Posted by Trandle on May 02, 2000 at 16:39:44:
I thought I emailed you all that not long ago. How quickly we forget! First key is to …advertise it! Yes, genius, I know. The address is in all our ads, on our magnetics, on our for sale signs, on the business cards, etc. The main reason we’re getting so much traffic is that we recently had 5 houses available. We ran ads and each house has a sign with a rider on it indicating that we buy as well, with the website address. Hope that helps…
Wanna see my pics? Feedback needed on my “House for Sale” web site. - Posted by John J.
Posted by John J. on May 02, 2000 at 01:06:09:
I am trying something new. Got a digital camera and built a free web site on Homestead. Put the web address and my phone number in the newspaper ads and on the signs. Getting very few calls - probably because of the price range - but a counter on the home page indicates a lot of viewings of that web page. No e-mails yet.
I am curious if others have had experience with this method of advertising. What are the pros and cons?
I would appreciate your feedback on design and content if you have time to visit my web page at:
www.homestead.com/thishome
Thanks,
John J.
Internet Advertising - Posted by SteveC_GA
Posted by SteveC_GA on May 02, 2000 at 16:10:04:
John,
I know you are on the right track using the Internet to market your properties. I use it to sell and buy properties and built our website with 3 things in mind:
Keep it simple: There’s no need to add fancy graphics, detailed explanations, etc. This will drive people away. Most people spend less than one minute at your site unless you convince them otherwise. Make it professional and simplistic.
Offer something that is beneficial: In your case, you are offering home ownership. You need to focus on the benefit and explain that you can make that dream come true.
Make them ACT: You have to lead them to a decision or action of some kind. We want our visitors to fill out a simple form or give us a call. We get a good response because we offer “automatic email notification” of properties before they are released to the general public.
There are many other things involved, but these steps will give you a good start. Please feel free to look at our site at 4RentToOwn.com This might give you some ideas.
Hope these help,
SteveC_GA
Nice Site… Good Start but… - Posted by Mark R in KCMO
Posted by Mark R in KCMO on May 02, 2000 at 14:23:57:
John,
Everything that you have done so for is good. There is one essential thing missing from your site…
Where do you tell them what to do??
Are you wanting for them to buy the house?? Set an appointment?? Indicate interest??
Reminds me of Robert Kiyosakis’s talk this year telling us about his great promotion in a major magazine where he left out how to contact him for the order.
You have included how to contact you, all that is needed it to tell them to contact you Now!!
Hope that helps
Mark R in KCMO
Re: Wanna see my pics? Feedback needed on my “House for Sale” web site. - Posted by Jim IL
Posted by Jim IL on May 02, 2000 at 12:54:52:
John,
As TRandle said, I also get about 50 hits per day on my website. But, the calls and e-mails are not very impressive.
But, for a FREE website, who is to complain? At least people are looking, right?
On my website, I not only list my homes for sale/rent, but list a section for “Buyers” as well.
To date, my website has gotten me two deals, over the approx. year it has been up.
Not GREAT huge numbers, but that return is still good, considering it cost me ZERO to publish and create.
I know there are other sites out there that blow mine away. I am not a pro when it comes to web publishing.
There are however a few tricks I learned to create more traffic to it.
As mentioned below, make some “Meta tags”.
These are words embedded in the HTML code that are read by Meta Robots. These are programs that search engines use to index sites.
If you place meta tags in your page, do so in the beginning of the code, (top of the page) so they are found easier and faster, thus getting you higher in the index for that search engine. (There are even sites out there that will help you create “Meta Tags”, go use one.)
Also, try to goto as many search engine submission sites as possible and submit your URL.
Then all the search engines will be able to find you, thus “surfers” will also.
One other way, and many people do not like this, but that way to get traffic is through banner ads and exchanges.
I signed up for “Link Exchange” and created a banner of my own.
Now, at the top of my page, a banner ad for other sites displays and uopdates every few minutes.
At the same time, my banner ad is also being viewed on other sites as well.
And that makes me just a click away for anyone surfing.
Also, try to goto as many online FREE classified ad pages as you can and place ads for both your “House for sale” and your website. Include your URL in ALL the ads, no matter what they are for.
This should get you some traffic to the site, and some calls on the house.
Higher end buyers are what you are seeking, and the sad reality is that the majority of WEb users are also high income families.
They are who you want to some and see this house, and eventually buy it.
Target them.
goto websites they are more likely to visit and place your URL there.
Also, you may ask other businesses in your area to post a link to your site in there website.
You can convince them by saying that you will also place a link to there site on yours.
I am doing this soon.
I will be creating a publishing another page on my site for “Local area businesses”.
This will be for two reasons.
I want to link to them, and they will link to me.
Also, my viewers will get a better feel for the area by seeing what amenitities are here.
I will also list links to the local govt. websites, such as the village, the police, fire, park district and school district.
This way, when someone goes to my site, sees a home they want to buy, they can FULLY chek out the area.
Another “customer friendly” site.
That is what we do right?
Answer to the customers.
