I’ve been slugging away for days on a new single-property weblog for 909 West Culver Street in Phoenix. Sandboxed for now, and who knows if the extra searchability will matter. The ease of editability for people who aren’t me is a huge bonus. The idea of using WordPress as a CMS only really works if the upfront investment is going to pay off over time, which is not the case here. But the fixed-first-post idea in WordPress 2.1 is perfect for our application, putting the “cover” plus eleven slide shows all in one spot.
What’s new in what we’re doing?: The slide shows and the interactive floor plan. I tried using a Google API map, but it clobbered MSIE 7.0, so I have a static map for now. I’ll be adding a video podcast, but that ain’t there yet.
Not as pretty as Dan Green’s site, I don’t think, but what could be?
Take a look and let me know what you think. We’re aiming at complete untouchability — a listing so rich in value-added features that none of our competitors can touch us. Are we wide of the mark?
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing
Dave Smith says:
Greg,
Really nice looking site. I really like the static front page in 2.1 I’ve found the secret to the sandbox is Posts not pages. I have a couple of these sites up with only pages on them. They are completely hidden. Once I put a post or two on the site and ping, within a day they are being searched.
I’ve gone to using yourgmap.com It is pretty easy to set up and works great with 2.1.
Again, I really like the site.
March 9, 2007 — 1:47 pm
Jim Gatos says:
Greg,
You’ve actually done what I was thinking of doing for a loooonnnggg time, but never got around to doing. The idea is very nice, however, for the time it may take, a atatic website page using software like NVU (www.nvu.com) or even a single HTML Page might be more time sensewise. I don’t know. It looks nice, though. I clicked on the links for the other pictures and it took a “god awful” long time to load. Don’t know if the general public would wait so long. If I may ask, what plugin are you using for the slideshow? I think I’ve seen it before, I can’t remember. Otherwise, it’s a great idea.
March 9, 2007 — 1:50 pm
Joel Burslem says:
Great looking site Greg. I didn’t find it too slow like the previous commenter – but you might try experimenting with AjaxWp to get a smooth reload for each page. Could give the site a nice slick look too.
http://www.giannim.com/blog/?page_id=13
March 9, 2007 — 2:36 pm
Norm Fisher says:
Greg. It looks great! Lots of good info about the property and the area.
The photos loaded quickly for me. The 30MB “Historic Home Tour” was a bit much. Have you considered using a JPEG for that?
March 9, 2007 — 2:45 pm
matt says:
Greg, let me know if you need help.
WordPress has become my second love, and google maps is my mistress…I’d love to help you.
March 9, 2007 — 3:01 pm
Jeff Brown says:
Greg – The site itself is way cool. Since you’ve forgotten more about software and setting up pages than I’ll know in the next decade, I’d have to buy the expertise. That said, it certainly has produced impressive results.
I’d like to hear what kind of traction it has for you. Is it producing more business?
March 9, 2007 — 4:28 pm
Danilo Bogdanovic -real/diaBlog says:
I like the site – simple, effective and to the point! Also liked the map though it took a while to load and I’m on a pretty quick connection.
One question…are you going to use that as a tool for attracting buyers and/or agents to give feedback?
Tony and I toyed around with your same idea, but decided to go with a blog dedicated solely to feedback for our listings here in Northern Virginia.
Each listing is it’s own post. The post of the property is a brief description of it with the good and bad points (we prefer to be honest) and a section for comments as with any blog. It also has a link to our company site with additional pictures and a virtual tour of the property. We use it as a tool to get more feedback from agents that have previewed it and we moderate all of the comments.
It’s become more than just a feedback site because it ranks at the top of the search results whenever that particular property address is searched plus it ranks very high when that street or subdivision is searched. The people searching are typically consumers (buyers), not agents. If you get a chance to give us your opinion on it, we’d be grateful.
March 9, 2007 — 5:01 pm
John L. Wake says:
Fantastic!
Okay, you asked for ideas so I’ll throw some out without too much consideration if they are stupid ideas or not.
“Follow these links…” Perhaps put in columns. I see all those words jumbled together and I get sleepy.
