Selling a House Online

There are a lot of houses for sale is this recovering market. Southwest Missouri is no exception. It takes extra effort to get your listing noticed. The MLS is no longer enough and good luck getting your real estate agent to do any more than fill out a few forms and help you close (assuming you can persuade a buyer). The owners of this Nixa residence had enough and want to really stand out in the market.

The Challenge

Design a site that is very findable, shows off great photography and provides a place to deliver everything a Realtors one sheet can not.

The Solution

Architectural photography is all about finding the right lines in the space. This is what draws a viewer into the image and conveys depth, composition and overall quality. A super wide angle lens is absolutely necessary to capture the atmosphere of a room. I used my trusty Canon XTi with one of my favorite lens, a SP AF17-35MM F/2.8-4 Di LD Aspherical with IF (that’s lens speak for awesome). I prefer to shot in RAW and edit in Camera RAW/Photoshop. This gives me maximum control over the image and the outcome.

The website is an important part of this challenge. Great photography doesn’t mean anything if there is no where to showcase it. The site is running on a self hosted wordpress with a modified theme. This allows for easy publishing and updating. Wordpress has evolved from just a blogging platform into a real content management system (CMS). It also simplifies task like search engine optimization and XML site maps which help make it findable.

The Result

Within 24 hours of launching the site it had over 200 unique visitors. This is a substantial amount of interest compared to the lack luster methodology conventional Realtors had to offer. The site launched February 17th and is still on the market. Check it out here, it would be perfect for a small family or a first time homeowner.

This is a vector illustration that was drawn by hand in Abode Illustrator. I prefer to draw without a tablet with just a mouse. I think this illustration works because the perspective draws the viewer into the article.

The Challenge

James, the owner of McFarland Garage Door Service, needed a better way to educated his customers about his company and product line.

The Solution

A small website was the perfect solution to his need. The about page conveys the company’s history and passion. The product page was designed with this in mind. As James’ product line grows, his site is ready to accommodate that growth. Social networking is a great way to stay in touch with your customers and get new information out very quickly. McFarland’s twitter feed is featured predominately above the navigation and James is able to keep his customers up to date right from his phone.

The Challenge

Complete Automotive was looking for an online presence that strongly identifies with their shop.

The Solution

The site features a gallery of pictures. This shows off their employees and facilities. Transparency is very important to the companies leadership and being able to present a quality product is job one. The site also has a detailed list of services and a contact form. Coupons and specials are introduced via a slider and allows the sites visitors to download the current offers. This is a small site that packs a punch and suits it’s owners perfectly.

Professional photo management for the busy photog. This custom website was designed for Elite Photo Art and has a custom image management system on the backend. The site is set up to accommodate thousands of images with user friendly search by tag or description. The user interface is experiential and allows for the photograph to be displayed large and full screen. The navigation is nested inside panels that side on and off screen and are trigged to reveal when a users mouse rolls over the edge.

The admin allows the photographer to upload large amounts of images without the need to key in additional information. The image file name, description and tags are pulled from the EXIF data embedded in the image. This information is assigned inside Adobe Bridge, Lightroom or any professional photo image software.

If you are interested in custom web applications, like Elite PhotoArt’s website, contact me.