1) Long single page - CLICK HERE
2) Mini-website - CLICK HERE
Thanks for taking the time to help me! John
[Bumped]
ADDED: Everyone, thanks for voting! I appreciate it.
It used to be conventional wisdom that website visitors don’t like to scroll down. The internet is different now. Many people have high speed internet access and mouse wheels that make scrolling easy.
In this sample at least, people preferred scrolling down one long web page to jumping around a mini-website. The preference was not very great but the long single page ad wins!
We have a great sample with 137 voters as I write this. Of those, 58% voted for the long single page ad while 42% preferred the mini-website.
Why I did this experiment
I used to create a long single page ad in this blog to promote each of my listings. The pages were not very attractive, in my opinion.
I searched a great deal for a better alternative and found postlets.com which I’m happy with. I put all my listings on postlets.com.
The problem, er, I mean “opportunity” arrived about a week ago when I checked the stats on Google Analytics and found out that those old “not very attractive” listing ads, when I had them, were some of the most popular pages on this entire blog!
But now I was sending all of those visitors to postlets.com!
I would prefer to keep those visitors on this blog to help search engines recognize that this blog is a great source of information about Arizona homes for sale.
Further, when a home buyer searches for homes online, Google might send them to a long single page ad on this blog but it won’t send them to the mini-website ad.
The question was, “Could I create an ad that was as attractive as the postlets.com ad?”
The voting shows that I can.
It won’t be easy. The long single page ad took a lot more time to create than the postlets ads, at least at this point in my learning curve.
And I would miss the postlets.com mini-ads, called “minis,” that are great for putting in the sidebar. In addition, postlets.com “syndicates” (submits) my listings to several other large websites, for example, Trulia.com and Google Base.
So tonight, I’m thinking of doing both. I’ll create a custom ad for promoting my listings on Arizona Real Estate Notebook, Home Sale News e-newletters and on my yard signs, print ads and other promotional materials.
I’m now familiar with postlets.com so I could also create a mini-website to take advantage of the syndication of my listings to many major websites.
Recent home buyers were asked how they first found out about the home they bought. The top two ways were, 1) a real estate agent showed it to them, or 2) they found it themselves online.
Creating both the long page and the mini-website will add a lot of complexity to promoting my listings online which is already very complex.
It’s worth it, however, to be where the buyers are. The buyers are online.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Dave Smith 09.16.07 at 5:05 pm
John,
This surprised me. I usually go for the mini website all self contained. But this time, I like the way the single page flows. I like the large images, the page flows as you scoll down.
The mini site has the tabs but the flow isn’t there. The virtual opens in its own page, on both, the additional photos in the scroll page don’t feel like they are going to another page, but it does on the mini site.
The presentation of the single page is larger on the screen and seem to fit better with the blog itself.
Again, I’m surprised I like the single page but this time I do.
Kelley Koehler 09.16.07 at 10:38 pm
First Impression - the postlets page, because it had a picture above the fold. I opened both in separate tabs. The first, I looked at for about 3 seconds, and then went to the next tab - wasn’t interested in the first one because there was no picture. The pic I did see - the header - didn’t make sense, and just made me want to leave the site as fast as possible. Didn’t see the house pics until I came back a second time to look again. The second one, I looked at the picture and scanned the text, looked at the titles of the tabs, all in about 15 seconds. Within about 20 seconds, I liked the second one better, no contest, thought it offered more information. Note that I never actually read or clicked on any links on either site - but my first impression was more favorable of the postlets page.
John L. Wake - Realtor 09.16.07 at 11:27 pm
Kelley,
Yeah, the blog header is indeed confusing! I know I can’t change the photo to match the home.
I wonder if I can just blow out the header entirely for this page (I already blew out the sidebar). I don’t think I can but it would be a big improvement if I could.
John L. Wake - Realtor 09.17.07 at 12:53 am
Okay, I got rid of the confusing header and added a smaller photo above the fold for interest. Thanks, Kelley.
Shailesh 09.17.07 at 9:10 am
From a first impressions standpoint I like the mini-web page. Information I need was readily available. If I was more interested I could tab through etc.
I find long pages overwhelming. I like information in small bits.
That is just my thought.
Lynda 09.20.07 at 9:50 am
The mini website is attractive, but not as efficient as the long page. When I cruise real estate websites, I don’t want to have to keep clicking to get to the info and I definitely don’t want to have to hit back so many times to get back to the listings page. The long page made scrolling easy, so I actually spent more time looking at it than the other and was happy when one back click got me back to your main page.
Kathleen Wattle 09.21.07 at 11:34 pm
It’ the one page ad that wins hands down. And it’s all because of pictures, pictures, pictures — they TELL the story if they are high quality well executed images and these are.
It’s a visual world and people are captivated by what they see. That high quality imagery is what “hooks” them on first glance, to keep them reading more about what was so visually fascinating. No one gets hooked on text or ugly photos….that doesn’t negate the need for good supportive and informative text though.
I am coming to this from the POV of a professional photographer, so it’s my business to make images that help my clients sell. This concept of IMAGE SELLS is what all sellers need to embrace to increase their effectiveness in selling both services and products.
You can’t sell something that a buyer cannot clearly visualize as beautiful, life enhancing, healthful, or any number of positive aspects that need to be conveyed. You have to show them something so they can place themselves doing that or show them a place they can imagine themselves living, working, using your service, etc. This goes for product and services.
It sounds cliché but it’s true: Image is everything.