I wrote a small post about Sellsius when I heard about the site on Inman. Then a few comments came in and boom Joseph Ferrara of Sellsius blasted out a reply and addressed each comment. You need thick skin when reading comments on random blogs and Joseph is showing he cares about his new venture. I like that and do the same. Starting a new user generated venture is tough, especially in the classified marketplace which is extremely fragmented.
I read Joseph’s comments / points and I want to try to understand what he is saying.
Here is where we are trying to make improvement:
POINT 1.
Search: We built what we think is a better framework for listing and searching real estate—it’s really a tagging system. Most searches are fuzzy–you enter ocean view from Riverside Ca. and you get 100 listings—problem is there is no ocean view in Riverside CA. Our “Exact match” can find any needle in our haystack —once we get some needles (content).
The reason for all the categories & niches is for listing. If there was only a text box or limited choices–people would list in any number of ways and search would be very difficult–that’s where the problem of search stems from–LIST. Look at realtor.com–they have millions of listings and only 6 categories–do the division and you see the problem.
Hmmm.
I agree that real estate search is fuzzy but will tagging solve this problem? Is this a technical problem or an ethical problem.Tagging can’t help unethical agents. What happens when an agent enters a listing and tags it with ocean view when there really is no ocean view? Agents tend to fluff ads.
POINT 2.
a place where professionals who support real estate—home stagers, inspectors, trade people—can list detailed profiles and contribute content via tips and articles. Many pros do not blog but by writing on sellsius they can get the benefits of blogging once the articles are indexed by google.
Hmmm.
This is good, but it might be more beneficial if the agent or professional started a blog and created content for their own site. Tough time find time to create content for your own site let alone for other sites. Maybe Sellsius should aggregate blogs as well like a techmeme. I think Sellsius will benefit more than the blogger when indexed. This is similar to what Inman is doing with guest posts and wiki’s.
POINT 3.
3.Sellsius link–a way to help measure ROI from your expensive print ads. Unless someone calls and you get the information where they saw your ad–you cant tell how effective it was. If they type in the SL url to see the property, you can tell the print media that drove them there. Just think how it can be used in a postcard campaign, for example, to compare which copy works best.
Here’s how the Sellsius° Link works:
1. First, post your property listing on Sellsius°. Once posted, it automatically gets a unique URL, something like this: http://sellsiusrealestate.com/your-listing
2. Let’s say you want to advertise this same property in the New York Times newspaper and the New York Times Online. You can add a unique tag to the url to identify which medium it will be submitted to. This tagged url now becomes a Sellsius° Link. Then place each unique Sellsius° Link in each medium (print or online). Once this is done, you can see how many times each unique Sellsius° Link was clicked on each day.
3. So, if 10 people read the ad in the New York Times newspaper and they inserted that Sellsius° Link into their browser to look at your property on 4/5/07 - BINGO, you will see that stat in your account on Sellsius° = 10 visitors from your New York Times Print ad on 4/5/07. We think this is really cool.
Hmmm.
I do not understand how this works so I am not going to comment. I do not understand why you cannot do this on your own website and ad an analytics program to the page. How can this track print? When I see a web address in print I go online and enter the address in directly. Anyways, anything that can measure ROI is interesting to me so I will look into this a bit more. Maybe I am missing something.
Very Quick Sellsius Usability Review
After checking out the Sellsius platform I have found a few things the bother me. Mind you I am very critical of sites and if the site doesn’t give me what I want right away I leave. I like simplicity. The Sellsius search UI needs to be revised. I like everything to be in front of me, therefore, just about every element should be above the pages fold. They need to reduce the height of the header image and get rid of that Login/Password box. They do not need the header image on every page.
The other major concern I have with their search is the number of sub categories. I believe the took a page from eBay when developing their platform. When eBay started it was a simple site with few categories. Overtime, they added and broke down categories to make searching easier. Sellsius should remove all the sub categories and go basic. Then once they gain traction and have a massive number of listings they should add the various sub categories.
It seems as though Sellsius put a lot of energy into the platform. I just hope they are not too far ahead of their core users. I would scale back and listen to the users, then go forward. This might cost you more money on the development side but I feel it will benefit the community in the long run.
