A Realtor’s Guide to Great Property Websites

What Makes For a Great Property Website?

A property website is a key to marketing your listing like a pro. Make your website work for you by understanding how best to use it.

Photos

We can’t talk about a great property website without stating the obvious; professional photos are a must. First, the MLS is not known for its fantastic image quality due to size and resolution constraints. Your property website is a great place for the home’s photos to be front and center: from the huge hero image, all the way down to the individual photos in the gallery.

When you have Open Homes Photography take photos for you, we’ll automatically add these to your website. If you’ve had someone else take photos for you, we’ll send you instructions on how to send us those so that we can add them to the site for you.

Features

When it comes to your listing and what it has to offer, you are the expert! You’ll want to leverage the unique knowledge you have about the property in the Features section. Unlike sites such as Zillow and Redfin, there is no character limit on our Features section. This is your opportunity to explain anything that is not immediately obvious from the photos. For example, maybe the home was built by someone decades ago and has stayed in the family ever since. Maybe the photos were taken in winter and you want to mention that there are mature fruit trees in the yard that won’t be noticeable until spring.

An effective structure for the Features page is an introductory paragraph followed by a bulleted list of features. Remember that you’re competing against short attention spans, so it’s best to be succinct and to-the-point. This is not the place for your new novel. On the flip side, the Features section shouldn’t be bare bones., either. If you only list the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and the square footage, potential buyers might think the home doesn’t have much to offer.

Neighborhood Photos and Text

Not only are you the expert on this particular listing, but you are probably also an expert when it comes to the neighborhood. Where are the best places to eat? How are the schools? Is it an established neighborhood, or up-and-coming? How safe is the area?

For locals looking to relocate from one side of the neighborhood to the other, this section won’t be as important. But with the number of out-of-state and even international buyers out there, your input on the local scene will be critical to their decision-making process.

We’ll supply the neighborhood photos for the surrounding area (provided we have them) when you order a website. If we have a description for the neighborhood, we’ll add that as well! If we don’t have photos of a specific coffee shop, for example, or a corner store just down the road from the home, you are more than welcome to send us those photos and we’ll use them on your website.

Supplementary

If you’ve ordered any premiere services such as a Video Tour, 3D Matterport Tour, or Floor Plan Drafting, we’ll have spaces for each of these on the site as well. As with the other products that we complete, these services will be uploaded to your website as soon as they are completed.

All you have to do is make sure you’ve added Features text about the home, added the listing price, made any aesthetic changes you’d like, and update your Agent Profile, if necessary (more on that below).

Contact Information

Now that you’ve made an excellent case for why your listing is the perfect fit, it’s time to let potential buyers know how to reach you. We make it easy for you with the Contact Section of your website. That being said, we’re only as good as our information – and we have to get that information from you! Make sure your Agent Profile is up-to-date with the best email address, phone number, and website so that potential buyers have no problem getting in touch.

Lastly: remember, it’s very important to add your website to the MLS! Click to read our blog post about other common mistakes to avoid.