Property ManagementHow to Choose Your First Web Site
When you are considering getting a web site on the Internet,
you have many alternatives. Which one is best for you?
Web sites are far more than just places to advertise yourself
or your properties. Done right, you can create a brilliant
showcase of the total real estate solution you offer to your
customers.
Other columns have dealt with what makes a web site effective,
how to achieve high rankings in search engines, basic marketing
and more.
But what about the creation and maintenance of the site itself?
What fully turn-key solutions are available?
Many designers offer complete packages for the real estate agent
who wants to make their mark on the Internet. Several places you
can consider include:
Best Image is a complete
real estate solution that, along with a real estate web site,
offers personalized marketing, ranging from advertorials (negotiating
columns on your behalf) to their
Number One site which lists the top real estate agents for
particular areas to their intensive marketing that drives customers
to the sites they design. Most impressive.
PropertySitePro
is another real estate web site service provider. They have
produced highly individualized sites such Dirk Zeller"s
Real Estate
Champions and The
Real Estae Company of Key West, Inc.
Homes.com, the
publishers of Homes & Land Magazine, has a new offering called
Preferred Pages. What"s
rather cool about this service is they offer single-touch look
and feel changes - in other words, the agent can change the look
and feel of their web site while retaining the same informational
content.
Expose Real
Estate Web Application - this product gives you an interface to
add/delete/ modify properties, generate flyers for you to fax to
prospective customers, and more.
Realty.com is another service
that is dedicated towards producing sites specifically geared towards
real estate. They also provide seminars to give pointers about
the Internet.
And don"t forget about the great deal offered by Realtor.com
which also provides webpages and hosting for around $250/year.
Many agents choose to have more than one Web site, one from Realtor.com and
another from other sources as listed above.
Of course, the above certainly are not the only alternatives you
have! However, you certainly should check them out and learn
what"s available should you ever want to find a turnkey solution.
Finally, whenever choosing either a complete Internet turnkey
solution or web site design, remember to ask the following key
questions. They will save you much pain.
1.) How will my customers find me? (Note, it"s not how people
will find me, you want a specifically targeted audience.)
2.) What about search engine visibility? (The potential designer
should talk about components of marketing, including optimal page
design, newsgroup visibility, keywords, etc.)
3.) Price? (Don"t be hung up on choosing the cheapest solution.
Remember, your web site will be around for months or years on end -
you want to ensure you get the quality you need. Buying solely
based upon price will come back to haunt you if you need a complete
site redo later on.
4.) Customer satisfaction/guarantee. Reputable designers will
tell you upfront what to expect, and guarantee their deliverables.
5.) Happy customer testimonials. Always! Be sure to check out
other sites developed, and talk with the clients to see why they
are happy. Happy clients are generally quite willing to sing the
praises of their website designers.
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