This is the last post in a five post series about homebuilder online photo galleries. So far we’ve discussed the importance of online photo galleries, ways to build a good photo gallery, some simple ways to search optimize your photos so they can be found, and we have taken you outside your comfort zone by encouraging you to post more pictures than you may be comfortable putting online. In this post we’d like to show you a few good examples of builder photo galleries from around the web.
The majority of your customers will visit your website before they visit your model home. More and more of your customers are engaging in social media every day. And more of these users are taking and uploading photos (more than 1 billion are uploaded every month between Flickr and Facebook alone).
What does it all mean?
It means that we need to take advantage of every opportunity available to us to get our message in front of the buying public. A well optimized photo gallery is one of the most cost effective ways to make sure that potential buyers not only find you but are positively influenced by what they see. And once you make that positive first impression please make it easy for them to tell their friends about you.
We took a look at hundreds of home builder photo galleries. There are some good, bad, and ugly ones out there. Here are three that are worth noting.
Good
Washington based, American Classic Homes, does a really good job of including pictures of their homes on their website. A link to their gallery is right in the middle of their homepage so it’s easy to find. From there you’ll find over a hundred thumbnails categorized by floorplan. Once a picture is clicked a slide show opens up where viewers can navigate from picture to picture and from home to home. The pictures have labels so they can be identified by search engines. That said, the html code behind the photo gallery could use some work. Without getting into too much technical jargon the slideshow is built using Javascript. The pictures automatically advance, but the text below the images doesn’t. Overall, American Classic Homes has built a good photo gallery.
Better
Jeff Click Homes of Edmond, Oklahoma kicks their photo gallery up a notch. From their Media Page you can choose to look at homes from a number of different categories. Showcase Homes, Completed and Available, Under construction and Available, Organized by Community, and Organized by Plan. Click on any of the categories and dozens of pictures can be viewed. Links to the floorplan and community are available. Pictures are viewed in an easy to navigate forward and back slideshow. The photos are all hosted on Flickr so they are labeled and tagged and are easily found by search engines. Click on any photo and you will be taken to the Jeff Click Flickr page. The only downside is that visitors have now left the builder’s website and may become distracted by looking at other photos on Flickr. Jeff Click Homes is one of the most new-media savvy builders we have come across. They are active social networkers and have built a great online presence to sell homes.
Best
Carmel, Indiana based Estridge Companies uses URBaCS Referral Builder to share photos of their homes online. MyEstridgeHome.com incorporates labels, tags and descriptions for all photos to allow users to browse and search by category or keyword. Photos can be viewed as thumbnails or in full screen as a slide show. Links to floorplans and communities are attached to every picture. The Estridge site is designed to be viral. Photos can easily be sent to friends or posted on social network websites like Digg or Del.icio.us.
The tools are all out there. Most of them are free (or close to free) and do not require special equipment or training to use. Its a tough market out there. Now is the time to stand out from the crowd and get noticed. A good search optimized photo gallery is one great way to do just that.
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Washington based, American Classic Homes, does a really good job of including pictures of their homes on their website. A link to their gallery is right in the middle of their homepage so it’s easy to find. From there you’ll find over a hundred thumbnails categorized by floorplan. Once a picture is clicked a slide show opens up where viewers can navigate from picture to picture and from home to home. The pictures have labels so they can be identified by search engines. That said, the html code behind the photo gallery could use some work. Without getting into too much technical jargon the slideshow is built using Javascript. The pictures automatically advance, but the text below the images doesn’t. Overall, American Classic Homes has built a good photo gallery.
Jeff Click Homes of Edmond, Oklahoma kicks their photo gallery up a notch. From their Media Page you can choose to look at homes from a number of different categories. Showcase Homes, Completed and Available, Under construction and Available, Organized by Community, and Organized by Plan. Click on any of the categories and dozens of pictures can be viewed. Links to the floorplan and community are available. Pictures are viewed in an easy to navigate forward and back slideshow. The photos are all hosted on Flickr so they are labeled and tagged and are easily found by search engines. Click on any photo and you will be taken to the Jeff Click Flickr page. The only downside is that visitors have now left the builder’s website and may become distracted by looking at other photos on Flickr. Jeff Click Homes is one of the most new-media savvy builders we have come across. They are active social networkers and have built a great online presence to sell homes.
Carmel, Indiana based Estridge Companies uses URBaCS Referral Builder to share photos of their homes online. MyEstridgeHome.com incorporates labels, tags and descriptions for all photos to allow users to browse and search by category or keyword. Photos can be viewed as thumbnails or in full screen as a slide show. Links to floorplans and communities are attached to every picture. The Estridge site is designed to be viral. Photos can easily be sent to friends or posted on social network websites like Digg or Del.icio.us.
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Nice post, and thanks for the props.
Flickr’s TOS requires that if you’re using images served by their service, you have to link to the photo’s origination at Flickr. We do this to adhere to those terms, but open them in a new window so the visitor doesn’t actually leave JeffClickHomes.com
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