Is anyone familiar with their products?

If you use the "Search" function you will probably find a few posts where AA has been discussed previously.

They are a templated based company. You can either go template based or customized. If going customized (a great option if you find a good designer) it can be more search engine friendly, if you have a good designer, but you need to make sure you find a reputable designer that will actually finish your product.

There have been a lot of discussion on Advanced Access. I've tried working with these custom guys, but you never know if they're going to give you a good product for the same price. Everyone thinks their custom sites are great, but I'm really thinking you can't get a good custom site for less than 5k, especially if you want to upload listings, virtual tours, provide neighborhood information, etc.

Most of these cheaper custom developers are just using templates most of the time and then changing a few things.

I have had an Advanced Access site for several months and have been pretty happy with it. They have had some email issues and you have to call customer service in order to get help. They never respond to emails.

Whenever I contact them, I get someone immediately. I sent an email once and had a guy call me back for three days to make sure my issue had been resolved.

I really like their customer support and all of the features you get for such a low price.

I hate template sites but I never quite get around to keeping up my custom designed site... damned if you do, damned if you don't. In my market there are several AA sites that google well, I'd consider them.

I have an AA site an most say taht it is great for an agent that doesn't know much about web design. AA code is really bad when you use the WYSIWYG editor, it adds lots of crap that isn't needed. Recently found out you can use external CSS on the site so now I am in the process of making some changes to clean up the code.

AA is included in these topics.

http://www.agentsonline.net/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/1/3265.html?#000003
http://www.agentsonline.net/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/1/3217.html?#000012

I have been to a number of real estate sites that are set up/run by Advanced Access. Personally I don't think they have a professional look. It's usually unimpressive. There are some exceptions to the rule though. My suggestion would be to research a number of websites ... find out what charateristics you like & don't like. Write these down & make sure they are taken into consideration when you go with yours. Make sure you have a clearly defined purpose and appearance of your website. Balance functionality with good design. You can find great talent in students in IT programs at Universities.

I heard the code on AA sites were pretty sloppy. I have one myself, but SEO folks are limited as to what they can do for AA users.

AA sites (lots of them) can and do rank on the 1st page in Google, MSN, and Yahoo. People who are searching for real estate on the web could care less if the code is sloppy. Do a search for cities around the US and you'd be suprised how many AA sites are on the first page.

There is more discussion about Advanced Access sites and about their search engine ranking at http://www.agentsonline.net/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/9/182.html

Absolutely.

Chris, obviously presenting the information the way you did was misleading at best.... you may present you products in the appropriate forums but PLEASE do not respond with your own products is if you were just someone who was a customer and not connected with the company...

Not a very objective opinion because
your email is: (yourname)@imresults.net
Occupation: Marketing Consultant for Realtors
Homepage: http://www.imresults.net

Maybe your product is what you say, but it's best to just tell the person that you're promoting your own company instead of saying "I had a company build...they do xyz...etc." You mean that YOU do these things and it's YOUR company.

This is true, in one stand point yes I am promoting something, but in another light I just happen to be a realtor that has a part in the ownership of an Internet Marketing company focused on helping realtors become successful on the internet. That would have been very easy to figure provided you looked at our website and actually taking the time to read it. In short, I am sure that most of the folks here that are going to check it out can decipher it for themselves. I just believe being from an extensive marketing background and selling homes at the same time is a bonus for realtors here that aren't marketers. No biggie. Thanks for the comment though, quite amusing.

One of the things about the AA sites is that they are done in frames for the sake of convenience.

The problem with a frame site is that only one page (your home page) can show up at the top of search engine results. This is wasteful because the technology is out there that allows one to build a real estate website in which EVERY page has potential of showing up in search engines.

What does this mean? Well, with a frames site you can never have any more than your home page reaching the top of search results. With a truly search engine optimized web site, you can have any number of your 75 pages (or more) show up at the top of search results. In fact, each page has potential to win #1, #2 & #3 on Google, Yahoo or MSN.

I betcha a bunch of money that AA has not built their own site in frames! Why then are they selling frame based websites (under the guise of SEO) to agents who don't know there is better out there? Argh!

I prefer to build what I know will benefit my clients--and I would never use one technology for my clients that I know is inferior--but then use a superior technology for my own site. This happens all the time and it makes me upset.

Off my soapbox.