If you’ve been on NAR’s website recently you’ll have definitely heard the hype around adding streaming video to your real estate website. The idea works like this: Video has great “sticky factor” and allows potential clients to engage more thoroughly in your website.

With decreasing costs of digital equipment (editing systems, cameras, video recorders) it has become much easier to add this type of content to your website. That being said, we here at PaperclipCMS.com have noticed an emergence of people trying to use this web 2.0 technology without fully understanding the true benefit of using video on their websites. 

A quick look around YouTube.com for the search term “real estate” will quickly have your web browser filled from top to bottom with low budget, unprofessional real estate video’s which are composed mainly of still images and made into slideshows with unlicensed music playing in the background.

In my opinion you should use slideshow technology to display a picture slideshow and video to play on a video sharing site such as YouTube.com. Using pictures for display on a video sharing website does nothing more than show your obvious confusion about which medium is meant for what technology. 

That being said, using video on your real estate website is a great way to keep your visitors on your website for longer periods of time. With embedded video files users will stay on your site for longer periods of time to watch the duration of the video. This is every webmasters dream. As real estate webmasters are forced to compete in today’s highly competitive search engine optimization market, they are being forced to become “real estate information publishers”.

Technology has forced this change in real estate agents, be it for better or worse, and real estate agents are now forced to provide more information on their websites than before. In the past a real estate website could be used simply as a “call me at this number” business card template. Properties were optional, dancing GIF’s were “in” and as long as you had your mug shot on the main page, you could tell your friends you had a real estate website.

Today the rules have changed. Keyword and keyphrase optimization have lead real estate webmasters to chase the “long tail” of popular search engine keywords. For example, a Denver real estate agent may benefit from publishing information on Denver crime rates, historical property price graphs, information on schools, legal considerations and so on. The reason for this has to do with the fact that customers are looking online for this information first.

However, people have caught on to ‘chasing the long tail” of regional or niche search terms which means that real estate website publishing has become an even more competitive field. As the stakes get higher and the field becomes more competitive, real estate webmasters are forced to become more creative in their approach to finding web based traffic.

Streaming video is a great way to keep people on your site and developing a relationship with your business for a longer period of time.  In a time when encouraging people to sign up for an opt-in newsletter is becoming more and more difficult, it is important to think of ways to keep people on your website for longer periods of time. Many real estate webmasters are turning to video as their solution to help lengthen visitor time spent on their site and ultimately help them develop a client / Agent relationship, and maybe, just maybe, create a lead or close a sale.

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