RISMEDIA, June 25, 2010—Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC officially launched the new version of its website, www.coldwellbanker.com, which has been in beta form since December 2009. Wholly re-thought and re-designed, the site features optimizations that completely alter and enhance the experience of searching for a home online, the company stated.
“The Internet is often the first stop for potential home buyers and sellers, so it is our goal to make the online home-searching process as enjoyable and efficient as possible,” said Michael Fischer, chief marketing officer for Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. “For the new ColdwellBanker.com, we looked at search functionality across various websites including, retail and music and continuously asked ourselves, ‘Why not in real estate?’ As a result, we have created exciting new ways to search for homes and real estate agents.”
The site includes a variety of new features, such as:
-BlueScape Search – Taking cues from popular music recommendation websites, Coldwell Banker developed BlueScape, a visually-driven real estate search platform to help “dreamers” find just that–the home of their dreams. Instead of limiting search options to zip code or the number of bedrooms, users begin the search by rating abstract images with a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” from landscape scenery to images of snow mobiles and taxi cabs. At any time, users can submit a query and the BlueScape technology will identify homes that are a good fit using all properties available through ColdwellBanker.com nationwide.
-Keyword Search – For those who prefer a more traditional approach to searching for a home, Coldwell Banker has added keyword capabilities to its general real estate search function so that consumers can more easily narrow down the properties they are interested in viewing.
-Similar Properties – Coldwell Banker also added a “You May Also Like” feature that offers additional homes of interest, based on a range of characteristics from properties consumers select as “preferred.”
-Expansive Use of Video – Taking advantage of the popularity of Coldwell Banker On Location, the brand’s YouTube channel which has had more than 13,000 videos posted by agents and 1.3 million video views in a bit more than one year, the new site integrates video into real estate search.
“Real estate is a deeply emotional process, despite the focus on hard numbers like square footage and price,” said Fischer. “Home buying is often driven by a gut feeling. We’ve widened the definition of real estate search to give consumers the chance to explore those intangibles.”
Coldwell Banker closely examined the reasons why consumers visit ColdwellBanker.com and what functionalities they deemed most important when determining how the website would be transformed.
“The BlueScape search platform and the ‘Similar Properties’ features were designed to help consumers in their decision-making process,” said Fischer. “While the website was in beta form, we received valuable feedback from users and continued making improvements until the site was optimized to its greatest potential.”
Additional capabilities of the ColdwellBanker.com site include:
Technology that immediately identifies the current location of visitors via their IP address, offering up homes for sale in that area; Join Us: a recruiting resource enabling brokers to promote job opportunities and create local career pages; Learn: helpful real estate news and tips for consumers, such as real-time industry articles from the Associated Press and Home File: Place for consumers to store, share and organize a limitless amount of property searches, sales associate and real estate office information and industry articles.
Coldwell Banker also included integrated video and social networking capabilities to the new site. Visitors will have access to an array of videos powered by Coldwell Banker On Location, the company’s branded YouTube channel, offering behind-the-scenes looks at towns and neighborhoods, tips and timely news on real estate topics and video listings of homes for sale.
For more information, visit www.coldwellbanker.com.