Larger font in the descriptions and perhaps some bold to improve scanability.
Somehow emphasize the “Buy Now” button… that is, “Phone Cathleen Collins at 602-369-9275 to set a showing appointment.”
Maybe give some personality (I know the home already loaded with it) with blog entries. “I had a blast at the open house… I loved sitting in the backyard listening to some of the first mockingbirds of spring. It reminded me of… ” kinda schtick.
That site is a work of art.
Now you gotta get people to see it. It deserves to be seen by tons of people.
Give me permission to promote it on my blog and I will.
March 9, 2007 — 5:03 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Give me permission to promote it on my blog and I will.
Oh, feel free! Bring a buyer and it’s 3%. of course.
March 9, 2007 — 5:17 pm
Dave Smith says:
Greg,
I opened this post again to read comments and for a moment wondered what in the world happened to Russell Shaw?
The brain saw the first three words “FREE RUSSELL SHAW” and then I read the rest of it…
March 9, 2007 — 5:45 pm
Steve Jagger says:
Greg would love to work with you. We added a new feature to our system so that you can do this type of single property domain – but without the sandbox problem.
http://blog.ubertor.com/?p=484
Also, now that we unlocked the CSS you can do almost anything with our site.
Sorry for the commerical, but I think you would like what we do.
Keep up the great work with you blog – I quite enjoy it.
Steve
March 9, 2007 — 7:22 pm
Dave Barnes says:
Greg,
I was really impressed by the house’s website.
Two comments:
1. Don’t understand why WordPress and not just a static site built using Dreamweaver.
2. I clicked on the map and holy smoke! One block from I10, you must be kidding! Who in they right mind would spend $450K to live one block from an Interstate?
,dave
March 9, 2007 — 7:30 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I clicked on the map and holy smoke! One block from I10, you must be kidding! Who in they right mind would spend $450K to live one block from an Interstate?
It’s amazingly quiet – and this is one of the cheaper homes in that end of Story!
March 9, 2007 — 7:37 pm
Christoph Schweiger says:
Greg, you are a genius!
March 9, 2007 — 8:33 pm
Russell Shaw says:
>>I opened this post again to read comments and for a moment wondered what in the world happened to Russell Shaw?
I am being held captive at 909 W Culver. Greg refuses to let me out until someone (one of you, please!) writes an offer on 909 W Culver. It is a really nice home and a fantastic website. So please come see the house. Say hello to me while you are here.
March 9, 2007 — 10:32 pm
Jeff Turner says:
Greg, nicely done. Very nicely done. Now, if I can just get you to stop using VisualTour.com, I’ll be a happy man. 🙂
March 9, 2007 — 11:39 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Now, if I can just get you to stop using VisualTour.com, I’ll be a happy man.
Let’s talk. I realized today that what I’m getting from them is a worse slide show than we’re doing on our own with goofy music. The Realtor.com link and the panoramas, I suppose. It’s not the big wow it was when we started with them.
Our MLS permits unlimited virtual tour links, so that listing has the main tour, the neighborhood tour, the interactive floor plan and the printable floor plan.
March 9, 2007 — 11:47 pm
John L. Wake says:
I like the thingamajig ubertor.com uses to show you which photo you are viewing. It has a rather calming effect on me.
But from a seller’s point to view, Bloodhound Realty’s website is FAR superior to ubertor’s because Bloodhound’s website is all about the seller’s home, it is not about the Realtor.
That is, in my opinion, a HUGE point of differentiation for Bloodhound. Bloodhound’s USP is getting uniquer and uniquer.
Okay, it’s probably going to be harder to generate traffic to Bloodhound’s. But once a surfer hits Bloodhound’s site, Bloodhound’s site will be far more effective in selling the home because there will be no distractions (links away) from the home.
And anyway, an important (primary?) goal is to sell “listings” not homes, so to speak.
Spectacular stuff!
March 9, 2007 — 11:49 pm
John L. Wake says:
Greg,
Will ARMLS let you link to your own website?
I’m under the impression that ARMLS will only let you link to one of the virtual tour companies’ tours.
Otherwise, your virtual tour is superior to the other in many ways.
