Author: Anonymous
Source: free-articles

A property website developed by a North-East Internet marketing company is proving a big hit with house buyers and sellers throughout the UK. 1click2keys.com is seeing an average 50% growth in visitors each month and looks set to eclipse most of its big brand and longer established independent rivals before the end of 2003. The Government-inspired, UK On-line For Business, last week announced that the website has been shortlisted for their 2003 E-Commerce Awards.

Its popularity is partly explained by its strategy of localisation โ€” there’s a 1click2keys website for every major town in the UK โ€” making 200 unique listings of houses covering all areas. This means that visitors to the company’s www.houses-in-newcastle.co.uk site for example, will see only properties that they are interested in from Newcastle and the surrounding area, while in Darlington people see their localised version of the same site. It’s really that simple!

The incentive to sellers is that they can add their property to the 1click2keys database themselves, by filling in an on-line form and emailing a digital photo. The free service can maximise the potential audience of buyers, either in support of local estate agents efforts, or for the increasing number of home sellers going it alone. This offer has proved so tempting that local estate agents are now also adding their own lists of properties in an effort to raise their marketing profile through the 1click2keys.com network.

The company behind the idea is Intermedia Solutions, an entrepreneurial, Darlington-based, Internet development company who have already had major success with on-line package holidays. Their Holidays-In-Heaven.com website was sold to Co-op Travel Direct in 2002, leaving them to concentrate on property and other on-line consumer markets.

โ€œThe strategy and innovative technology contained in Intermedia’s IMPRES software system is invisible to the end userโ€, commented 1click2keys Operations Director, Sally Bird. โ€œPeople are finding us by simply using search engines to look for a particular type of property in specific towns and villages. This is where we win over the big Internet estate agents who need to fund expensive advertising to maintain their on-line profile. 1click2keys delivers just what it promises โ€” 1 click to a website of local properties. It couldn’t be easier to use. As Intermedia already have proved in the travel industry, people search for the specific product or service they want and do not look for brand names first. Indeed, people moving into the region are unlikely to be even aware of any particular local estate agent.โ€

Mortgages and legal services are also available through the sites which were launched earlier this year. All the sites use the formula www.houses-in-(town).co.uk i.e. www.houses-in-yarm.co.uk but they can also be accessed from the central portal at www.1click2keys.com

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

The IMPRES software system โ€˜powering’ 1click2keys has been developed by Intermedia Solutions of Darlington – see www.intermed.co.uk/pages/impres. 1click2keys is a โ€˜spin-off’ company from Intermedia and follows a similar and highly successful venture into on-line travel. Based on the same business model and basic technology, Holidays-in-Heaven was spun-off from Intermedia three years ago and then sold to the travel division of the Co-op just a year later.

www.1click2keys.co.uk sites in the North-East include:

houses-in-alnwick

houses-in-bishop-auckland

houses-in-chester-le-street

houses-in-darlington

houses-in-durham

houses-in-gateshead

houses-in-gosforth

houses-in-hartlepool

houses-in-hexham

houses-in-ingleby-barwick

houses-in-jesmond

houses-in-middlesbrough

houses-in-morpeth

houses-in-newcastle

houses-in-north-shields

houses-in-north-yorkshire

houses-in-northumberland

houses-in-northallerton

houses-in-peterlee

houses-in-redcar

houses-in-south-shields

houses-in-stockton

houses-in-sunderland

houses-in-thirsk

houses-in-tynemouth

houses-in-washington

houses-in-whitby

houses-in-yarm