Skilpad.Com Community Blog

Every second of the day, so it seems, somebody, somewhere in the world posts a message on the community networking website www.twitter.com, affectionately known as Twitter.

I first heard about Twitter late last year, and sceptically registered on the recommendation of online marketing experts who rated it as one of the frontrunners of the so-called Web 2.0 phenomenon that is changing the way that business utlises the Internet.

Messages posted to Twitter are called tweets and may not exceed 140 characters and are supposed to answer the question: “What are you doing”? The idea is that over time, like-minded people follow your tweets, and of course you selectively follow the tweets of others. All of this seemed distinctly dubious to me when I registered and as if to confirm my worst suspicions, nobody was following me: I was tweeting to myself.

But after a few months, something has changed. I have gained some followers and I am following some interest marketing people around the world. I can see the embryo of a valuable information network and I am curious to see whether it will lead to increased traffic on this blog and on our property portal.

Just search on the Internet and you will find plenty of info on the Twitter phenomenon. And if you are interested in South African property matters and/or online property marketing, why not follow me on Twitter by clicking on this link!

One of the most common mistakes I notice when viewing South African property listings on the Internet is that many of them provide very little information and either do not display photographs or use poor quality photographs.

If you are an estate agent who lists property on your own website or on property portals such as www.skilpad.com, you would be well-advised to review your listings to make sure that they do not fall short of the minimum requirements for effective Internet advertising. If your ads are too thin on information, property searchers may pass them over in favour of other listings that paint an appealing picture through the liberal use of information and pictures.

I suspect that one of the reasons for skimpy listings is that the property industry in South Africa is in a transition period from advertising predominantly in newspapers, where the cost of space is high, to advertising more and more on web-based advertising where space is cheap. Having sold a number of properties through the Internet over recent years, I have learnt that one of the great strengths of the Internet is its ability to reach potential buyers in other parts of the country and the world. Potential buyers who are far away do not have local knowledge, and so welcome informative listings that spell out the features and beneftis of the property and the area. And all potential buyers appreciate good pictures.

Here are some guidelines to help you ensure that your property listings meet the grade:

1. For residential listings include at least the price and location of the property, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and the size of the property. Preferably also include information about other rooms and features of the house (swimming pool, entertainment areas, great view, etc.) the size of the buildings, and information on proximity to schools/shopping centres, etc, and security features.
2. When listing farms and smallholdings, follow the general principles above, but also provide information that has a bearing on the agricultural/eco-tourism potential of the land, e.g. vegetation, topography, carrying capacity, infrastructure, water, electricity, crops, stock, game, proximity to tourist destinations, etc.

The same philosophy applies to any other type of listing: try and put yourself into the shoes of the people who are searching online and do your best to use words and images to sell the property to them before they even set foot on the land.

Good luck with your listings. If you need any help or advice with improving the quality of your listings on our South Africa Property Portal, you are welcome to email us at support@skilpad.com

Skilpad.Com Property portal has attracted the attention of international property portal watchers who have ranked our name as one of the top 5 most crazy in the world ( See the Crazy Name Awards list )

Crazy? Maybe. But we believe that our name is different and memorable and that this will help to make it a household name in South Africa.

Skilpad.Com attended a breakfast with the Top Professional Guild in Port Elizabeth today. It was a great opportunity to meet this positive and pro-active group of estate agency prinicipals, and to update them on Skilpad.Com Property Portal news. It seems that Skilpad.Com’s talents do not lie in the area of indoor photography: this picture was the only one nearly in focus. Next time we will use the flash!

The title of this post sums up the challenge that we have taken up. And by “we” I mean the founders of South Africa’s new property portal www.skilpad.com .

So what do we want to change? We want to change SA from a country where most people look for property by consulting ads in various print publications, to a country where people search for property online.

Why do we want to bring about such a change? Print advertising is very, very expensive but in the present environment most estate agents have no choice but to pay up if they want their properties to be seen. It is putting many agencies under huge financial strain. And ironically, as long as the South African public rely on newspapers and magazines as their main source of property information they are settling for second best. Due to the cost and physical constraints, printed ads can only provide very limited information about available property. First prize for the public would be an online property portal providing easily searchable, well organised, information and pictures about all of the available property in South Africa.

How do we plan to bring about such a change? By building, branding and promoting a website that offers the public everything they could want from a first choice property portal. And by offering it to estate agents at a small fraction of the cost of print advertising. Have a look at www.skilpad.com which we launched in July 2008. Let us know what you think.

Who are we? Neil Dorward, Collin Schwagele and Andre Viljoen, three guys from Port Elizabeth, with a background in real estate, IT and advertising. Do we face a big challenge? Yes, but we are passionate and persistent (See out first post – 2nd killer tortoise - which is in fact a copy of our Skilpad.Com October online newsletter).

How can you help? You can help enormously by telling others about www.skilpad.com and/or this blog. (You could use this link to tell a friend )
You can also help by offering suggestions or constructive criticism: we value all input. And finally, if you have a website, you can help us by linking to us as follows: TITLE: South African property for sale and to rent at Skilpad.com; URL: http://www.skilpad.com
Because we are so new, we are still working hard to increase our search engine rankings: we are making good progress each month but it is an inevitably slow progress. By spreading the news about Skilpad.Com and by linking to us, you can fasttrack this process!

Thanks for reading this post!
- Andre

Watch the video clip!

The killer tortoise from Port Elizabeth is a legend on YouTube. For those of you who don’t know the story, this little tortoise is world famous for chasing cats off his patch of grass.
Watch the video clip by clicking on the folowing link:

PE Killer Tortoise Video Clip

We admire the attitude of that little tortoise. And we are proud to call ourselves the Second Killer Tortoise from Port Elizabeth!

Many of you may not be aware that Skilpad.Com was started in Port Elizabeth. And like the First Killer Tortoise from PE, we are thinking big and will not be put off by the size of any obstacles in front of us.

Our goal is to provide South African estate agencies with the best value advertising platform in South Africa, and to provide South Africa and the world with the best tool for finding property to buy or to rent in South Africa.

Please help spread the word about our tortoise by sending this newsletter to a friend.

Click here to send this newsletter to a friend now

Please also email us at andre@skilpad.com: we would love to hear from you. All comments and suggestions are welcome!

The Skilpad.Com Team
a.k.a. PE KILLER TORTOISE 2