by Allen F. Hainge
Adding listings to your site offers both your sellers and buyers value, and
it gives you a handy way to present your marketing skills to future clients.
Here are a few tips that should make your site more productive when it comes
to
featuring your listings:
Remember that you're not working in the print medium. You can feature a
lot
of listings (if you have the right kind of site...your own, individual site
that you have control over) and you can cover them in depth.
The viewer's first sight of your listings should be "thumbnails", a small
picture of each listing. The reason? So that the page loads quickly. If they
have to wait for a large photo to load, they're gone!
Once they see the thumbnail and the text accompanying it, they should be
able to click on the thumbnail in order to see a larger picture. Better yet,
they should see multiple pictures focusing on the home's best features or even
a multimedia slide show of the home. They'll wait for such features to load,
since they are now interested in the home.
Have a link to school district information next to the listing.
Most Important: have an e-mail link by every listing. If they're
interested
in the home at all, you want to capitalize on that fact and have them e-mail you
so that you can follow up.
Finally, I've got to put in a plug for having IPIX pictures of listings. What
a dramatic, effective way to showcase a listing, no matter what its price. To
see what I mean, go to CyberStar(tm) Greg Gorman's site at www.ggorman.com.
Greg has several sites....this is the one done by Preferred Pages. It's a
terrific site, and one of its outstanding features is Greg's use of IPIX photos
for his listings. Using IPIX, the viewer clicks on a photo and, using the
mouse, you can rotate 360 degrees around the room or the view and can also move
up and down. Go to Greg's site and you'll see what I mean....it's a truly
outstanding use of the marketing power a good Web site can unleash!
IPIX has also made their product more affordable, as written about in Real Times.
For $49 per home, you can really impress your buyers and future sellers.
If you haven't seen IPIX, it's a "Must See." You can learn more about IPIX
at their site, http://www.ipix.com. Be sure to see their "IPIX Real Estate
Virtual Tours" page.
More Technology Advice
Published: March 1, 1999
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