This post outlines the market, my vision and thoughts about branding regarding the new site I will build for Geek Build 2012 to cover Clearwater Beach and Sand Key. I’d love to get your feedback so please feel free to comment.

Market: Clearwater Beach and Sand Key is a highly competitive market of high-end, waterfront sub-divisions and condo developments. Clearwater Beach consists mostly of single-family homes and hotels, with the exception of the luxury condos of Mandalay Beach Club, Sandpearl and Belle Harbor. Sand Key is located just south of Clearwater Beach, is connected by a bridge over Clearwater Pass, and consists mostly of high-rise condo towers.

Primary Goal: Maximize buyer requests for showings, either through IDX or on-site contact forms.

Vision: I want this site to evolve into the most complete resource on the web for Clearwater Beach real estate, and to rank on the first page of Google for each condo development and sub-division. It should allow simple navigation to each landing page, area or sub-division so that buyers can quickly find information on any property they may have interest in. Since the ultimate goal is buyer requests for showings, a simple call to action should always be clear.

Branding: We offer a very high level of service and never pressure our buyers. We have always done business that way – it’s just who we are. People describe our style as “not typical”, “refreshing” and “easy.” How do we get that message across? To increase sign-ups and buyer-contacts is it better to minimize or eliminate agent branding and focus solely on providing information? Or are people disarmed by a smiling face, which has been one of our tactics at BaconRealtyGroup.com?

Domain Name: The Clearwater Beach keyword is competitive not just because it is a popular area for real estate, but also because it is a major resort destination. Most iterations of Clearwater Beach Real Estate are taken, and if you add something to that on either side it becomes quite long. According to Google “Clearwater Beach” is a medium competition key phrase with around 300,000 searches/month globally, while “Sand Key” is low competition with around 60,000 searches monthly.

While writing this post I was surprised to find ClearwaterBeachSandKey.com available, so I bought it just in case.

Discussion points:

  • Branding – should we advertise a strong agent presence (myself, my wife or both?), or minimize or eliminate agent presence? What else should we emphasize?
  • Domain name – Use ClearwaterBeachSandKey.com, or look for others that include the “real estate” key phrase?

Note from the Editor: Not sure what Geek Build 2012 is? It’s building a few real estate websites from scratch publicly with the help of the Geek Estate Community and overseen by an experienced steering committeeRead more about Geek Build 2012 hereor view all posts related to Geek Build 2012 here.

**Geek Build logo designed by Dominic Morrocco at M Squared Real Estate.