Hey you guys! I am trying to decide the best choice for my website. I've got Front Page and have tried to edit some free templates but that's quite annoying. I have signed up for free trials to get a broad idea of how these companies worked and their associated fees. Myers dropped their initial startup fee of $199 to $29. Then its $30 a month and another $30 for IDX. Is it possible to create my own simple site and have the IDX (mls) search available on my page? It would be much cheaper this way and then I could get GoDaddy.com to host it right? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

The fact you find Front Page annoying should be enough of a reason not to use it.

You sound like you are new to this, so I suggest that before you go out and spend a lot of money on a setup that you don't know will work for you go to http://open-realty.org/support. Read some of the posts there and if you have question join the forum and ask them. If you choose to use Open realty you will be choosing the most powerful and flexible real estate web application available.

Open-realty includes a real estate web site, a visual html editor to add pages and a host of features to grow into such as a listing management program with a complete membership suite. When you want to add an IDX you can add a frame/iframe IDX or integrate a custom IDX into the listing manager. Use as little or as much of the application as you need, it is not likely that you will ever outgrow it.

What it will it cost? The web site application is free. If you don't have time to set it up yourself, there are several excellent people on the forum who will do it for you if make a $25 or more donation to open-realty. If you want a custom design you can purchase one from $5.00 on up to several hundred dollars. When you are ready for an IDX you can add an iframe/frame IDX for a cost of 0 to $50. A custom IDX that will match the look and feel of your website will cost $500-$700 one time fee, no monthly or yearly lease for the data. You need hosting? There are many good hosts, one that I use hostnexus.com has a starter plan for $40.00 year.

You don't need to spend a lot of money to have well designed top real estate web site.

Good luck.

If you would like i could make you a site for a very good price! Email me at mystic40789@gmail.com and let me know exactly what you want on your site and i can build you one in about 2 weeks. but most real estate sites rn't bigger then a few pages so maybe even less. I will tell you the price after you let me know exactly what u want for your site. or u can IM me on my aim sn which would be better at xxdamysticxx

hope to hear from you soon!

btw if you want to see some of my work you can check out www.wholesalespotter.com and the forum www.wholesalespotter.com/forum and also my newest site which is www.splaytech.com

I was actually looking at Myers as well, because of their IDX. I asked my rep what the difference between simply framing my boards solution and their solution is. Theirs is more sophisticated. It features an automated email update feature that informs your clients and prospects of any new properties that hit the market and match your clients' search criteria and you receive daily reports as well. I just checked with my board and they do not offer this. My Myers rep told me I can frame my board's solution free of charge or get the Lead Capture IDX for an additional $30.

If I had to do it over again I would definetly build a site from scratch and not use a template site. There are too many issues with templates sites on the effectiveness of their links pages and whether Google will properly rank them or simply dismiss them as having duplicate content

Bruce - Is every template considered to have duplicate content? Even if you have to add your own content...like a template from godaddy.com? I was working on one of these using the standard setup and changing the names of the tabs to suit what I like. I basically need a site where I can send clients so they could search all listings theselves using IDX/MLS link because I have few listings.

If a template is designed correctly it is search engine friendly. I know many commercial templates like "monster template" are not and they are downright search engine hostile.

I have extensive experience with a template based system -- open realty . Not only is open realty template based but over 90% of version 2 web sites use the same identical template structure. The design is different from site to site because the css is different but I don't think Google, MSN or Yahoo go into the CSS file to find the differences all they see for navigation is

as far as editing templates go, Frontpage is the last thing I would use. Notepad would be a far better choice.

Duplicate content has nothing to do with templating. Templating is not only the quickest way to get on the net, it generally provides good coding form for novice webmasters.

Concerned about duplicate content?, change the content, not the template itself. Want to make it unique?, alter the style sheet, not the template. Don't like the templates layout, choose another one.