March 10, 2007 — 1:54 am
Allen Butler says:
Hello!!
I’m confused. I think visual tour is FAR better than many other tour companies out there. The viewer is larger, unlimited photos, loads quick as a lick, and has some nice ancillary features. What’s not to like?
Allen
March 10, 2007 — 6:28 pm
Drew Nichols says:
Yeah – I was wondering if this could be posted in the comments section of the MLS. I’m scared to ask because I;m not sure our board will understand what I want to do.
March 11, 2007 — 6:14 pm
Kris Berg says:
I’m still wrestling with the single-property website. If my website provides essentially this information (and it does), why drive traffic away? As John said, the Ubertor sites are about the Realtor, but isn’t that important (and important not to lose through redirection)? Then I have the marketing dilemma. We market our website url extensively. I worry about the confusion of advertising 10 or more distinct url’s at any given time. It still seems cleaner to direct everyone to a single site.
On a side note Greg, since I am not (as you put it) “you”, how do you get the static front page on WordPress?
March 13, 2007 — 7:04 am
Greg Swann says:
> If my website provides essentially this information (and it does), why drive traffic away?
It’s the wow factor in three stages. For the seller, we’re offering something they cannot get anywhere else, not even from lame title-company-supplied single-property web sites. For the buyer, we’re offering an enormous amount of content, much more than anyone supplies anywhere. And for the buyer-become-seller, we are the obvious listing brokerage, since we already have the canonical web site on that house. We do this for historic, architecturally distinctive and luxury homes. The kinds of things we do seem not to work nearly as well for suburban tract homes. But in the neighborhoods we work in, people troll the streets at five miles per hour looking for houses for sale. Anything that we can do to draw attention to our listings works. For all the nasty crap we hear about Realtors, people love us down there. You’re only as good as your last house, but that’s why we work this hard.
And remember: Traffic is not about traffic. Traffic is about conversions. Whatever works best is best. In the houses we work on, the things we do kill.
> how do you get the static front page on WordPress?
The static “first post” is built into WordPress 2.1. If you invoke a file named “intro.php”, it will live in that spot. We’re riding in there with an iFrame without scroll bars, then running the “front page” and all of the slide show pages out of that iFrame, the simplest kind of AJAX. The code to make it work in WordPress is four lines, slicker than whale snot. We build all the slide show stuff in SlideShowMarge, so that part is free except for the headlines, body and caption copy. The down side in this generation of the stuff we’re doing is that it won’t work at all without JavaScript. (Marge will, but this site does not.) That’s a correctable nuisance, but it’s one I want fixed, because people should be able to go to these weblogs from a mobile device (you can do it with BHB).
March 13, 2007 — 7:57 am
John L. Wake says:
Kris,
I suspect that a single property website that doesn’t promote the Realtor (except as a contact for more information) will appeal to many luxury home sellers who identify with their homes and see it as a symbol their success.
You would, of course, want to put a little “ad” about the home in your main websites with a link to the full single property website.
There are a ton of other things you can do to promote the single property website but right now I’m thinking a very important purpose of the site is just to get the listing.
By Arizona standards, about everything is San Diego is in the luxury price range.
March 13, 2007 — 4:26 pm
Kris Berg says:
All good points. It looks like my to-do list just got bigger. I have a $2million home (modest by some San Diego standards) coming up, so I will make that my guinea pig and let you know how it goes.
March 14, 2007 — 7:01 am
Greg Swann says:
> I have a $2million home (modest by some San Diego standards) coming up, so I will make that my guinea pig and let you know how it goes.
The first sale is the listing itself. If you can list in such a way that other big-ticket home-owners want you and no one else, then you can cherry-pick the choicest homes — which will sell faster and thus further burnish your reputation.
March 14, 2007 — 11:50 am
Amanda says:
Greg,
Nice website! It is great to read the comments regarding single property websites. I would love your feedback on our sites as well. We are a group of realtors and brokers from Nor Cal who started selling property sites in 2000 (propertiesonline.com). It’s great to see them all over now! Your site is really nice!
May 23, 2007 — 10:26 am