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How WordPress Real Estate Websites Can Power Up Those Photos

By
Real Estate Technology with Home Junction Inc.

Are you satisfied with your listing photos?

Well, maybe you should be thrilled instead.

Because here are some cold facts that were uncovered in a recent study of visitors to real estate websites.

The research was conducted by Professor Michael Seiler at Old Dominion University.

The study has the requisite scholarly title: Toward an Understanding of Real Estate Homebuyer Internet Search Behavior: An Application of Ocular Tracking Technology

But basically what it means is that the researchers tracked the eye movements of visitors to real estate websites.

This is what they found:

- When looking at a listing, more than 95% of viewers viewed the curb appeal photo before they looked at anything else.

- Those visitors spent more than 20 seconds on average reviewing the curb appeal photo.

Interesting. On the internet, that's a very long time.

- Viewers spent twice as much time on the curb appeal photo as any other image.

- While visiting an agent's website, more than 60% of a viewer's time was spent looking at photographs.

- More than 41% of viewers said in the study that they never read the agent's remarks.

There's the golden nugget. Images are not only important on a broker or agent's website, according to this study, they could be THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT on a website.

Now, let's go back to the original question.

Are you thrilled with the images on your website? Do they pop on the page? Make you stop and go, whoa?

If not, you might want to consider a WordPress Real Estate Website.

The No. 1 web platform in the world

We're sure most of you are familiar with WordPress.

The software was originally developed by two young coders to make it super-easy for a person to start a blog.

The platform became an instant sensation. This is probably why there are so many blogs out there today.

You didn't need to know HTML code or Dreamweaver to create a simple blog page. WordPress made it easy for you.

The platform became so popular in fact, that the developers created a version for full websites. Something that businesses could use.

Fast forward and now WordPress has become the leading content management platform in the world.

What does this have to do with images?

If you really want your listing photos to stand out on a page and grab a visitor, it would be very smart for you to look at a WordPress Real Estate Website platform.

There are dozens of ready-made WordPress Real Estate Themes that have already been created and are specifically coded for brokers and agents needs.

And many of those websites display images in big, bright, appealing formats. That's because the creators know that's what agents and consumers want to see.

Those themes also feature galleries where an agent can display an array of large, beautiful photographs that prospective buyers can flip through as if they were looking at a bunch of valuable paintings.

Easily switch and upgrade images

With WordPress, it gets even better.

WordPress was built to be super user-friendly. So an agent who has a WordPress Real Estate Website, can easily upload and remove images very quickly, by themselves. They don't need an IT person to do it for them.

This is important. Many times photos need to be changed. The curb shot was taken in the winter and there needs to be some new pix for the summer. There's a dog or a pile of laundry showing in one corner that you didn't notice before. Perhaps the lighting in the kitchen just doesn't have the pizzazz you want to display.

Whatever. The key point here is that with a WordPress website, it's very easy for an agent to constantly upgrade those photographs.  Maybe add a bunch of new images and send out an email to interested buyers that you have new angles and features for them to review.

Also, WordPress was coded to be search engine friendly. An agent can also easily add captions and the all-important alt text to the image so Google and Bing bots can pick up target keywords you want to use.

Here's the bottom line. A broker or agent might spend a lot of time toiling over property descriptions and trying to get the language just right so the text is emotional and attention-getting.

But as we see from the study, the images are the features that consumers will focus on (get it?)

Makes sense. Let's face it. We live in a visual-dominated world of Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest (studies even show Facebook and Twitter posts get significantly more likes and shares if they contain images).

We live in an image-based society today. People look first, then read.

Consider WordPress Real Estate Websites to make sure you are optimizing those images so they are absolutely as eye-catching and persuasive as they can be.

As we can see, a powerful display of images will make the phones ring.

If you are interested in learning more, here's one company that creates WordPress Real Estate Websites for brokers and agents.

 

 

Comments (1)

Georgie Hunter R(S) 58089
Hawai'i Life Real Estate Brokers - Haiku, HI
Maui Real Estate sales and lifestyle info

This is encouraging news as I recently switched my website over to a WP site and yes, it's pretty easty to maintain.

Dec 11, 2018 01:36 AM