Real Estate Web Sites: A Minimalist Approach

by Jay Thompson on March 25, 2007 · Comments

in Real Estate, Real Estate Tech Stuff

PhoenixMLSSearch.infoReal estate web sites tend to be large, unruly monsters. They are typically jammed full of all sorts of stuff — info on schools, neighborhoods, mortgages, buying and selling tips, and more. Our own site is no exception. Don't get me wrong, our site gets a lot of visitors, and it has served our visitors, and our business, well.

In my ongoing effort to dominate the global local search engine results, I got to wondering what would happen if I created a "bare bones" real estate web site. Took a minimalist approach so to speak.

If there is one thing the majority of real estate web site visitors want, it's to be able to search for real estate listings. All of the MLS/IDX search pages we have on our site get significant traffic. Our main search page is the second most visited page on our site (after the home page). More time is spent on it than any other page, by far.

So I said to myself, "Self, I wonder what would happen if you built a site with nothing on it but a real estate listings search function?" So I did.

Using our existing IDX search capability, I put together a simple site that consists of just five pages — and three of those are search pages for Phoenix homes, land and commercial property listings. 

There's not much too it. It was my first real adventure in using CSS to build web pages. CSS is wicked cool, and makes for some very small web pages (from a file size perspective — the home page of this site comes in at only 2.4KB. Compare that to the 76KB of our main site's home page…). 

The questions are many… Is this a good idea, or just a complete waste of my time and bandwidth? Will visitors looking for Phoenix real estate find this site useful? Will they even be able to find the site? Without a lot of content, it may prove difficult to get this site to appear in search engines for anything close to a mainstream search term.  It's a real Search Engine Optimization challenge to be sure.

Only time will tell I suppose. If nothing else, it's an interesting experiment.

If anyone out there in the real estate blogiverse has an opinion of the efficacy of such a minimalist site, I'm all ears. If any consumers out there have any thoughts, I'd really like to hear them. So take a jaunt over the PhoenixMLSSearch.info and let me know what you think!

(Note: The site is very new, just hours old, and there is still work to be done. But it's complete enough for you to get the gist of it. I'm wide open for suggestions.)

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[tags]real estate web sites, IDX search, minimalist site[/tags] 

 


 

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  • Jay, it looks good and some people will love it. Very simple to navigate and to get to the stuff that most people want. Like you, I find that the property pages take a very large percentage of the page views. It will be interesting to see if the search engines give it any love.
  • I don't think people will find it without other content pulling visitors with SEO stuff.

    The cluttered vs stripped down is a good topic though.
  • I like the simplicity. I've been pondering similar questions about my site. You will never know until you try. I'm still in the paperwork stage of setting up IDX and have to direct traffic with a link for now. I would like to know your results as they develop.
  • I like simple. Most of the time less is more, however our IDX MLS search could use a mapping feature to make it a little bit more "sticky". It is too bad that successwebsystems has not integrated a mapping feature à la realbird yet.
  • I built floridaquicksearch dot com last year. It is only one page. The mls search feature goes off to the my MLS page.

    I do add an original content article to the bottom of the page every so often. I have a had a little activity on adsense, limted traffic and no sales as a result of the site.

    I think that this type of site has a place, the trouble is in search engine optimizing as you suggested.
  • Hi Jay - first time comment..

    I've been using a fairly simple site for a couple of years, and you hit the nail right on the head. The trade-off is you get less traffic via searches and SEO, but the traffic that does find you really likes you. We get a lot of comments about how clean & uncluttered our site feels, and I've had a couple of clients tell me they selected me specifically because they liked how simple my site was. Now the trick is to pick up more traffic...

    I won't leave the site address since I don't want to be considered a spammer or anything. But Jay, you have my email URL - let me know if you have any thoughts or want to talk offline (or via additional comments...)
  • Jay, we're big proponents of simple, listings-centric websites and I think you're on the right track. To be most effective, however, you need to either bring your search box to the homepage, or do something with your homepage to make it REALLY obvious how visitors get to the search interfaces, like flashing red words. When a visitor gets to your site, especially if s/he comes through the search engines, you have about a nanosecond to capture their interest. If they don't quickly (like REALLY quickly) find your search interface(s), they're gone. Good luck with your experiment!
  • Keep working on your site. As your traffic stats improve, your search engine listings will improve.

    Webmaster - SavePress Money and Investing Magazines
  • An interesting experiment that will only tell with time. The only change I would make would be to hot-link the list of searches you have on each page so the reader doesn't have to go to the tabs.
  • I agree as well. you should make it as easy a possible for your visitors, because if you get them bored or if the information is hard to find they will leave ASAP.
  • I agree with your approach. My site's first page has the search page. I wanted to put what was useful to visitors and if they find something thet like...hey, mabye they'll call me.

    Shaun McHugh
    http://www.bostonskey.com
    Boston Real Estate
  • Great post. i have thought about this minimalist approach before, but it seems as if the search engines love big "established" sites, so it will be interesting to see what your results are with this minimalist approach.
  • Great post. i have thought about this minimalist approach before, but it seems as if the search engines love big “established” sites, so it will be interesting to see what your results are with this minimalist approach.
    http://www.doyenrealty.com
  • Jay - I'm curious about your stripped-down site after 1 year, and gaining some authority / backlinks. How does traffic / conversions compare with your P2A site?

    - Jim
  • Jim - traffic is low, only about 20 uniques a day. But I've done *nothing* with it since a few days after launch. I mean absolutely nothing.

    Virtually all visits come from terms around "Phoenix MLS search" and 95% of those come from MSN / Live search. It is a nice complement to the main site as I get almost no traffic there from MSN.

    Stupidly, I didn't set up the IDX search to differentiate between the "minimal" site and the main site, so I can't tell how many searches there turn to prospects. In hindsight I should have set up a separate email and IDX page so I could have tracked that. But with 150sh a week, 600/month of visitors doing nothing but searching, I have to think some prospects have come from there.

    What's cool about it is there are search terms out there that will return the minimalist site, my main site and this blog all on Page 1. Owning 30% of page 1 can never hurt...
  • I was looking really exellent ca me who loves reading and am always looking for information, thank you very much Ispeeck on my blog medium
  • To be most effective, however, you need to either bring your search box to the homepage, or do something with your homepage to make it REALLY obvious how visitors get to the search interfaces, like flashing red words. When a visitor gets to your site, especially if s/he comes through the search engines, you have about a nanosecond to capture their interest.
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