NovaLoca Blog

Further to my blog in January, “NovaLoca ranked ahead of EG Property Link”, our rankings have now improved even further! Thanks to our continued efforts we now rank a massive 104,572 websites ahead of EG Property Link.

We are really pleased with this result and are inspired to reach even greater heights. We have an ongoing programme of investment in SEO (search engine optimisation) and our current success is testament to this. The most exciting part is that our latest SEO work will not even be released onto our site until next week.

Much of the SEO work carried out by various websites is a long-term investment, as results are often not realised for six months. Beware of listing on sites that draw traffic from sponsored links – although they can increase traffic this way, it is not a long-term investment for them and can be switched off quickly if the site can’t keep up with payments. 

We have been lucky enough to get a sneak preview of some research conducted by The Technology Studio, which reveals NovaLoca.com as the leader of all UK portals and as number 3 in the UK for all commercial property websites in the UK. We will update you when the full league tables are released.

Miranda

Many of you have been loving Novaloca.com’s “pay per property” system and the ease with which charges can be made direct to clients. However, subscriptions that include all properties, automatically fed by an internal system where available, are becoming the favoured alternative.

Quietly released in January 2010, our “new deals” have proved popular. In order to accommodate budgets of all sizes, we are allowing agents to cherry-pick the features they want their listings to contain.

Already this year NB Real Estate, Haslams, Richardson Commercial, Phoenix Beard, Derrick Wade Waters, Anthony J Lewis, Timothy Lea & Griffiths, Maxwell Brown, New Ballerino, Howkins & Harrison and Westbridge & Co have signed up.

Call Chris on 01767 313 380 to get your own tailored quote.

Data collected by the Novaloca.com team shows that our search tools are making our database of available commercial properties for sale and to let even more effective.

Visitors to Novaloca.com are finding exactly what they need more quickly. Each visitor to the site in January 2010 viewed a similar number of pages showing full details of properties on Novaloca.com compared with a year earlier, but a higher percentage of these viewings are becoming leads. In January 2009 an agent needed 51 views of its property details pages to result in a lead but in January this year the figure had dropped to 44, showing that the value of property views has risen by around 13% year-on-year.

And with traffic to the site growing well, the number of leads remains on an upward track. There has been a jump of 45% in the number of unique visitors to Novaloca.com year-on-year as well as continued growth in traffic since the start of 2010 – we have already recorded a 10% increase in site traffic in February compared with the previous month. So while fewer occupiers overall are enquiring about property amid the current economic downturn, the number of enquiries on Novaloca is actually rising.

We have noticed that the number of leads generated per unique visitor is down, perhaps reflecting market conditions, with occupiers interested but not yet ready to commit to a new property. But the good news is that we are attracting so many more unique visitors to the site that this more than compensates for the cautionary climate, as the site is actually delivering 19% more leads to agents.

Agents have told us that with budgets coming under restriction there is generally a lot less money available at the moment for marketing properties in more traditional ways, and this has added to the growing interest in online options, as these are proving to be much more cost-effective.

There are now well over 20,000 properties registered on Novaloca.com including office space, retail properties, industrial units, leisure facilities and land opportunities. To get all your properties listed on NovaLoca call Chris on 01767 313380 or click here to register and start adding properties today.

Miranda

Miranda Munn, MD and founder of Novaloca.com, enjoyed a great evening at the North West Property Awards last week. Here’s her account of the event:

“A great evening was enjoyed at the North West Property Awards at Manchester Central. I shared a table with Jones Lang LaSalle and Blackpool Council, winners of the Town/City of the Year award, among others. I don’t think they expected to win and they were most pleased.

Jason Manford was very funny and I did a lot of laughing – a really great relaxed style with fun interjections throughout the awards. Jason’s co-host coped very well with her amusing partner.

The evening just went too quickly and before I knew it, it was 1.30am. Despite a tempting invitation to “party on” at Panacesa, I removed my ridiculously high heels and walked round the corner to Jurys Inn in my stockinged feet.

If you check out the morning-after photos on Property Week, you may spot a photo of me (number 47 of 48). I’m not sure exactly how I feel about the photo (mysteriously removed for a few hours from the PW site at about midday on Friday…). I guess a photo including my face may not have provided such a clear shot of my necklace!!

Looking forward to the 2010 Property Awards in London in April… hope to see you there. Of course you don’t have to wait until then – contact us at any time and we will help you market your commercial property in the best, most innovative and most cost-effective ways.”

Miranda

Now you really can have your cake and eat it – would you like to know who has browsed your properties, without asking them to register?

We have always had the policy that our site should be fully open for occupiers to browse the listings of available commercial properties for sale and to let. If occupiers were required to register, many would be put off and just leave the site. However, over 60,000 different occupiers visit our site every month. Wouldn’t it be great to know who those people are?

Novaloca is looking into new technology that could do just that. We would identify company names through their IP addresses, and cross-reference those names with the MJM property decision-maker database. The MJM database contains full contact data, including telephone numbers and email addresses, of property decision-makers across the UK.

We may soon be able to offer lists of individuals that have looked at your properties – ready to produce a highly targeted email or direct mailing campaign. This is yet another result of NovaLoca’s dedication to using the latest technology to find occupiers for your buildings. For more information ring us on 0844 3575 260.

The largest speculative industrial unit in South Wales, plus 18 acres of development land for sale, has been bought by the Mabey Group of bridging and steel fabrication companies, for £13m.

The warehouse/distribution building is within the Newhouse Farm distribution park at Severn Crossing in Chepstow and comprises 182,506 sq ft of high-spec space.

