Want to captivate your Internet audience and increase the average visit length to your website? I have some simple tips that might help you accomplish this goal.

1. Provide High Quality Compelling Content – I don’t want to sound like a broken record but I cannot stress the importance of having great content. Video is in high demand on the Internet and is the single best method that I know to attract vistors to your website AND keep them longer! Great pictures are another way to add great content to any website.
2. Great Titles and Snippets – If you blog, tempt the reader with captivating titles and eye-catching written content that will motivate someone to look further in to your website. Provide the first 2 sentences of an article with a link that will allow them to READ MORE…
3. Engage Your Audience With Interactivity – I think the best examples of this on realtor websites are mortgage calculators, live chat and property listing serches. Provide more than just textual information by providing utility for the visitor. How much can I afford to borrow for a mortgage? Let’s compare prices for recently sold houses in this area. Essentially, to obtain the desired information, the user will need to interact with your website. You may find them coming back again and again.
4. Create Communities – People want to interact with others who share similar interests. One of the Internet’s strengths is it’s ability to create communities. Forums, chatrooms, bulletin boards and blogs that allow comments all keep people returning to and staying at your site. Again, these examples all provide a common place to exchange information with others in your “community”.
5. Provide Informational Resources – Les Twarog’s website (www.lestwarog.com) is a great example of a website that provides really useful information to anyone interested in condos in Vancouver. He has created a detailed list of all the buildings in the downtown core with individual links to information about each building. Information about each individual building consists of links to the buildings strata website, developers website, address, number of stories, number of units, photographs, map, and floorplans.

Essentially, create something of value for your visitor. You must keeep your design attractive and navigation easy-to-use, but it is the value that will keep visitors coming back and staying longer.

Do you own rental property in the Vancouver area? If you do, consider having a video produced. The video only needs to be shot once and could be used every time the house/apartment is available to rent. By harnessing the demand for video, you will ensure that you receive top dollar for your rental. It’s also a great way to screen interested applicants before they come knocking on your door.

If your property is being marketed as an executive or corporate suite, this will allow the potential customer to view the residence from any location in the world. If your clients are from out of the city or overseas, ensure that they can take a tour of the property, without being in Vancouver! Kurt Sigouin of Azure Properties manages numerous luxury properties in the downtown core and is having us produce videos for all his listings as they become available. Here are his first 4 videos and picture galleries:

Seawalk North (1625 Hornby Street) — video – pics

West One (1408 Strathmore Mews) — video – pics

AZURA 1 (1438 Richards Street) – video – pics

Shaw Tower (1077 West Cordova Street) — video – pics

Having read over thousands of real estate ads, it is obvious that some realtors make a greater effort at writing descriptions for their listings. I often wondered how important a well-written description is to the potential buyer, especially with the rise of high-resolution images and video and virtual tours. Do I need to be told that the kitchen has stainless steel appliances when I can see it in the pictures or video? Well someone has just released a study on just this topic. I read this on the CBC website this morning:

Nothing deters a house-hunter like the terms “must-see” or “motivated seller,” suggests a new Canadian study on language and real estate.

Paul Anglin, an economy professor at the University of Guelph, analyzed home sales in Windsor, Ont., over a four-year period.

“There is a basic question about how house prices are determined,” Anglin said. “I was building on earlier research that was looking into that question.”

Anglin found that when realtors described houses as “beautiful” or “gorgeous” they sold 15 per cent faster and for as much as five per cent more than a comparable house. A house that was described as in “move-in condition” sold in 12 per cent less time, on average.

“I guess it makes sense that every house is beautiful to somebody,” Anglin said. “I’m surprised that that just attaching the label would make a difference.”

Toronto realtor Ian Shaw said it’s important to accentuate the positive aspects of a house but said the adjectives must be accurate.

“If you say it the wrong way, you can actually turn people right off,” he said. “I think language is quite important.”

Anglin found that when houses used descriptors including “as is” or “must see” or promised a “motivated seller,” the houses took longer to sell and often sold for less.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2006/12/22/real-estate.html

It seems that the description may be a cue or trigger to motivate the potential buyer to look for more information. This leads to the question, if you already have had a video produced and it is linked to the mls website, how can you increase its number of views? The mls website does not allow for any differentiation between “Virtual Tours”. According to the mls, a virtual tour can be a gallery of images, a 360/panoramic tour or a video. It becomes very difficult to harness the demand for video when there is no way of determining the type of “Multimedia” that resides on the other side of the VIEW MULTIMEDIA link. We always suggest to our clients that they write “VIDEO TOUR” in all descriptions. I will also make it a point to suggest that a well written description with words that entice the Internet audience, will drive even more views of their video as well!

We recently produced a video for our 2nd holiday/vacation accomodation. Helene Kelly of the Auld Dublin Guest House had contacted us to create a video tour of her Bed and Breakfast at 988 West 19th Avenue. And what a charming place it is! Here is the link to the video:

Video – Auld Dublin Guest House

Video is a great way to showcase your summer rental home on the beach, Bed and Breakfast and/or condo in the mountains. Even though we specailize in the production of video for the real estate industry, we are always open to new ideas and new markets. If it involves video on the Internet, let us work with you to fulfill your vision.

We ran in to Doug Williams (http://www.realtordoug.ca/) of RE/Max Crest Realty (Westside) last week.  We produced a video for a Coach House in Shaunessey back in June.  Unfortunately, the listing ended up expiring without a sale.  Doug mentioned that the sellers insisted on pricing the home too high making it difficult to sell.  Here is an excerpt of an email that I sent to Doug:

I thought I would pass along some statistics that we track from our server logs.  Your video was viewed 2309 times in total. We determined this amount by looking at the number of times your video file on our server was downloaded by visitors to our website.  I have further broken down the views by month for you to analyse the effectiveness of your own personal marketing efforts.

June – 450
July – 792
August – 919
Sept – 142
Aug – 6

Doug mentioned to me that he thought the pictures were a better marketing tool for the listing.  People can take the time to view the pictures in detail.  Great pictures can really flatter a house.  However, video markets both you and your listing. 

Often, I look through Westender (WE) magazine at the ads in the real estate section.  The ads all mention a listing or two, but are largely placed to get a realtors name out to the general home buying public, essentially raising brand awareness of who you are as a realtor.  How does someone who places an ad, determine the effectiveness of that ad in relation to money spent? 

I do know that for about $150, over 2000 potential clients were able to see Dougs name, picture and contact information on their computer screen for the 2 minute duration of the video.  I think that by using video to market the agent as well as the listing you do something that print ads cannot do, capture the attention of your audience for a long period of time.

Video can attract potential buyers that may have glanced over your listing.  The video is not only a representation of the listing, it is a representation of the real estate agent.  In the public’s eyes, realtors who employ video as a marketing tool are seen as progressive, innovative and willing to use all avenues to promote their listings.