Hi Everyone,

Often I receive a question "What is better: To start my own real estate website in Russian or to advertise on Russian real estate portals?"

In the previous newsletter we've mostly discussed advertising on portals and only mentioned a possibility to find Russian buyers for your property for sale directly by developing and promoting your own property website in Russian.

Now let's concentrate on comparing this marketing method of featuring just your unique property or properties with listing/advertising on existing portals along with many other properties for sale.

First and for most: just creating your own property website doesn't mean that visitors will come to see it in big enough numbers to get a sale!

To get visitors you'll have to do a lot to promote your new website in places on the Russian internet where interested searches can find it. This is a huge topic by itself, and we'll talk about it in another newsletter if required, but keep in mind that it'll take some time and money.

(Now I'd like to mention just one easy, fast, and highly cost-effective method of letting some sharply targeted group know about your new site: direct emailing to realtors in Russia who sell your country's properties over there. Although this way you don't reach the Russian buyers directly - not yet! it'll come later when your online promotion efforts start bringing fruits, - but you can get a buyer almost immediately if you are not against paying a commission on sale.)

On the other hand, the established real estate portals already have significant traffic of visitors (usually it works this way: more traffic - higher advertising prices). You actually pay the portals for their previous efforts of establishing themselves on the internet and thus for bringing visitors to your property published with them immediately (of course, any visitor will see other properties as well, not only yours!).

So, you may prefer your own full-service property website in Russian and its promotion on the Russian internet over advertising on the Russian real estate portals, if this is a long-term project for you, you are a realtor or developer with many properties for sale and your goal is to get into the Russian buying real estate market and stay there.

(A simple brochure-type property website may be developed and used just for direct emailing to the Russian realtors and/or other groups in Russia that might be interested in your type of property, then you don’t need to do its online promotion.)

Or you may prefer your property's listing/advertising on the Russian real estate portals over developing and promoting your own website on the Russian internet, if this a one-time project for you or an attempt to probe the Russian buying market for your type of properties before leaping into something bigger.

The choice depends on your situation, goals and marketing budget – there is no one-for-all answer to the question at the beginning of the newsletter. Email me if you need more help.

To your best business success,

Sincerely,