Commercial property consultancy groups Lambert Smith Hampton and DTZ acted on behalf of Ciel Properties, which managed the landlord’s interests in the transaction.

According to Website Grader this morning NovaLoca is ranked above EGPropertyLink (EGPL) by a massive 52,971 points.  Website Grader looks at over 50 different variables including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic and site performance.  Also ranked above EGPL by Google (NovaLoca rank 5 and EGPL rank 4) NovaLoca is proud to be the leading commercial property listing website (check out searching for commercial property on our maps and solutions for property searches on agents websites).  We never rest on our laurels and have lots more development work already underway, as surely EGPL and others will be looking to improve.  Watch this space, competition can only be good for all site users!

by Miranda

Events of this kind are always an enjoyable experience: great venue, food, hospitality and of course a day out of the office! No matter what the occasion, every effort is made to ensure the NovaLoca.com stand is on show, and this event was no exception.

Last year saw a team of two NovaLoca cars heading to the Celtic Manor Resort near Newport for two nights (and of course two days!) of Offices 08. It was not such a long road trip for us this time but still, the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London is hardly lacking in grandeur – and the setting meant it was easy for us to attend the event and return home the same day.

Miranda had headed to the Lancaster the previous day to set things up as NovaLoca took up its position on Stand D1. Offices 09 had arrived with the slogan: “Two Events, One Day: Occupiers Equal Value”.

As you can imagine, two events in one day meant a bumper conference programme. With registration opening at 8am and the Office Development Awards 2009 commencing 12 hours later, delegates had a busy day in prospect. A wealth of speakers and a selection of break-out sessions kept attendees entertained, and as a result the exhibition hall was relatively quiet until the refreshment breaks.

I joined Miranda mid-morning, with the day well under way. The morning refreshments had just ended so the hall remained quiet until mouthwatering smells began to emerge from the kitchens just before 1pm. Sure enough the hall began to fill up, and an excellent lunch was enjoyed by all in a relaxed atmosphere. There then followed a short networking break before the afternoon sessions began at 2pm.

The afternoon remained relatively quiet in the exhibition hall, but the Chairman’s closing remarks at 5:30pm signalled the end of the conference programme and gave way to the final and main networking of the day, with many stands in the exhibition hall offering drinks and nibbles.

Having offered an interesting mix of M&Ms and Skittles throughout the day, Stand D1 now moved onto a more refined offering of canapés, with alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and music to match. The reception was quieter than hoped overall, but the Property Week guys did their best to help out! Before long an announcement indicated the start of the awards upstairs in the Nine Kings Suite. This marked the end of my day and the beginning of Miranda’s evening.

Having taken the stand down, I headed for home while Miranda went on to enjoy the drinks reception, award ceremony and evening entertainment, which carried on into the early hours.

NovaLoca is designed very much with the occupier in mind, so if you missed us at Offices 09 remember you need look no further than NovaLoca for all your office space requirements. Look out for the NovaLoca stand at the next commercial property event!

If you have any commercial property to let or for sale, just visit NovaLoca.com or call one of the team on 01767 316 577 to find out how NovaLoca can work for you.

Chris Tembey

The Planning for Prosperity conference on October 15^th 2009, held at the fantastic Grange City venue right by London Bridge, was attended by close to 100 delegates throughout the day. I arrived to man the NovaLoca stand just in time to enjoy the excellent hot food after the last of the morning sessions!

The agenda for the day was: “Planning to ensure delivery, enhance viability and encourage economic recovery” and the conference produced an eclectic mix of exciting and innovative ideas, being discussed by speakers from all parts of the industry.

I managed to take in a couple of the afternoon sessions with approximately 50 others. Some interesting points were made, not least that the national target of building 3 million homes in 2009 is not at present being met.

Of interest to me locally was the expressed hope that GlaxoSmithKline would stay in Stevenage (just down the A1 from our offices in Biggleswade) rather than re-locate across the pond as others had done, in this particular case to Boston, Massachusetts.

The overall feeling was that we should be looking after parts of the country that provide finance to our economy. This makes sense, although in this difficult economic period I suspect there is more to it than simply looking after people, but it’s a good place to start.

Working in the industry I’ve heard about MIPIM (a marketplace for the international property trade) and of course often suggest to Miranda that it is really an event that we should be part of (the photos of Cannes and this beautiful section of the French Riviera will explain why). Comments made at the conference suggested that it wasn’t worth the trip this year, as there wouldn’t be many – if any – deals done. From a purely selfish point of view I wouldn’t have minded going anyway!

At this time of uncertainty it was refreshing to hear people taking a positive outlook and looking to the future with hope. We need to stick together, supporting each other through the current market and seeing it improve in the future. To that end we encourage all those with property and all those looking for property – now or in the future – to look no further than NovaLoca.com.

Whether you are looking for a warehouse space to let or if you need to register an account to market a property, please visit NovaLoca.com or call one of our friendly team on 01767 313 380 for more information.

Live long and prosper! Chris Tembey

Interested to hear how the government plans to stimulate growth through the English planning system, NovaLoca will be attending the Planning for Prosperity Conference in Tower Hill today.  NovaLoca was designed with occupiers in mind and provides easy access to and communication within the commercial property market.  Making life easier for business owners (and not charging them any money to do it) is our way of helping businesses to prosper, so look out for our stand and the lovely Chris Tembey who will be attending on behalf of NovaLoca, available to answer any questions or explain why NovaLoca is the best commercial property listing website in the UK (and probably the world…)!