Is Wordpress the best source for developing single property websites and small niche sites, without spending a ton of $$$?

I'm hearing a lot of pros and cons to this method, all from internet "gurus" (usually with another silver bullet to sell), but one method must have some advantage over another.

Your opinions??

The Wordpress blog, especially when using a real estate theme that allows you to easily input listings is a perfect for single property "websites". Also good for niche "sites" - just post an article in the blog that is about the niche.

Once your blog is established and Google becomes aware of it, Google treats whatever you write in it as "news" that must be available in the search results right away - just like the news from conventional news sources. That means that your listing or article will be found in Google within hours of being posted. Conventional websites do not have the same advantage.

Anyone searching for the property by address or keywords relating to the niche would find your listings and articles ranked very highly right away because of the "news" factor and the existing Google Page Rank and authority inherited from the blog.

If you created a single property website in a new domain it could potentially take months to reach the same ranking that your blog post can have in hours.

As for costs - http://www.real-estate-blogs.com provides Wordpress blogs for free using a platform that makes it easy to input your listings. The site has high Google Page Rank (ranks # 1 in Google for "real estate blogs") and some of that gets passed on to the new blog you create which makes it easier and faster for your new blog and posts to begin ranking than if you start a blog in a new domain.

I use it for my niche site and I find it to be VERY easy to use. I have enjoyed my experience with it thus far.

I agree. WordPress is very easy to use. Just type up what you want and post. No need to know any html at all.

I'm loving Wordpress too. It's a little tricky to set it up, (self hosted), but worth it. So easy to use and change and add things to. Here's my new one: http://www.calgaryareavalue.info

I was actually debating on starting a business geared toward marketing single home website for higher end homes. Has any one had any success with using a website for a single home in marketing it?

I assume the value wouldn't be from the search engine marketing but from giving the unique URL to people with a lot of pictures, walk-through's, and information about the home.

Becky-
You can accomplish the same thing by creating a listing page on your site with pictures, walk throughs, walk score, virtual tour, etc, and then redirecting a url (such as www.123cherryaveseattlewa.com) straight to that page.

That is interesting. Are you aware of any businesses based on creating individual sites? I would think it could be marketable to higher end agents.

Yes, there are a number of them out there. Agency Logic is one of them I'm more familiar with - the President of that company is actually a friend of mine. Or ListingDomains.com is another one.

I've used several CMSes and Wordpress is one of my favorites because you can easily customize it without going through a huge learning curve like other platforms. Plugins are easy to install and you can get by 80% without using code.

Niche sites can bear remarkable results.

I have developed several.

Excellent for long tail - very specific search terms and building strong relationships.

Dave

Canadave is right on the money. Developing niche sites can attract traffic that is bears better conversion rates. That can be attributed to visitors who are further along in the real estate search and have narrowed down their focus to more specific areas.

And to answer Droll's question, WP can be a very powerful platform on which to launch single property sites, as well as niche-targeted sites.

I use epropertysites and it easily walks me through setting up a personal home website, adding pictures for a gallery, setting up my virtual tours and then generates all the links I need for the MLS and any other marketing I want... also creates a personal website for the home and more. I like using it. It makes auto generated pages for CraigsList and coding for Backpage and other classified sites.

On my niche site, I set it up so after people look at 5 different listings, then a lead box pops up where they are required to make an account to view more properties. I don't ask for much information, just name, email and number. But then the potential client is allowed to save searches and then I also have a lead from it. Do many of you do this? If so, how many clicks do you allow before asking for their information? Are you finding hot leads from this?

I am requiring the same thing through IDX broker on my wordpress site. It requires sign-up info after 2 searches or details of a property I believe. Only had it about 2 weeks so far and have had about 6-8 leads from it. Site is fairly new as well, just shy of 6 months so I'm happy. We'll see how good the leads actually are.

Wow bfisher, that's really impressive. I don't have my site totally set up yet... I'm still working on that. However the search option is readily available. I haven't gotten any leads yet. Good luck with those 6-8 leads turning into something!

I would have to agree with the rest of the gang. Take a look at this one soundinvestmentsgroup.com

I created this page with simple HTML (Dreamweaver) -- [url=http://33eagles.com]33 Eagles, Boulder CO.[/url] I charged the realtor $199 for the site, a years hosting, custom URL and the HD video too!!! (I probably should of charged a little more)

I also do Drupal and Wordpress which may be overkill for what most people need but Wordpress would probably be easier for not tech folks to use although you still have to have a basic level of understanding. You may also want to check out Tumblr, also blogging software and free I believe.

I definitely think you should have some video on the site, everyone loves watching video and you can host it for free on Youtube although Youtube has ads sometime. Anyway just my 2c and shameless self promotion :) Let me know if you guys have any questions about Wordpress / Drupal or Video.

Cheers
Richard
Jacana Productions - [url=http://www.JacanaProductions.com]Jacana Productions[/url]

I am starting to use face book fan pages for every listing, People are really in to the idea and it is a simple way to set them up. I just started and will be happy to keep you updated with my success of if it flops.

I have a facebook fan page for myself and I have a tab called "Homes for Sale" and it has all my current listings there. I also post my new listings, price changes, photo changes, etc... on the fan page wall. How do you get the word out about the home fan page once you create it? What do you do with it? Do you think it's better to create an individual page for each home rather than to compile all listings? I've considered doing what you do... so I'm very interested. Here is the fan page: My fan page