Once upon a time, buying or selling a property involved visiting the real estate agent’s office and then going to multiple sites to look at available options. Today, like every other business, the real estate business is also disrupted by technology. Buyers and sellers no longer depend on realtors to find the right property. There are online portals that list properties and act as a bridge between the parties who trade properties.
In this changing sphere, realtors need to develop novel technology-based strategies to retain and gain back their client base. The latest addition to the toolkit of a realtor is the single property website. As the name suggests, single property sites focus on promoting a single property, unlike property listing platforms/websites that present multiple options in front of the user.
Why do you need single property websites?
You may think that you have utilized the internet to benefit when you post advertisements for selling/renting out properties on a listing site. But, this is something that the seller can do by himself. Modern clients expect more from a realtor. You can provide added value to your customers (both sellers and buyers) by building a dedicated website for a property. Single property websites offer the following advantages over a Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
- Dedicated URL for getting all the details of a property online. This makes sharing and promoting the property easier and more effective. Even if you are listing your property on an MLS, providing this URL in the description will significantly help. You can use it for your promotions on social media pages and groups too.
- Single property websites allow the buyer to spend at least a few minutes on a particular property and understand its pros and cons. Interested buyers can look at the property’s amenities and features without getting distracted by other advertisements on the MLS. This significantly increases the probability of sales.
- MLS platforms have a fixed format in which you need to post your property details. As we know, every property is unique. A one-size-fits-all approach cannot provide a holistic view of the property to potential buyers. For example, there may be constraints regarding the maximum number of images you can post or the kind of promotional material you can add. When you have your own single property websites, you can customize each website according to the property’s and the seller's demands.
- A website exclusively built for a single property increases the visibility of the property manifold on search engines. When a user searches for properties in a particular locality or a particular type, your property is more likely to be on top of the search result than other properties listed on MLS. SEO is a crucial tool for any business today and real estate is not an exception.
- As a realtor, you can earn extra revenue from your seller clients by providing a dedicated website for their property. And, don’t worry about the cost of building the website. With Strikingly, all you need to invest for launching a website is less than 30 minutes of your time, and nothing more.
What goes into building perfect single property websites?
Browsing through numerous single property website examples, we have come up with this consolidated list of essential sections that you need to add to your single property sites.
- High-resolution images
A picture speaks a thousand words. You can give your property an edge over your competitors’ properties by using attractive images that depict the unique features. If required, hire a professional real estate photographer and click pictures from different viewpoints. There are several free image editing software that you can use to enhance your images and make them more appealing to buyers. Overall, your images should talk to the buyer and convey that the property is worth the cost.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website.
- Virtual tours
Take your visitors through a virtual tour by adding a video to your property site. Start the video by showing the locality and the outside view of the property. This will warm up the users and get them interested in the details of the property. Move on to the interiors, giving a description of each facility or amenity in the property. Make sure you shoot the video in good daylight. In case the property has special decorations at night, you can include a night-view as well.
- Compelling web copy
When it comes to online promotional materials, you need to be concise and to the point. Most internet users don’t have the patience to read through long text contents. Keep your marketing copy short but impactful. You can even add a slogan or two to capture your visitor’s attention speedily.
Be sure to place calls to action in the right places. In the case of single property websites, the most common CTA is to book a visit to the property or bid a price in case of auctioning. Keep these CTAs in multiple prominent positions in the website layout such that the user doesn’t miss them.
- Contact information
Your single property websites should clearly show your contact information with the name and details of the realtor. This will be useful not only for buyers interested in that property but also for those visitors who want to contact you regarding other properties dealt with by your real estate company. If you have a separate website or page on an MLS platform, you can provide links to those sites. Along with contact information, you can also add the location of the property on a google map section. This will help visitors know the exact location of your property and help them find it when they drop in for a visit.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website.
- Integrate social media
Social media plays a major role in promoting any online sale today. There are various options when you want to integrate your social media handles into your website. If you want to provide a passive interface through which people can read your social media posts, you can go to integrate Twitter feeds on your website. If you want to gain some shares and likes for your social media profiles and posts, then you should add link buttons at the footer.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website.
- Audience tracking
It is imperative for a successful real estate business to follow up with people who inquire or visit your office. And, your website is your virtual office. Track your website audience and follow up with them via emails or phone calls. You can engage with them by letting them download digital copies of your flyers, floor plans, etc., and collect their email addresses and phone numbers in the process. Use analytics tools to identify interested users and focus your marketing efforts on them. You need to employ such smart marketing strategies when it comes to online selling.
How to choose the right hosting partner for single property websites?
Now that you have learned the nuances of single property website design, it is time to choose the platform that will host your website. Here are a few factors you should consider before making the decision.
- Cost - This is a crucial factor since you will need a vast number of websites to be built and deployed quickly. Once you roll out your single property website service for customers, you are very likely to be bombarded by almost every client of yours asking for a website for their property. We advise that it is best to choose a free web hosting provider like Strikingly that offers an unlimited number of websites at zero cost.
- Templates - For single property websites, one-page designs are the best. Go for hosting partners who specialize in this type of layout. At Strikingly, you can find an exhaustive collection of single property website templates custom-made for different property categories such as farmhouse, clubhouse, residential buildings, commercial centers, office spaces, etc.
- Ease of using - Before zeroing in on a hosting provider, make sure the website building process is simple enough. After all, you don’t want to hire a techie to build your websites and incur unnecessary costs. Go for a simple drag-and-drop kind of website editor that you can use on your own.
- SEO friendly - The very purpose of building single property websites is to gain more visibility. Ensure that you are using the right platform that provides automatic SEO features such as URL customization.
- Mobile responsive - A majority of website visitors today access them through mobile phones. Rendering your web page seamlessly on any device is a must-have criterion when you analyze your website builder options. With Strikingly, in addition to being able to generate it on mobile, you can visualize a preview of mobile view on your website editor at the time of designing your website.
Image taken from Strikingly website.
Strikingly is home to some of the best single property websites in the industry. We offer all the above and even more features. Sign up for Strikingly and try your hand at building your free single property websites today!