HTH,
Jim IL
Re: Wanna see my pics? Feedback needed on my “House for Sale” web site. - Posted by Rob FL
Posted by Rob FL on May 02, 2000 at 11:37:50:
I noticed your web page doesn’t have any meta tags. Not having those basically eliminates you from most search engines. I did my checking on www.proboost.com.
Also you need to submit your site onto the search engines. I use www.submitexpress.com but there are plenty of other free sites that will submit you onto 30-50 of the most popular search engines.
Best wishes.
Re: Wanna see my pics? Feedback needed on my “House for Sale” web site. - Posted by TracyMO
Posted by TracyMO on May 02, 2000 at 10:42:36:
Hi John,
I think you did a great job on the site if this was your first time. Congrats! Just have a few little glitches to work out…
One problem I ran into in the design was on this page:
http://www.homestead.com/thishome/Features.html
The picture buttons are obscuring your wording.
(And with a high-end property like this, you definitely want people to be able to read about all the features!)
I tried viewing using Netscape Communicator 4.7 and IE 5.0 and the problem existed on both.
Anyone else having this problem?
Also, on the following page:
http://www.homestead.com/thishome/2ndFP.html
It looks like you have one image loading on top of another. The floorplan image loads on top of a picture of a bathroom? (Your image 2nd_lvl.jpg is loading over another image DSC00030.jpg)
This is also occuring on the first level floorplan page: http://www.homestead.com/thishome/TopFP.html
(Your image Top_lvl.jpg is loading over the image DSC00030.jpg)
It looks like you used your top level photos page (http://www.homestead.com/thishome/TopLevel.html) as a template for the two floorplan pages and just forgot to remove that DSC00030.jpg bathroom image.
If any of this sounds like complete gibberish to you, feel free to e-mail me privately and I will be glad to talk! (I am not an expert, though…let me just say that for the record!)
Other than that, I think it is a great way to market a higher-end property and I think you did a wonderful job.
Much luck to you!
Tracy
Re: Wanna see my pics? Feedback needed on my “House for Sale” web site. - Posted by Kim P.
Posted by Kim P. on May 02, 2000 at 09:52:35:
I really like the site. You did a great job. I agree that the price range will limit the amount of calls you will receive. But if you are getting a lot of hits, in the future any other lower priced homes that you include will have a greater chance of getting calls. Getting your web address out there is the way to go. Good Luck.
Kim
Kim
Re: Wanna see my pics? Feedback needed on my “House for Sale” web site. - Posted by JohnG
Posted by JohnG on May 02, 2000 at 09:16:43:
I think your web site is fine - no make that excellent.
I have not used a web site but I am interested.
My main concern would be how do I get the potential buyers to log on to my site ?
Do you care to share the details of your purchase and how you structured the deal ?
I agree with other post that this is a very high end property in the market that we normally deal in. I will do 10 houses in the 120 range before I will sell one in the 150-170 range - the payments are just too high for my type of buyer.
Re: Wanna see my pics? Feedback needed on my “House for Sale” web site. - Posted by TRandle
Posted by TRandle on May 02, 2000 at 08:31:33:
John,
I think your site is fine. It provides the essentials. If I were you, I would use many more methods of marketing than just the site, which I’m sure you are. And I agree that the price is probably the issue. On our site we average 250 hits (50 separate visits) a day and we get a good number of calls and forms. We’ve found the website is a great way to fill our homes, but then again, not in the price range you have. Hopefully, someone who deals in the high range market will respond. I do know that in our area if we move out of the mid-range (100 to 120) that we have to plan on a month to 2 months longer to move it.
Great idea - Posted by John J
Posted by John J on May 02, 2000 at 23:41:41:
I had not thought about this, but I’ll put the metatags on and submit it to search engines (will I get all their junk mail for the other services that they offer?).
Since I am looking for a targeted audience I am wondering how many qualified visitors I will get through these search engines. Any experience?
Thanks Tracy - Posted by John J
Posted by John J on May 02, 2000 at 23:36:41:
Thanks for the detailed feedback as I had not noticed any of these problems. I’ll fix them right away.
Refer to the site and this is how I stuctured it - Posted by John J
Posted by John J on May 02, 2000 at 23:31:11:
I’ve got the web site address in ads in the various newspapers and on my signs. I also e-mail it to realtors who specialize in these types of properties.
It was a typical pre-foreclosure deal structuring. The owner had stopped making the payments due to financial difficulties. He had tried to sell it for all cash, but received no offers. I offered to pay his back payments, penalties, and realtor’s fees in cash and take over his mortgage payments. He finally agreed to that and we closed the day after the mortgage company was to start the legal foreclosure proceedings. The title company discovered that property taxes had not been paid and that there might be other potential legal fees regarding the foreclosure action. The realtors are chipping in to pay both of those. The seller, who had lived there for 7 years walked away with $148 in cash and holds a wraparound mortgage with a balance that is $70 higher than his balance to the mortgage company. He is a happy man, as otherwise he would have had a foreclosure on his record.
Getting people to the web site?? - Posted by Terry (Dallas)
Posted by Terry (Dallas) on May 02, 2000 at 09:45:21:
That is great that you are getting that many people to the web site. Any suggestions on how to build up that traffic flow?
Thanks
Terry