The Single Property Website Dilema
I have a few nice listings coming up after the New Year and traditionally I would have just paid my photographer to put up a site. He puts up a very basic site for $100 and it stays up for the year. Not a bad option but I really was looking for something that was more visually appealing. So I started the hunt through the numerous different providers out there of single property websites. I thought I would share my experience here in the hopes of saving a few other agents some time.
Cost
Most of the single property websites have a price tag of between $10-$30 per month. With most of these options you will also end up purchasing your own custom domain as well (ie. 1234mainstreet.com). Most don’t require a contract and offer a number of different templates to choose from. The downside here is if you want to keep a “portfolio” of your past sites to show future clients its going to get expensive pretty quickly.
Graphics
What I found after looking at a number of different options (I am going to leave out names of companies but rest assured I googled ‘single property websites’ and checked out the first 3 pages of results) is that they all look pretty much the same and as of today they all look pretty dated in terms of websites. They look like a website for an agent circa 2007, as opposed to a newer cleaner look that you will find on sites today.
WordPress
Finally, after multiple google searches I tried my same term but instead looked at “images” and every single option I liked was a WordPress site and mostly with a purchasable theme. My main website is not built on this platform and I am not a web designer by any means so the idea of building a website off a theme seemed a little daunting to say the least. But after reading a few articles, watching a few videos and speaking with a couple of people I figured this might be doable. As to cost this was by far the best option if I have a couple of hours to spend. I inquired with godaddy.com and I can host unlimited wordpress sites for $8 per month, the domain is $12 per year and the theme was going to run me $45. So now I own the theme and I can start to build my portfolio of single property sites.
In the end I would say this if you have a big listing or you aren’t that tech savvy maybe you spend a little more and have this done for you, or if you are like me and would rather learn it once and then can build a site in 30 minutes for $12 next time that you are happy with, its your call, but to me I went with the build it yourself option and will stay that route.
Hope this helps!
Stephanie Crawford @AgentSteph
Posted at 13:45h, 14 DecemberI’m a proponent of Agent Evolution’s Single Property Template Pack for WordPress. There is a one time fee of $25. These are simply pages for my regular website, but the other navigation is hidden so it looks as if it stands alone – kindof like a squeeze page. I typically purchase a .info domain for $3. Here is a sample using their Elegant template with .info masking. http://www.1602fatherland.info/
Carol Martin
Posted at 15:41h, 14 DecemberGreat post indeed!Totally agree with your points .A big thanks for this high quality article keep sharing 🙂
rpetersnmt
Posted at 07:04h, 15 DecemberNice post! I’m from a family of real estate agents, but I’m a WordPress developer. As a longtime follower of this blog, it was here that I was first introduced to the Matterport 3D camera/system. Since that time, my team and I developed a WordPress plugin that now creates single property websites around Matterport scans. Like you, my plugin purchasers were all looking for an inexpensive way to create stand-alone pages and combining all of the content (photos, video, floorplans, forms, etc.). I’m pleased that you’ve found WordPress to be a good solution as well!
Indyrex
Posted at 09:27h, 15 DecemberHi rpetersnmt! You caught my attention and I was curious if you could post a link to one of your property pages so I can take a look at what you are doing. Matterport is an awesome tool but I don’t like that you have to host it on their servers and I am curious how you get that onto your own site effectively.
Indyrex
Posted at 09:25h, 15 DecemberInteresting article. Although I like the idea of having a unique URL address for my individual listings, I prefer to have the traffic go to my main website. I do blog posts and optimize them for the property address search to help them rank for direct address searches. By having a new website for each listing, you lose all of that traffic value for SEO purposes. Perhaps it would be better to use the unique URL for advertising purposes but 301 redirect it to the details on your main site.
CloudListings
Posted at 15:14h, 22 SeptemberI’d love to get your feedback on CloudListings.com
We also found that most of the options out there were expensive, time consuming and dated. We’ve tried to eliminate all of those problems with our simple process and attention to design. You can also check out a sample property website at http://www.CloudListingsDemo.com