Montanaland,
It really isn't an "either or" thing - you should probably do both. The thing is that you need a website that will become successful with little or no work on your part - not a do-it-yourselfer like you have now.

Your current site doesn't even have a Title tag - or anything else for that matter that is required to rank well in search engines. To be successful you need to consider a proven successful package - not a do-it-yourself, time consuming, hit-and-miss lifetime project

I appreciate your take on my website. I agree it is a build-it-yourself model. I really like link u realty's product, but I have seen some of their clients divulge=wrong word [how about "Engulf"] tons of time and money into thier "template". At 30$ a month, with no results- I can't see the use for that website in my sparsely of a populated area. The one firm that does manually drive traffic to their site uses a successwebsite which is a proven website package. Again, I will take your advice and cancel that do-it-yourself nightmare... Thanks

P.S. Do you by chance have any suggestions for a quality website?

Doug is a webmaster and does quality work including SEO on real estate websites.

On an unrelated note the word for the day is "divulge" at:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=divulge

Quote:
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I can't see the use for that website in my sparsely of a populated area
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I am looking for property in Montana. If I could browse yours on the Net, you may end up with a new lead. I browsed the realtors sites in Philipsburg for quite some time. A few months ago I followed up with one of them and requested a packet of info in the mail. The Philipsburg sites may not be pretty to look at, but they do provide info and decent pics of the properties out there. It really doesn't take much.

Hi TechMonkey-

Philipsburg is on the this side (eastern) side of Missoula off the I-95 interstate. -I think As for my website I was going to have a IDX link for my MLS only, but we do set people up with auto-notification from are Interrealty mls site.

If you would like- I could make a call for you and try to get you set up with aout-search from a realtor up there, or you could too. Let me know. Thanks DM

There was a great quote by Michael Russer, aka Mr. Internet who is a fantastic RE coach. He explained, when you do your own website, marketing, search engine optimization, etc. "you're paying top dollar for amateur results."

If you're spending an hour trying to design a website without the knowledge and tricks of the trade when you could be out selling a property....the numbers just don't add up.

Also, someone asked how often you should re-submit your website to the search engines before you get in trouble for 'spamming.'

You don't have to submit your site at all as long as one other website in the search engine index links to your site. In other words, if an established site links to yours - you don't have to submit. I've designed a handful of brand new sites and I didn't submit any of them to Google, but they're all indexed and climbing in rank.

An agent should feel comfortable about hiring a fellow entrepreneur to help grow their business. A good designer/SEO expert and build it and get it seen, then you could hire a Virtual Assistant to help you develop systems for capturing leads and working them, you then are so busy you need more help to manage listings and transactions....voila!

It does happen...a client that came to me last year at his wits end and discouraged is now about to hire me full time because he is so overwhelmed with work and referrals from other agents.

Outsource, delegate! It's a good thing for everyone.

I'm all for paying someone to do a better job than I can do myself, but being a new agent I only have so much money in the bank so I did many of my own websites and printing and such.

I'm sure a professional butler, live-in maid and gardner could do house chores for my wife and I better than we ever could...but we have smarter ways to spend our money right now.

(P.S. Montana, I believe the word you're looking for is "expend.")

Just seeing how the other half lives. the market of SEO for real estate is growing and has huge potential from the geeks point of view. So many markets featuring unique keywords for such a big ticket item that is constantly turning over. We just started a new project for Rent to own charlotte keyword at NCown.com. we created an arrangement for every lead generated and have only been live for about 3 weeks. We have produced about 112 buyer leads for this client to date and it appears about 9-12 will likely work out. We have devised a per lead received model and a per lead successfully used model and worked with both so far. We are on page 1 of all search engines for Rent to own Charlotte, and we are on page #1 for "rent to own" on Yahoo and MSN beta and that is out of 14 Million and 26 Million pages. We have over 400 top 5 listings in the first month. There is no secret weapon, but it takes time and energy, clean page design with all the important elements that each engine is looking for. We work text density to the right percentage, and have generated thousands of incoming links to raise the sites ranking strength through exchanges with realtors. We submit to directories for a few hours every day. Again it is good on page content, type, and off-page linking and building of apparent importance.

There are many rumors of Realtor market being treated in a unique fashion by SE's as they present a coopertive link exchanging pattern or sorts. It is indeed a difficult market when speaking of google the major player.

If you choose to go it alone

Choose your target phrase with every page you add to your site. No page should go live without an intended phrase in mind.

make sure that phrase is in the title tag and in the Heading 1 tag everytime, also I would include it in some form in the heading 2 tags throughout.

Make sure the target phrase falls into your image alt tags and image ID's. Add a < !--- comment before each major page section with the keyword inside of the comments as well.--->

STORE YOU SCRIPTS in a seperate file to keep the page size down and uncluttered. Your fancy mouseover effects will be a "tree in the forest" if the huge code it requires ruins your page ranking.

USE CSS and not tables if you have a choice.

