Hello everyone. I just registered on here after reading all the friendly and supportive posts and replies. Looks like a great place for info and opinions...

Anyway, this question I have is really for those that have their own website. I'm pretty decent with working on websites. I have a few already, nothing real estate related.

So, I've seen a lot of website templates that you can purchase online. I was wondering if anyone had a suggestion for a particular place to purchase one? I guess my questions are as follows for anyone that might know and has the time...

A. Is there a template that works really well? I can customize it with my own logo and give it my own look?

B. Once it's up and running do these templates have the ability to add listings easily? Do any of them have a control panel or something to make it very simple to add listing descriptions and photos of the listings so I could just fill in the blanks and create a nice looking listing on my site?

C. Is there anything else I should know before making a website? What important info should be on there? Different sections etc? Are there little things like mortgage calculators and an 'about me' section that one should not be without?

Thanks in advance, I appreciate any advice!
Brian

PUrchasing a Point2Agent.com website will give you what you need at a reasonable cost - buying the upgraded version may give you more power over the structure of the site for SEO purposes.

Thanks for the suggestion. It looks like you get 6 months free and then you pay them monthly? I have my own webserver and would really love to make my own site and not depend on another service once I have it up and running.

I am a Point2Agent user. I can build my own website too, but the P2A features far exceeded my current skills. Particularly useful for me:

The handshake feature allows you to display the listings of others who've agreed to the handshake, so you've always got listings displaying on your site whether you have listing or not.

The syndication feature gets your listings on several other websites with one entry into your P2A site.

Also, if you're pretty handy with SEO, it can work well for you.

There's my two cents. Don't spend it all in one place!

Be unique. Google penalizes duplicate, like point2agent...

^^That's why I suggested to purchase the upgraded version; can't you edit the template then the way you want?

I don't use Point2 as I make my own site and am happy with it but it was a LOT of work and took hours and hours of time to learn.

My website is template. But I have taken the time to build pages upon pages of good information for my site. I never liked the canned website but it truly is the fastest way of having good enough information out there.

I have html knowledge. And it would take me forever to build my website to where it is now.

I figured that my priority is to sell real estate, not spend my time building my website. Building the content, yes. But not the actual HTML coding. Also flash and dreamweaver websites look very cool, but they do not mean a thing to google and other search engines. All said and done, we want to sell real estate, not to have a cool looking website with no lead generation capabilities.

I think rolling your own website is the way to go for lots of reasons.

My suggestion is this:

- get a provider who has fantastico installed
- Use fantastico to install Joomla 1.5 (It is content management software)
- Then go find yourself some templates for Joomla 1.5. There are free ones and ones you can pay for. www.rocketthemes.com is a good place.

That is how I did mine and I have been able to nearly get it to where I want it to be. I place exceptionally well on the search engines for the searches I care about and just about all my business so far over the last 11 months has been from my site.

R

I am currently using Ubertor on a recommendation from poster on this board, pricing isnt bad but it is a little "templaty" if you know what I mean. I am not creative at all so I needed something that does most of the work for me. I was looking at the Top Producer sites when I get more business.

I use Ubertor (did I recommend it?) and I've been told my site looks very un-templatey and unique. Maybe, maybe not... but definitely better than the standard agent sites.

www.charmingolddenver.com

Nicely done.

Yours does look very good, I am trying to tweak mine but I am seriously lacking in the creativity and design department.

Thanks... but believe me, I'm not much good with it either. The only real design element I did was the banner (which wasn't all that hard - I created it in Publisher).

Well I have been trying to "jazz up" my site while maintaining a professional look. I think that it looks much better now, but am still envious of a lot of the ones out there!

Now my only issue is search engine rankings - I really dont understand this SEO business, and I have read so much about it. Do I need to do a pay for click type thing? Or just wait it out and hope I show up somewhere in the top 100 sites?

Anyone do their own site in drupal? If so what modules did you use?