Geek Build 2012 Site #1 – Clearwater Beach and Sand Key
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 committee. Read more about Geek Build 2012 here, or view all posts related to Geek Build 2012 here.
**Geek Build logo designed by Dominic Morrocco at M Squared Real Estate.
Greg Fischer
Posted at 08:17h, 28 FebruaryDaniel, I like your “vision” section. This is a clear goal to shoot for. It would be time consuming, but can you build out a page for each condo/sub-division with information about the specific building and amenities and up to date IDX listings? I’ll be curious to see what recommendations people have for you.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 08:29h, 28 FebruaryGreg-Take a look at this – http://msqrealty.com/washington-dc-condos/
cc @msqrealestate:twitter
Greg Fischer
Posted at 08:52h, 28 FebruaryThat’s what I’m talking about Drew, perfect. Daniel, it will take a while, but damn, when you are finished with it – you will be a rockstar. My guess is that you will need some help on the labor/coding but it could be well worth it. The M Squared page has 293 developments. Approximately how many would you want to detail?
Drew Meyers
Posted at 08:53h, 28 FebruaryVery convenient that Dominic (who built thoat functionality on msqrealty) happens to be on the steering committee.. 🙂
Danb
Posted at 09:21h, 28 FebruaryWow, 293 developments. That’s amazing. I could probably find that many if I were developing this site for our entire market, but since I’m concentrating on small area I should only have thirty or so.
I like the design on M Squared page. Photos, Detail, Street View, Inventory, Map Explorer. Nice and clean.
Greg Fischer
Posted at 09:39h, 28 February30 is totally doable. I think it would be cool if you had consistency on your exterior shots of the buildings, and would suggest doing them yourself if you have a good real estate camera (vice using old MLS pics, but this does save time). Yeah – the M2 design works very well.
M Squared Real Estate
Posted at 06:29h, 29 FebruaryDanb,
Actually up to 340 devs now. I can’t find more to add! It’s really easy to add developments, you just fill out a form. Wordpress does the rest, building the page automagically from the data entered.
We actually opened the directory up to the public yesterday so visitors can add buildings…
http://msqrealty.com/washington-dc-condos/add-development/
Danb
Posted at 09:04h, 28 FebruaryThanks Greg, I have taken a similar strategy for our condos page here: http://www.baconrealtygroup.com/condos/
I started with that page about 1.5 years ago with the 15 most active developments in our market, and today have 13 of 15 on the first page of Google for the most-searched term. The goal is to eventually have a written description, photos and video for each.
The first four condos on that page are in Clearwater Beach or Sand Key, so I will be competing with myself a bit…
Drew Meyers
Posted at 09:05h, 28 FebruaryOnce you have the new site up, then you should remove/link everything about those communities on your current site over to the new site.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 20:44h, 29 FebruaryOn the branding point – my recommendation is to minimize the agent branding. Focus everything around being the go-to source for all things related to clearwater beach first and foremost. As long as an about page is present somewhere in the nav, those that want to learn more about you will find it.
And speaking of an about page, I’m a big fan of making it really personal. I just recently re-wrote mine – http://www.drewmeyersinsights.com/2012/02/16/connecting-with-your-readers/
Payton_vege
Posted at 01:34h, 18 AprilAmazing write-up! This could aid plenty of people find out more about this particular issue. Are you keen to integrate video clips coupled with these? It would absolutely help out. Your conclusion was spot on and thanks to you; I probably won’t have to describe everything to my pals. I can simply direct them here