have to speak to them in a language they understand...facts, pictures, links, information...like drawing them into a magnet.

Give them what they want and they will come to you.

Debate is good, it brings life to AR. Danke.

I'll ask about the spider bot question...

Kristal: Have you considered combining the single property listings with a blog post? Where a blog post is in effect its own Single Property Listing. Do you or anyone else here have any experience or examples along those lines?

JUL

2006

Yes, in fact I have used a blog for almost 2 years. I use it to drive traffic to my listings. Lately it has been the Single property site, amoung several other modes on the internet.

Like old fashioned paper of yesteryear, we used to publish ads in the newspaper, home magazines, mls, etc.

The web is not much different. You need to rely on various places to push the leads to the site.

It's late, I must get up at o-dark-30 to fly to Florida. nite.

"THIS includes 'finding' real estate on the internet. Finding a slightly branded single property site is more appealing than having a realtor drive you there."

Certainly, people want to view properties on the internet. But I don't think having a single property site adds to their internet property browsing experience. I don't think 99.99% of the people looking for properties on the internet care whether it's a company site, agent IDX site, blog or a single property site.

In the end, it's really a marketing gimmick meant to impress a listing client. The MLS is still king and far more effective than a single website.

Ben, did you even look at the site and what it offers? Done right it's a very comprehensive run down about a property. No, it's not a selection of homes but an intense focus of a property and all it's features, in one easy convenient place.

Buyers do like it. So do sellers. IF that makes it a gimmick, so be it.

MLS is king, I point the co-op brokers to the site as an aid to them in assisting the client. (unlike other brokers who don't bother to submit so much as a photo).

MLS alone does not sell properties, it's just the beginning of the bread crumb line ...

Kristal, thanks for starting this discussion.

I've seen these single property websites promoted occasionally and wondered about their effectiveness. There was a question earlier in the posts I'm not sure you answered. As someone who uses single property sites, have you ever got a listing largley due to offering the sellers a single property site or can you verifiably attribute any closings to single property site traffic?

Also, other than promoting the site by giving the URL to your clients or including it with print advertising/flyers,etc., do you know how potential buyers find the single property site amongst the thousands of broker websites, MLS feeds, and individual realtor sites in every market? It seems to me even a well optimized single property site will not be "live" long enough to be indexed by search engines in any significant way. I'm constantly struggling to get good rankings with a site that is fairly well optimized and has been active for years.

Please don't take my questions as piling on criticism of the idea. I'm truly curious as to how these work and how effective they are. I, too, believe in the tremendous importance of internet advertising, but my bottom line for this and any advertising is: Will it effectively sell listings or increase my business?

Thanks in advance.

Branden, To answer your question yes. I've had business come to me from the single property site. I get calls from them frequently. No I don't worry much about optimizing it. Yes, I direct traffic there.

The criticism doesn't bother me, it is just puzzling. It reminds me years ago when I was the first in my market to start using brochure boxes. I got calls from agents demanding I remove them that it was unethical of me to provide "all that information about a property." Honest, no lie!

That was back when real estate trainers taught "selling techniques" on how to get the appointment by tricking buyers into giving you their information.

My brochure boxes increased my sales, especially my double ended sales. The consumer loved my style and rewarded me by coming to me. (BACK OFF eba's dual agency was ok in the 1980's)

There are ways you can direct traffic to a site without having to have a highly ranked website. You can use realtor.com, craigslist, other local directories. You can Pay for Click. With a well written add placed in the proper areas, you could move that house via a single property site a lot sooner.

I don't have to ppc, I have a well ranked site. Do I make money from it. Yeah all of us make money from it. I am the rainmaker.

Does this answer your question(s)?

JUL

2006

Kristal, thanks for the response. Typically the single property websites I've seen have been by FSBOs or those using discount brokers who don't do much or any other advertising. Thus, the website is the only limited internet exposure the sellers are getting. If you think it is beneficial beyond your personal and/or broker-provided site, that's great. Will keep it under consideration and monitor discussions on this topic.

It would be great to hear from others who have direct experience with these single property sites.

JUL

2006

We've been using single property sites that we do ourselves. We have a domain with the property address, then point the domaint to a subsection on our main website, where it's really hosted. I'm rather puzzled by the objections, too, Kristal. True, it's not up forever and doesn't rise to great status on the search engines, but we only need it to work until the listing is sold. Like Kristal, we point to it from realtor.com, our own website, the various MLS sites, resort sites, international sites, luxury sites - whatever is appropriate for the listing. We have it on our flyers, our signs, our property business cards and more. Sellers like it, buyers like it, and other realtors like it. Other realtors are more apt to direct their clients to a property domain than to another realtor's site. Realtors and prospective buyers like to see the property disclosure, site plan, photos, visual tour, floor plan (sometimes), links to neighborhood sites, etc. If it doesn't work for someone, fine - we're not all alike. But the single property website does work for us.

Good to hear from you Sharon. Doing your own work and publishing a single property site on your host is very similar to what I did in the past. I admit, I'm a geek(wanna-be) and enjoy doing this sort of thing. Trouble is when I get busy I can't offer the same level of service to all my sellers. That's when I decided to use the offerings of Single Property Sites.

They are relatively cheap, and super easy to use. In fact, you can work on them gradually, rather than having the whole site complete before publishing. Sometimes that is a big plus, since it seems we seldom have all the data we need at the same time!

Additionally for the doubters, I checked with Paul Eastwood the developer and he assured me none of my traffic was robots, the method they use does not track robot visits.

In light of that fact, I'm satisfied with my results. The properties are u/c waiting to close. The current buyer found the property from my posting and link from Craig's list.

Kristal Kraft, ABR, CIPS, CRS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.KristalSellsDenver.com

"Other realtors are more apt to direct their clients to a property domain than to another realtor's site."

This would be one item that may make me rethink it. I didn't see the need of a single property site since being a tech person, I could create the same thing within my site and retain the branding. But, Sharon may have a point about other agents sending/not sending clients to view the site, so cloaking it may be viable option.

Though, I still think it's a listing gimmick and it does create tons of throw-away domain names.

JAN

2007

KK, Do you represent this company? Should I go through you to investigate, or just dive in? It is an interesting concept and thanks for sharing.

Hi Suzi ~ no, I don't represent this company. It is a service that I use and find beneficial. I was just sharing with the group.

Good luck with it

MAR

2007

I also own a company that makes single property websites. My sites are called Realasites and they are a great tool for sealing the deal with a potential listing client. In fact, several of the agents that use my services, have had their success rates for listings jump to around 90-95% They can't believe how much it impresses potential clients. I personally won't even suggest that a Realasite is going to help you with SEO but I can say without any doubt, it will help you get more listings then you would have. I certainly say that spending $65 on a site, which includes a domain name and custom url sign rider is worth it if you will get a listing and make a $2500 commission on it. Check out our sites at www.realasites.com.

MAY

2007

KK - I'm helping a friend who is a new realtor. It has been a while since this post - I'm wondering if you still like Single Property Websites - and do you still use the same company? Are there other companies that do this also?

Maureen ~ This is the only company I have used, there are others. I am still using them. Recently we had a problem with a sign rider getting done correctly. It look 3 tries before it was done to my specifications. To their credit it was taken care of and delivered to my office. The person delivering it was less than pleasant to my staff. Just another example of "how not to recover from your mistakes." It left an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

KK - Thanks for the advice.

JUN

2007

Hey, kk, I just wanted to let you know that I included a link to two of your posts in my 3rd edition of "ActiveRain - The Early Days". I know you've inspired many of us (myself included) with all the sharing you've done here in the Rain over the past year... thank you!

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