Real Estate Web Site BasicsWe've reviewed the basic variations of a real estate web site. You can see from the outline below that they come in a variety of styles and types. The key is to assess what it is you hope to achieve with a real estate web site and then sort through the variations and select one or more to suit your business. If you're familiar with these types of sites and find them too limiting or expensive, I would suggest you review what I refer to as the Ultimate Solution here. The Corporate Real Estate Web Site:Your company probably has a corporate real estate website and gave you a page onit! If you think you now have a Realtor website, think again. In most cases,this is simply an Online Business Card.Some real estate franchises are offering their agents personal template sites(for a cost ranging from $15 to $25+ per month.) Most of these real estate web sites have very limited editingcapability and often you can only use your own domain name as a redirecteddomain! The Free Real Estate Web Site:Yes, there are FREE websites for realtors. FREE is good, but the reality isthere is NO Free Lunch! These sites commonly host some corporate banners(Lenders usually), subsidizing the company giving away these real estate websites.The Corporate Lenders have You advertising theirproducts, even though you may not or would not recommend their services. The company giving you the FREE Real Estate Web Site is happy.The Lender is paying them, and they know that you may eventually get tired ofthose banners on your free site and want them removed, as well as upgrading forsome added features... for a monthly fee. Chaa..Ching! That's not a bad thing if you are new to creating some Internetexposure for yourself. At least you get to try out the product before spendingmoney. Most of these sites are limited templates with a wysiwyg(what-you-see-is-what-you-get) software in the back office for your use. You caneasily customize some of the content. If you are familiar with"MS-Word", you can customize... a little or a lot. Everybody wins to some extent. At the very least you now have apersonal website that you can refer your clients to, with your picture, withyour personal domain name, your listings and maybe some buyer and seller reportsthat visitors/traffic (if you get any) can request. The best 'FREE' site that I've found is from Point2Agent.The real estate website they offer is customizable. You can use your own domainname/names, customize meta tags and add listings easily. You can check out TheBiO™ (By Invitation Only). information here. Should you decide to testdrive one of their websites for realtors, contact me on The BiO™ (ByInvitation Only) page, and I will be happy to send one out to you. The Upscale Template Sites:There are upscale 'template' websites for Realtors out there that are quitegood. They start at around $50.00 per month to over $300.00 per month. There isusually a setup fee as well, ranging from $200 to $1500 when you order.SIDE NOTE: All of the content on these Corporate, Free or Template sites is standard andpre-written for you and all the other site buyers. Much like a photocopier, theysimply give you the same content copy. If you have a real estate business in LosAngeles, is the market information you provide the same as the agent with a realestate business in New York? Adding to the photocopier issue is the fact that theSearch Engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc..) view duplicate content in verynegative terms. Website Content: ... The information on your site needs to be originaland Your local market related! Who is writing the content for your localmarket related website? Who knows Your market better than You? The Custom Designed Real Estate Web Site:Some agents have hired designers and created some of the most glamorous siteswith all the bells and whistles at astronomical costs. They have hired severalother experts, and bought software to get their sites to function at a highlyprofessional level. If the agents don't know and understand HTML, the cost tochange some wording, add a page, or upload their listings with pictures, featuresheets etc.. can become an ongoing, very expensive element to their onlinemarketing budget.The Ultimate Real Estate Web Site Alternative ... 
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