For the past few years, websites, real estate websites included, have been highly effective because of their national and even international appeal. In many respects, the very strength of a website was its reach; the ability to reach a wide audience. There is a paradigm shift that is taking place. Instead of trying to reach a massive audience, websites and web applications have begun to focus on their own backyards, going hyperlocal.
Mainstream media has a tendency to focus on sensational, shocking or national stories. Filling time with such reports often leaves community level coverage lacking and often overlooked. Originally born out of this lack of community news, hyperlocal reporting began to spring up around the blogosphere. Individuals took it upon themselves to collect news etc from their own neighborhoods.
Once this trend established itself, other web elements began to align themselves with the hyperlocal focus. There are plenty of opportunities that revolve around tapping into a hyperlocal market – not least of which, is real estate.
By drawing the community and focusing on its particular attributes, a hyperlocal real estate site can generate a certain resonance. But of course design of the real estate site is also important. Fortunately there are real estate website providers such as Easy Agent Pro which could be used to create beautiful real estate sites as you can see from this review – https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/easy-agent-pro/.
Right off the bat, my initial questions about adopting a hyperlocal approach concerned the effectiveness of focusing on such a small area. This was a vestigial knee-jerk reaction to my scaling down from the vast nature of the world wide web. There is no cause for alarm. Going hyperlocal does not mean going low traffic. Going hyperlocal means quality content specific to very niche areas.
Going hyperlocal makes a lot of sense especially for real estate professionals. By going hyperlocal and connecting with other hyperlocal elements within an area, a real estate site becomes a portal into that community – establishing the mood, feel and ‘vibe’ of the area. Coupled with other hyperlocal resources, not only does a real estate site have the potential to become a touchstone for real estate but for neighborhoods as well.
The lesson here is that while the idea of having a real estate website is based on generating leads and the best way to do that is to put a site in front of as many eyeballs as possible. However, not all eyeballs are created equal. Hyperlocal viewers are either thinking of moving to the area or currently live there. Thus, they have a very special interest in the goings on, the news and general content of the area. These eyeballs are worth much more then say someone merely looking at real estate from foreign city.
While I try and steer clear of buzz word hype, hyperlocal is a critical component of web2.0 and offers some powerful potential for real estate websites.
