I have been in the real estate sales business for a couple years now, and am very pleased with the Point2Agent system. They provide REALTORS like myself with a complete web marketing solution, database, customizable website, message board, online training to better your performance, and so much more. Visit my website to get an idea of what I have done with my point2agent site.

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR, e-PRO
Keller Williams Town and Country Realty
Tallahassee, Florida
http://KennethFach.com ken@kennethfach.com

Each office is independently owned and operated.

I use Point2Agent, too, and am very happy with it.

http://www.realestatewithblake.com

Cookie Cutter websites - yuccccckkkk... They are a dime a dozen and may work for some people, but for people who want real internet exposure you need to make or have a professional developer make your own custom site. Or better yet, invest some time and do it yourself for complete control.

http://www.CentralCTProperties.com

Hello, I'm new in the business, what it takes to get my own website besides creating it for myself or paying to a professional to do it. Do I need my broker's permission or I just need to go for it? Any other considerations?

it's not about using a cookie cutter site or not (after all an average customer will not know it's a cookie cutter because they haven't seen 100 other sites with the same design)
it's about usability of the site.
i come to this business from high tech where part of my job was usability testing of software and web sites.

Keneth, you can make your site even more usefull if you had less links, less text, and formatted it differently. Currently it's just too much. if you are interested in some more feedback PM me and i'll email you.

It's not about what template you guys are using but it's about how it looks after it's done.

Don't try to say everything under the sun on your side. quite the oposite. think of what a customer will want to see or ask and answer that. Not more than that

Thanks for your reply Zhenya. I guess I do have to much on my site. It is hard to determine what I want and what I don't want, since I feel compelled to spill it all out. I appreciate your feedback. What do you think I could do to make it more attractive. I want to be unique, and not show what everyone else shows if possible, but I agree with you, that consumers are not going to take the time to determine if sites are cookie cutter or not. They are not in the real estate business to know that like we are. Consumers are not conscious of making real estate sites, but we are. I do specialize in ranch style homes and first time homebuyers, and would like to develope my site around those two niches. Any ideas are appreciated.

put yourself in a position of a consumer looking at your site.

first of all how did they get there? searching for any real estate agent on Google and coming across your site or did they have your business card or did someone give them the link or did they see your ad somewhere and wanted to check it out.

I would say those four groups would represent the majority of consumers. lets analyze each one of them.

1. Random search on Google (or any other site). You may want to use a landing page other than your home page. because attention span of this consumer is VERY short. I mean it's about a second. they will scan your site and determine to read it or click BACK. how do they determine it? they are scanning for keywords. so you need to write a copy that is exactly tailored for them. for example you are a realtor in Los Angeles. You want very little text that says "I am a real estate agent in Los Angeles with X years of experience. I specialize in finding right homes for my buyers. blah blah blah. (Don't use this as an exact text, it's just meant to be an example). What you achieve by that. very simple. if they are not looking to buy in Los Angeles they are gone within one second and it's OK with you because they are not a lead anyway. if they are looking for LA area homes you just got their attention (assuming of course your text is well written). in fact you may have to have multiple landing pages different for people searching for HOME SALE LOS ANGELES or HOME PURCHASE LOS ANGELES (again there a lot more keywords that one would use)

bottom line for this type of a visitor. Get their attention very quickly and slowly reel them in to explore information on your site which should include basic information about you and your services.

2. Someone who knows you or has your business card.
These group is probably checking your out. They are already sold on your or at least presold. after all if they weren't they wouldn't spend a second of their time visiting your site. These people are looking for information about your services and reassurance why they should be working with you. Again site should be fairly simple talking about what you do and how good your are.

3. Someone got your link from a friend. Really rules are the same as in number 2. They are probably presold. Your friend told them how good you are. If not they wouldn't be looking.

4. They got your web site from an ad.
This is the most complicated one. Here is why. The rules of #1 apply, but you don't have the luxury of using landing pages. You have two options. You can actually register another domain and advertise that on ads while advertising your main site on your cards or you can just design your home page so it meets requirements of both #1 and #2.

In any case you probably want to consult a professional web designer to help you with the site.

Here are few more general rules.
Main/Home page. You don't want that to be scrollable. It's a welcome page. it's a way to invite people in not to scare them away

Menu. Keep them down to 5-6. Group things together. Don't have to many doors for people to enter. they will actually get confused and not enter any.

