If you are a private seller or estate agent you are now at the most visited Canary Island property website. This is the best place to sell your property in Lanzarote, Tenerife, Fuerteventura or Gran Canaria

In January 2007 this web site received over 53,000 visits, These visitors amassing over an amazing 2 million hits. There is no other property web site in the Canaries that can boast such statistics.

Use the power of the Freedom for Sale property magazine (15,000 copies printed bi-monthly) and the www.freedom4sale.com website (number one on all main search engines, over one million hits per month) for the best possible solution for all things property.

Find out more, contact us on 0034 928 845 944 or email us on
Lynne@freedom4sale.com

For a full breakdown on the company Freedom media sl please read on:
We are a Canary Island property portal representing all of the Islands which include Lanzarote, Tenerife, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria.

Our property website works alongside and is supported by our bi-monthly property magazine ‘Freedom for Sale property magazine’.

Aims
Freedom media set out over four years ago with the aim to create the Canary Islands most effective media's in which to market Canary Island property.

We now have more Canary Island properties on our website than any other, over 6,600. The most user traffic, averaging over 370 seperate users every day and over one million hits per month.

Using any main search engine and the most popular search phrases like ‘property lanzarote’ or ‘property fuerteventura’ we are often ranked number one and always in the top four.

Purpose
There was a fast growing market of property buyers realising what the Canary Islands had to offer. Demand was increasing however there was no single place a potential buyer could access the property information they required. Seeing this gap in the market Freedom media sl created the ‘Freedom for Sale property magazine’ and the ‘freedom4sale.com’ property website, specialising in Canary Island property.

Thus Canary Island estate agents and associated businesses could promote their wares in a specialist magazine and website reaching the whole of Europe and rest of the world.

The magazine and website would support and promote each other and be both appealing and accessible to the full range of potential property buyers.

Strategy of the freedom4sale.com website
The original emphasis on the website was one of speed and accessibility for all users. Browser compatibility was a big issue as many buyers were were found to be using older hardware and software, thus technologies that could create possible incompatabilities like ‘flash’ were not used.

To successfully achieve and administer the largest selection of Canary Island property in one place, currently over 6,600, a new approach had to be found.

The best solution was to make all of our Estate Agents administrators. By giving them their own ‘property management’ section on the site. Thus each Agent would be responsible for uploading and updating their own properties on the website, therefore a large amount of property information would be kept up to date and current at all times. Potential buyers would have the most current information possible.

Other property finding/searching ideas were also innovated. The ‘property finder’ form was invented. Potential buyers wishing to be kept up to date and/or not able to find the exact kind of property they were looking for could fill in the ‘property finder’ form. This would be filled in and have all the info on the type of property they were interested in, the area of interest and their contact details. Once a form was filled in it would be forwarded to all of our estate agents in their area of interest, agents would then be free to contact the potential buyer with information on properties they may have to fit the remit.

Website User Experience and Features
Our commitment to having the best and most useful Canary Island property portal is even stronger today. The website is continually being improved and is in its third full incarnation since it inception four and a half years ago. Recent additions have been a ‘property discussion forum’ and a ‘mortgage calculator’.

The front end user experience is designed to be simple at first but with greater depth if required.

For example the websites main features of ‘property search’ and ‘property finder’ are the two most obvious features found on the home page. We bought our own dedicated server to ensure that users would have the fastest possible response times on the website.

Property search:
A property search can be made in any given island in one click from the homepage. Results from a given search are then first viewed in brief with 10 results per page and icons used for the most important info like bedrooms, bathrooms etc. Results a then in ascending price order. From here you can click the ‘view details’ button to find out more information for a given property. Then you can add a property to your own ‘property shortlist’ for a comparison later, or contact the estate agent for that property directly. The agent will then contact the potential buyer with more information.

Property finder form:
Buyers can fill a form and be contacted as and when properties fitting their requirements come on the market.

Agent search:
If a buyer wishes to work with just one agent they can use this form to contact them direct.

Relevant information bar:
We are particularly proud of this feature. To keep the potential buyer as informed as possible this bar updates them with relevant information to whatever section of the site they are in. For example from the homepage it shows how many properties of each category the site contains with average prices. If the Lanzarote section is then entered it will show the same figures but for Lanzarote, if then a search is made in the Puerto del Carmen area it will give average prices etc for this area.

