17
Jan
FUNCTIONALITY THAT COULD ATTRACT COMMERCIAL INSTRUCTIONS
We all know that economic predictions are not good. A resent
survey in The Estates Gazette reports that a lack of business
confidence and commercial funding will continue to have a negative
impact on the commercial property sector in 2012.
In this type of environment, attracting good stock can be
difficult especially with more chartered surveyors and commercial
agents chasing fewer opportunities. So how do you differentiate
your business from a hundred other commercial agents who are making
the same claims about the quality of their service?
Perhaps the functionality of your website could go a long way to
help.
All commercial agents know that marketing a property using all
the digital tools available to them will play a huge part in
finding prospective tenants and buyers. Yet this can also
demonstrates to potential clients the way that you would market
their properties. Therefore the chartered surveyors website
featuring the latest functionality will present client property in
the most effective way. This will set them apart from their
competition.
It’s All In The Eye?
Remember, we are all visual creatures. Just because someone
works in the commercial property sector doesn’t mean that
they no longer respond to visual stimulus. An image can communicate
faster than a page of copy, however well written and engaging the
text may be.
Here is a breakdown of the type of functionality you could have
as standard on your website.
The greater bandwidth it is possible to have today can allow
commercial agents to feature much larger images on their
websites.
Commercial property websites really don’t
make the most of photography. I understand that 20,000
sqft of industrial space may not be the most exciting thing for you
to deal with, but internal images could help a potential tenant to
envisage their business there.
Potential commercial tenants may not always read the property
description, but they will always look at a picture. And it’s
the picture that they will recall.
You are marketing space, so show it in the best way possible.
Modern websites can support very large floorplans. They are easily
uploaded via the websites CMS or Content Management System. You do
have a CMS on your website…surely!!
Most
specialist property websites can support video and property
fly-thru’s. Often it is an option that you enable within the
CMS for which ever property you have media. This could be useful
for new prestigious developments for example.
They are great for providing the client with a convenient way to
download and print off property details. It’s a fully branded
brochure for each of the properties that you market, but you
don’t have the cost of printing. Apologies to the vast
majority of you that know about PDF’s is, but I’m
amazed how many commercial agents don’t have the facility on
their website.
Your website could feature Google enhanced mapping. What am I
saying could…it should feature Google mapping.
The client can view commercial property plotted on a map within
your web page. This is a far better user experience and
doesn’t navigate traffic off your website. The map can also
feature satellite and hybrid views. You can even customise
information to plot local amenities. Clients find this hugely
impressive.
It has been about for ages really, yet not used as much as it
could be for commercial property websites. Very effective for
retail property.
And There’s SEO Benefit As Well?!
If you’ve read any of my articles about SEO, you will know
that Google loves content that’s relevant and constantly
changing. All of the functionality above contributes to that
content and goes towards demonstrating your authority in a
particular are or property type.
It all helps to push your company up the Google rankings for
leading chartered surveyors and and commercial agents.
In Conclusion
In 2012 there really is no excuse for your company not to have
the very best online presence. You should be providing your clients
with the best platform to digitally market their property. All this
technology, and more, is available to you and is not expensive.
But remember, ensure that you use a
website design agency that has a track record within the property
sector.
Philip Burrows, Marketing
Consultant
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