Long & Foster Real Estate says it’s expanding its digital marketing efforts by automatically creating single-property websites for each home its agents represent, at no extra charge to listing agents or sellers.
Because each "Your.Home" single-property website includes the listing’s street address in its URL, search engines will drive buyers directly to the property’s website, the brokerage said.
"Your.Home takes the company’s digital marketing to a whole new level by giving today’s Internet-savvy consumers an easy way to access property information and to shop for homes," said Michael Koval, chief information officer at Long & Foster, in a statement.
Your.Home websites include a photo gallery that allows users to rate the images, access virtual tours, and access a Neighborhood Navigator tool that provides information and details about the listing’s neighborhood and community.
Buyers can access the listing agent’s bio and contact information, request more details about the property, schedule a showing, or email the listing agent directly. Listing brochure can be printed or downloaded directly from the property page or shared on social media sites.
In addition to the new single-property websites, Long & Foster says it markets its properties on more than 400 websites including Realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia, and newspaper websites in its Mid-Atlantic region including the WashingtonPost.com, BaltimoreSun.com, Philly.com and RichmondTimesDispatch.com.
Based in Chantilly, Va., Long & Foster claims to be the largest independent brokerage in the U.S., with 12,000 agents working in seven Mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C. The company says it handles 60 million home searches on its website each year.
Single-property websites have been hot this year.
Last week, Open Home Pro, an iOS-focused mobile app that helps agents capture leads from open houses, released an iPhone version of its service, which now allows agents to take photos and fill out a description of a home and post it immediately online as a single-property website.
Last month, real estate marketing firm Imprev Inc. introduced a single-property website tool that features responsive design, which automatically resizes depending on the size of the device’s screen displaying the site.
Realtor.com announced in January that it was rolling out a similar product that automatically generates single-property websites and marketing materials.