Links. Minimise links taking people to other sites. They came to visit you. why do you send them elsewhere right away.

Fonts. Only use one font on the entire site. don't switch them. Find one and stick to it.

Good luck with your site.

Zhenya

Thanks for going to all the trouble of preparing fantastic ideas to improve my site. I highly honor your suggestions or advice and I do plan on cleaning up my site to get it in better order. Many thanks again. Wow, this is very helpful.

I have used point2 for a good 4 years, have my own personal sitre and I built our company site on there, I have had customers from c21 come to my open houses and say I love your site better then anyone elses. Everyone else in town has the professinal built sites. We can do alot with our site, including great referral system, there linked with great search engines, yahoo and many others hve been added now, they add more better features all the time. I researched many companies, why pay hundreds to thousands for someone to build you a site when you can do it yourself and it isnt based on how many pages you wnat to add, the formats get better all the time and can look very nice if you put effort into making it nice...These sites are designed for real estate only, rather then hire someone that knows nothing about what we need or want. We get alot of compliments on the size of the pics and that you can have 24 or more pics of each listing. Our sellers love that they can login and see traffic to there home, we can see what our future clients are viewing and contact them to see homes, we get alot of emails from our website.Most come from finding us off search engines..So cookie cutter it aint...Guess he is jeolous, mustve paid too much for a site to a web developer....I use to work at c21 and that boss spent thousands for his, and we pay small monthly fee for our site and there customers prefer our site, hmmmmm so who's cookie cutter....Have you ever heard of searching by town on google or yellowpages.com sites do pop up on there, or realtor.com....Do your homework before you judge Carl...How nice a point2 site is up to perosn that builds it, they can alot of flash if you wnat, but then alot of buyers with slow puter cant load them. Gotta keep them somewhat simple for the old puters or slow internet connections...

mnrealtormom,

what website company do you use? it sounds nice.

Try AgentBIZ.Com -they are very big in Atlanta And seem to have everything that you are Looking for ----

Advanced Access is rolling out the new 4.0 soon. Definatly something to consider.

"So cookie cutter it aint...Guess he is jeolous, mustve paid too much for a site to a web developer....I use to work at c21 and that boss spent thousands for his, and we pay small monthly fee for our site and there customers prefer our site, hmmmmm so who's cookie cutter....Have you ever heard of searching by town on google or yellowpages.com sites do pop up on there, or realtor.com....Do your homework before you judge Carl...How nice a point2 site is up to perosn that builds it, they can alot of flash if you wnat, but then alot of buyers with slow puter cant load them."

Well cookie cutter it is RealtorMom Jenny. I did not pay big bucks for my site, It is designed and maintained by me and only costs me 60.00 per year. I have close to 15 years in working with the internet so I am not jealous nor have I paid nearly what you have paid for your point2crap.. And the clients you are trying to harvest on the web are not stupid. They can tell cookie cutter apart and have told me they like how my site is different from the rest of the agents sites out there... Interesting how we didnt get a link to your site...

Zhenya - Great Advice! You really need to put yourself in the seat of the end-user. That is the only person that matters!

http://www.CentralCTProperties.com

BTW - I could add a thousand pictures if I want and I also make my own virtual tours....

And as a sidenote you should all check out the ActiveRain Real Estate Network for great blogs and discussion!!

http://activerain.com/action/referrals/carlguild

I actualy think everyone who posted links have great sites - no one could really tell they were cookie cutter if you didn't know all the other people using them - and honestly - who cares if they are - they are personalized to you and that's all that counts. I agree with everything Zhenya said - great advice.

Carl - I like your site - I'm actually in Meriden CT - just starting out... but once thing I noticed is you don't have a link to search for MLS listed homes until you click on listings - and even then it looks like an ad at the top - not text. Nowadays when I see a picture like that telling me to click I get nervous that it's an ad that will cause popups or spyware - and cnosumers are definitely more scared then I am to click on stuff like that. Also, as a buyer - personally I'd be turned off by that - I don't want to se a few homes - I want to see them all.

But otherwise great job. Like I said I'm just starting out but once I take the course and pass everything I had planned on doing something very similar as I do web design - nothing fancy like flash, but that's annoying to have anyway .

You said you do your own virtual tours - do you use any particular software for that or are you a graphic designer/videographer or something?

Thx
Rae