Other features:
These are numerous but in brief there is:

• Currency convertor
• Mortgage calculator
• Extensive tourist information including maps and area guides
• Useful associated services
• Property magazine download button
• Free magazine sent to your door form
• Useful links
• Property articles library
• Property discussion forum
• Mortgages button
• Free downloads button
• Car hire
• Books
• Agent login
• Property shortlist
• Recent properties
• Investment properties
• Currency information
• help line
• Website help button

Specialist staff Design staff
We employed a range of freelance designers whose design brief was to make a website interface with the emphasis set on clarity of entry point and ease of use. We wanted a ‘property utility’ that would give buyers a fast, clear and easy to interpret experience that was as compatible as possible with browsers. This was put above aesthetics as most of our users return to the site time and time again and get bored very quickly watching redundant graphics.

Search engine optimisation
At least one full day per week is spent on this task. We have search engine specialists with many years experience to optimise the website so it ranks highly in all search engines. Plus we work closely with other property and canary island related websites to exchange links and therefore promote each other.

Time in Operation
The website was started four and a half years ago. Online presence has been maintained for 100% of this time.

Frequency of updates
We are still fully committed to giving the best possible service to all of our customers, to this end updates are ongoing and frequent.

The website has been fully redesigned twice since inception. Smaller updates are ongoing. For example we recently added the ‘property discussion forum’ and even more recently the ‘mortgage repayment calculator’. As for the properties for sale information (the very core of our business) on the website, this is updated all day everyday by our 100+ estate agents all with their own property admin areas.

There are currently over 6,611 properties for sale on the website from all of the Canary Islands. This number is increasing on a daily basis.

Innovations
Website innovations would include:

Relevant information panel:
To keep potential buyers as informed as possible the ‘relevant information’ panel was invented. This shows information relevant to the island that is being viewed. For example on the homepage of the website the panel gives details of the total number of properties currently for sale on the website and breaks this down into sub categories, plus average prices for property in each of these categories. This information is created ‘on-the-fly by our property database and is updated as property information on the site is updated. As a potential buyer drills their search down into other islands and areas within each island the ‘relevant information’ is further updated giving the buyer a fantastic backup on vital property price information in each area. Thus showing which areas are more expensive, more popular etc etc.

Property finder:
This is now common place on a lot of sites but four years ago it was new. It is a very popular feature with our clients and allows for people that cannot find the property the want or that wish to be updated with the latest properties coming onto the market. By just logging their property requirement information into the form we then forward this onto agents in their area of interest and the agent then contact them directly with properties to suit the remit.

Agent search:
If a potential buyer wishes to just work with one agent in their area of interest an agent can be located and contacted via this facility. All of the agents properties can be viewed then the agent contacted.

Agent property management section:
In the early days of the website we would put agents properties onto the site for them. This soon became a process of delay as agents wanted to update there info the instant it became available. We then created the ‘agent login’. Armed with a username and password the agent could access their property area 24/7 and upload, amend or delete any of their properties. With an automatic resizing photo facility any .jpg file can be uploaded with each property to show what it looks like. Later statistics where added so that agents could see which properties were viewed the most and thus judge how market interest was moving.

Property shortlist:
With so many properties on the market buyers would soon lose track of what properties they favoured. This feature allows for favourite properties to be put into each potential buyers own ‘property shortlist’ section. This would remain available each time a client returned to the site. From here properties can be compared, added or discarded. It has become a great aid in the process of whittling down a very large selection into a manageable few favourites.

Others:
Our commitment is to have a feature rich site which at first glance is not off putting. Our major innovation is really to have so much ‘facility’ in just one place. The combination of property information accessible to internet savvy buyers via the website is then fully backed up and complimented by our property magazine which appeals to the full spectrum of ages and information technology aware. The bi-monthly magazine can be ordered and delivered free via the website and downloaded as a pdf file.

Marketing and promotional materials:
The website is promoted via adverts in most current Spanish and property overseas publications (small spectrum of adverts included).

Marketing also takes place on the internet via ‘overture’. Mutual promotion takes place via links exchanges. Links and web banners are paid for on other prominent Canary Island property and property related websites.

Probably the strongest form of promotion is via the Freedom for Sale magazine with its 15,000 bi-monthly editions with a readership in excess of 60,000 people boldly promotes the website on the front cover and at the foot of every page. This magazine is distributed throughout the Canary Islands, the Uk and rest of europe. It is free.