While I do agree that a niche is a great way to dominate a segment of the market, is it better to set up a completely separate wab site for the niche, or just add a landing page for each niche within the main site, with a separate URL to take someone directly to that page?

I am hoping to not have to maintain more than one complete website. All opinions welcome!

Maybe I should have said ANY opinions welcome!

I thought about this too and I tnow there are two different schools of thought.

I was going to make a bunch of niche websites for different areas in my community. Then I decided to just put pages on my existing website.

But I've done neither, as my single blog has been getting me plenty of leads - I haven't had TIME to develop a niche. LOL

I have an agent in my office, no slouch, a pretty good hitter...She promotes herself thusly, residential, commercial, foreclosures, property management,, land specialist, investments, 1031 exchanges, notery, short sales, etc.

It looks like the forum list on the board. I don't do the web, so I cannot speak to it directly, but I always thought she fractured herself. Jack of all trades, master of none--you know.

I suppose if you niched out within reason it would make sense, but too much and you lose your target audience.

I don't do that kind of "niching" - and I do not solicit REOs really. I have an IDX link for various saved searches for different areas in my community - being in a resort community means we have several different HOA's w/ particular amenities that appeal to people. So I have a link for the most popular communities and the link goes to a page w/ a description of the community and the listings available.

Some agents try to niche in one particular community - and they actually do OK until that particular communityloses popularity for some reason or other.

If you go to my website you can see what I mean - I may not be explaining it right. LOL.

CLICK HERE

Then I further fine tune it w/ my blog. I don't get into 1031's or things like being a notary, I avoid commercial thought I have an IDX lik for it...no rentals...and am not really into land that much....nor do REO's though I have sold a few.

Thanks for the feedback! I initially wanted to develop a couple of niche markets, and still do, but don't want to abandon my general real estate business.

I heard a trainer suggest getting a URL for each niche (one at a time, I assume), and make a landing page within the current web site that looks like a completely separate site, but it's really a site within a site.

Droll, good question/topic. I have seen in my market a few agents who have been developing niche sites and I toyed around with the idea and decided against it. Instead, I add the pages/content to my existing site. The reasoning/logic behind is that it'd be more difficult to build up trust/PR on separate sites (and the cost/labor that goes with it) and by continuing to add content to my own site, it builds its credibility and authority which would be reflected on SERPs. I have seen an agent with over 10 different sites, not sure how it's working out for him in regards to getting leads (and they do well on the SERPs, typically on the first page of G) but so far this year he hasn't recorded a single deal.

I agree with those that came before me and really think it is going to depend on how much time you have to make an entirely new site gain the authority it needs to rank well in search engines. If you do not have the time or dire need then make a landing page on your current site.

Making another site for a different niche is a good idea but a lot of work. You can still make it work by adding a page for a specific niche to your current site. I'm not sure if you are doing the work needed to get your site to the top of google but if you are you should know how much more work it will be with multiple sites.

From an online marketing standpoint, I think niching your webpages is very important in communicating to the visitor. So for example, if your realty did residential, commercial, and foreclosures, it would be wise to create separate landing page for each real estate niche. You would still have a main website that talks about you, your realty, your listings, etc, but these landing pages are designed to target a specific group of visitors. You wouldn't want to display content meant for residential prospects to commercial property prospects. These landing pages would all be on the same domain, but are meant to tell the respective visitors that you know EXACTLY what they want and will deliver it.

That's certainly a viable strategy - for instance Partners Trust (disclosure: they are a client of Virtual Results) has about 20 hyper local blogs built into the main site; each has it's own URL that directs to a specific blog.

Definitely a strategy I would recommend if you have the time to maintain them and the technical expertise to implement it correctly.