Whenever a Real Estate Agent approaches me about a website the first thing I ask them to do is, "Completely forget your a Real Estate Agent. Pretend like your a family that wants or needs to move. You go on the web and there are an ENDLESS amount of Real Estate websites. When you land on a website, what do you want to see and what pisses you off?" In my extensive experience:
"What do you want to see"
- A clean, very simple and simple to navigate website (not too many links in the menu, not a thousand different things to do)
- Big, good pictures
- "To the point" text
- Simple to find and easy contact information or form
"What website features irritate you"
- Sign-up pop-ups! and or Ads
- A "Too fancy" website (looks pretty but... what the heck, I'm here to look for a house)
- Too many clicks and or too confusing to find what I want
"Photography"
For a Real Estate Agent, this is the #1 most important aspect of your business. Who cares if you had your web developer build a "Let me know" feature for thousands of dollars when that family (usually wife) is speeding through websites a thousand a second looking for pictures of a great home. People want to see PICTURES! and... your little SmartPhone and non-professional snap ain't gonna cut it. Family mom is just going to click right away if she doesn't see good pictures. Here is my professional photography page and portfolios
"Normal" natural light/flash Photography or "HDR"
"Normal" photography can look really good! "If" you bring in tons of professional lighting and set the location up to be almost studio quality. Unfortunately, this takes A LOT of time, effort and very expensive hardware. So, the typical "Normal" Photography with just a flash on the camera... does not look very good. Usually windows are much brighter than inside, it's dark inside, etc. and an image comes out less than desirable. To get 'around' the need to use professional lighting, we use "HDR" Photography. "HDR" Photography is the process in which a 'shot' is taken 3 times... light, med., dark. Then these 3 images are merged together so all aspects of the image are "uniform" in brightness/darkness. Sometimes "HDR" Photography is "over-processed"... meaning... the colors look "strange" and very un-natural. I think it is important to use "HDR" Photography for Real Estate shots but also important to not "over process" the images.
"Video"
Video is tough. In this modern age of "now, Now, NOW" and instant gratification where everything can be found, viewed and moved away from in seconds, it's very hard to keep peoples attention. "Pictures" give instant and quick gratification but with a video... a person has to sit there and watch... for however long. Furthermore, if it's boring, they ain't gonna watch long! There is a small and viable place for video in Real Estate sales but one must realize only a small portion of your clients will actually sit there and watch it. The small portion of your clients will be the clients who are most likely to be very interested in the property, so in that sense, video does have a positive impact. I would suggest to treat video like "Virtual Tours" (below). If you have a high end listing and have the budget, it's worth considering but first make sure the listing has good photography and short but sweet textual information first. I have more information on my video production page
"Virtual Tours"
In the "old days" a "Virtual Tour" meant: "A feature where you could 'virtually' stand somewhere and move the image on your monitor with the mouse 360 degrees around, up or down to look any direction." These days, especially in Real Estate circles, companies use "Virtual Tour" as some sort of flashy phrase for up-sell purposes and the actual "Virtual Tour" isn't really a Virtual Tour at all... it's just a "Slideshow" of flat still images panning and zooming.
I did "real" Virtual Tours years ago (ie. the type where you could actually move the image 360 degrees). It was very interesting, novel and quite cool! But... in all honesty, VERY FEW people (users to the site) actually used it (from years of Google Analytic data). Users couldn't figure out how to use it, it took more time than they wanted to spend and many felt "sick" from the movement. Many clients (Real Estate Agents) initially thought it was a great idea (after viewing examples) but... the reality is, it's a very low user rate.
If you have an up-scale / expensive home and "extra" marketing funds, you may want to consider a "real" Virtual Tour... AFTER everything else. There may be a few people who actually view and enjoy it but foremost, funds should be allocated to regular good photography.