Use alot of body content

Make sure the keyword you are targeting falls with a significant occurance percentage as compared to others. There is rumor of a magic percentage...but that dont fly with us. The key is to seperate the phrase from the page. If you have 3% 5% or 10% just make sure the next most frquent occuring term is significantly lower. If you are not sure about this...Id be happy to run your page through our software here and let you know where your page stands, just takes a second.

As far as this keyord per page concept above, a keyword is like our own Lease to own charlotte , and not a keyword like "HOMES".
If you are not sure what your market searches you can see the OVERTURE search tool here.

inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/


Links from everywhere relevent - NUMERO UNO

if all ths fails, or you have a market term you would like to go after drop us a line. We do SEO work for sporting and ticket markets, and have moved into realty related markets for the obvious big ticket turn-over. Drop us a question anytime.
Mike@ - NOT THIS - hoptoo.com or
Mike@ - NOT THIS - NCown.com

we are going to test run into 4 to 5 new markets this month with hopes of a 2-3 month development time for each to get steady positioning. Either way happy to field any emails.

My approach and my focus in online marketing is based on your understanding of people searching for listings online; hardly ever agents. I believe that is absolutely correct; buyers and sellers hardly ever go online to find an agent, they go online to look for houses to buy (and sell).

The first thing people have to do in order to do business with you on the www is to find you.

I believe most find you through looking via a search engine and a small percentage via a direct URL, i.e. seeing your website in a print ad or sign rider and typing the URL into their address bar.

I use a combination of a search engine optimization specialist who has been doing my Website for several years now and some pay per click on Overture and Google.

My search engine guy is Ed Robisheaux and he has been doing a great job for me over 5 years now.
http://www.erpositioning.com/

Once you get em there you have to first deliver what they're looking for to keep em there and second deliver enough useful information to them to cause them to come back.

Starting from this premise I make our entire Multiple Listing Service (MLS) inventory available via my Association's IDX solution.

Next I first guessed, and then started asking customers and clients that contacted me online what they were looking for, what they needed, and what caused them to contact me to help with their real estate needs.

I built, and still tweak my website to deliver what customers and clients said attracted them to start with and caused them to contact me.

Listings are all important and if you can't deliver at least a significant number of current, active listings in your area you may attract potential clients but I don't think you'll retain very many nor get them back for other visits.

Next schools are a big deal for potential buyers, especially the out of town ones, so I have both a link to our local school systems and a link to a school reporting service where people can go to compare schools in terms of test scores, school activities, etc.

Lots of people are also looking for a job for either them, their spouse, or both so I have some links to area employment sites.

I believe my site also attracts sellers so I have a free newsletter that delivers the most recent sales in their area every other month. There are also lots of selling tips and an offer for a free CMA to attract potential sellers as listings.

I have a FSBO link where when I contact FSBOs as potential listings I can offer to put them on my site as a free service which causes them to see me as the "good guy Realtor" when they get ready to list and about 80% of FSBOs end up listing. This link is also a good 'door' opener' when I call on a FSBO to try and list them.

I have some "FREE STUFF" (recent sales in your area, school reports, CMA, etc.) which all involves giving me your contact information to get.

There are links to area restaurants, things to do in my city and the general area.

A link to a weather site so you'll know what sort of clothes to bring if you come for a visit; out of town buyers like this.

A short history of my town with some tidbits lots of people don't know, i.e. Knoxville was named after Henry Knox, George Washington's first Secretary of War, Knoxville was established as a city in 1791, etc., etc.

There a section titled "Moving In" that has information about where to go to get your utilities connected, register to vote, driver's license, and housekeeping stuff like that.

I've been running my website in it's current form for about 10 years now and it has brought me literally tons of business and is my primary method of prospecting for buyers and sellers.

I designed the basic layout and my webmaster and I continually tweak it to keep up updated and to deliver what I believe people work. However I have a webmaster who gets paid to do the nuts and bolts work; I stick to my primary job, listing and selling real estate.

My webmaster, Teresa Testerman, is a former Realtor who does primarily real estate sites. You can see some examples of her work at http://www.pegasusweb.com/

There are good template sites available and I think they do an OK job but all the pretty successful and Internet savvy Realtors I have talked to or heard about agree the very best lead and business generating tool is your own, custom designed website with only you as the Realtor and one that delivers what buyers and sellers of real estate want.

Someone early also mentioned the e-PRO course sponsored by NAR.

I was a beta tester for the original e-PRO course along with 499 other Realtors ;-) and actually took the course as it was being built. The first company overextended themselves financially and went bankrupt as we were finishing leaving the course and the concept adrift for a few months.

Later that year NAR contracted with Saul Klein and his Internet Crusade group to rebuild, revamp, and administer the second e-PRO course which I also took.

I found both to be pretty basic since I had been online in real estate for quite a few years (since 1992, ancient history in www time ;-)) but leaned some valuable lessons from both.

If you're serious about selling real estate online I believe the course would be worthwhile for you no matter what your experience or expertise level.

http://www.epronar.com/