Hello everyone!

Im new to real estate and i am looking to start up my own site like many people already have. I personally am not too technologically savvy and am looking to purchase a template from

http://www.templatemonster.com/

and was wondering if anyone have had previous experience with purchasing a already made template?

I also am conufused about the diffferences of
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Website Templates
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Flash Templates
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Flash CMS Templates
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Flash Intro Templates
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Flash Photo Gallery Templates
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SWiSH Templates

and what the differences between each of these are. Please advice me on which is considered to be the fastest to upload

Hello,

I will start by saying everyone is going to have a different opinion on what to use and this is simply mine. I come from the mind set that for a Real Estate web site the most important thing is your IDX. People are searching for homes for sale and not an agent (because most don't know why they need an agent) so I believe you need to give them what they want to even get the opportunity to earn their business and show them your value.

Now for your site I would not even look anything but a word press site. There are tons of options custom and templates for you to choose from and as for IDX you will have many options as well my favorit is divers solutions (no affiliation). Word press will also give you a blog with your site so you will kill 2 birds with 1 stone if you choose to blog. Word press is one of the easiest platforms to optimize for page 1 placement and very easy to use with tons of video instructions online.

I could write a book on here about this subject and will not today, if you want to know more feel free to PM me or even call if you want to and I will be happy to share with you what I think and know.

Best of luck and great to see you reaching out in the forum, it's pretty cool that we have tools like this.

To quickly respond (short on time), stay away from Flash. Although it might look 'pretty', it does nothing for you as far SEO is concerned. Jim recommended a WP site and I'd say that for a newbie it would probably be the easiest platform to use/optimize. But set realistic expectations (Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is a #1 ranking site). I will write more input on this thread later. Best of luck.

I agree with maui real estate, Flash does nothing for your SEO. It's nice and pretty, but the search engines cannot read it at all. If you really need to use it, use it sparingly like on 1 element on the homepage.

Regardless of who you end up using, I highly highly recommend you get on a wordpress.org platform.

On the IDX front, I'd recommend taking a look at Diverse Solutions.

If you do go with a template, be aware that you will need to rewrite all of the text provided with the template if your goal is to rank well in search. Duplicate content on template sites is penalized if you don't rewrite it. I have a template site, and rewriting was not a big deal to me. I also have a Wordpress blog, and next website will be Wordpress. I do like a lot of the features provided by the template site. I went with Point2 Agent. I like how they rank well to bring traffic to listings, and on top of it, I can work on my separate website, integrated with Point2.

I am totally biased as I am an Approved Vendor for a company called Ubertor, but after looking at all of the options they offer a template that is customizable and a control panel that lets you do all of the updating and loading of listings. Most importantly they are a magnet for search engines and with the proper care and feeding you can rank on page one organically.

The first 4 months is $ 1.00 (through a vendor) and subsequent months are $ 37.00 for 5 listings or less and there is no contract. Keep in mind free websites carry a price.

So are the listings indexable on these sites? If not what makes them a magnet for the search engines?

Yes, flash is nice but sucks for SEO. Stick with a simple HTML template that you can change the META description tag and the title tag. Those are the most important things for SEO as well as getting links from other places. (Ok SEO is a little more complex than that but this is a good place to start)

Also, if I happen to be driving around with my iPhone looking online for houses for sale then you your flash site it gonna be useless unless the site has a fall back for mobile devices that can't display flash. (Yes, yes Steve and Flash on the iPhone but it's a reality that we have to deal with so say what you want)

Wordpress is nice, Tumblr may be easier to use.

Richard
Jacana.net (Web Development / SEO)

Jim:

The secret seems to be a combination of the use of H1 tags in their blog posts and an SEO package that lets you create the Page Title and Description for each page. I know that doesn't sound like much of a secret, but I can blog on a topic such as North Vancouver New Listings and within a week be on page one of a Google search for that term without quotations.

Trick is to have unique content on your pages. Each page title and description should reflect what is in the page.

I would stay away from templates purchased off the web. I have used several and they are quite sophisticated now and take some amount of web development/authoring to customize. It is not just replacing text.

Wordpress is great for starters. If you want something more sophisticated, I suggest you find someone who support RE websites that are specialists in your particular needs.

I agree. So many real estate agents try to do it themselves to save money, but in my mind, the ROI on that process just doesn't make any sense.

http://www.geekestateblog.com/the-roi-of-setting-up-wordpress-yourself/

Drew,

I could not agree more. It is amazing to me how many people don't put an ROI on their own time spent doing a task. I watch people spend weeks and weeks to try and figure something out and end up paying for it to get finished right anyway.

If I spend 3 or 4 days of wasted time I lose much more than the $500 or $1000 I would spend just having a pro do it for me.

Jim-
Curious your experience with your ar outside blog? Does it generate business?

Hello,

Absolutely! it brings us in about 8 - 10 referrals a year from other agents and what it does for our web traffic for natural search results is nothing short of amazing. A lot of times for long tail searches we will be on page 1 of G 3 to 5 times, 1) our main website 2) our AR inside blog 3) our AR out side blog 4) our AR team Blog 5) our WP blog. This drives great targeted traffic to our site.

There are a lot of great tips and techniques that make this possible for us, not to mention a ton of networking and high quality blogging to get these results. I do talk with people who are not happy with AR and after seeing what they do in there I know why they don't succeed. Everything take quality, consistency and work. If you are willing to invest these things than you will reap the rewards and to me it beats the pants off of cold calling or door knocking and I have done them both.

if you have any questions on how to use these just hit me up any time and I am always happy to assist, I even think there is a thread about it in ere and AR gives great training as well. If you do jump in find our blog and lets network in there as well.
Seattle Homes for Sale