Webstarget Blog

As a real estate website positioner (SEO strategist), I’ve got a big pet peeve to unload. After I’ve put my search engine strategies in place and successfully driven prospects to my client’s websites, too often the prospect is disappointed with what they see on the website. So they click away and go to another agent’s site that has more of the features and content they’re looking for.

Now I can make your click-throughs (those people that see your website and send you an email) jump at least 50% to 100%. By asking ten important questions and following some basic steps, you will experience a huge difference in your results. To read more, click here.

The Top Ten Questions
With Search Engine Optimization or Website Positioning, I work with both template and custom websites. Template websites are typically less expensive than custom websites. However it depends on what bundle of features you end up adding on.

While most template websites can be purchased for $500 to $800 or less, they have the drawback of sometimes looking “canned” with no individual personality. A custom website company will be able to give you much more personality and individuality, but it sometimes comes at a steep price. Whichever way you go, here are the ten questions I would ask the website company before signing or agreeing to anything:

1. If you build my website, who ultimately owns it? If you add content or pages, do you own that or do I?Template websites are typically owned by the website company. If you are working with a custom website builder, make sure the words “work for hire” are in your contract. If you decide to change website companies down the road, you will want to take all this hard work and time you’ve invested with you.

2. Do you have access to IDX, or the ability to add my MLS directly as a link to my website? If so, is this an extra cost and how much?Many website developers have already built this cost into their pricing.

3. Can I access my listings myself and make changes to pricing, solds, new listings or delete them myself?This is huge. If you are not able to do this easily yourself, your webmaster may hold you hostage.

4. What “dynamic page” features do you offer? (i.e. calculator page, mortgage finder page, relocation package, free reports, contact page, etc.)
   
5. What marketing features do you offer? (i.e. auto-response forms, free newsletters and/or drip marketing campaigns.)
   
6. Can you put “video tours” of my listings and/or communities on my website?This also works very well for open houses.

7. Will my website include the new Web 2.0 concepts of blogs, podcasting, videocasts, “live chat” and other social networking?
   
8. What kind of content material assistance is there and/or how much does it cost?
   
9. What kind of technical support is there and what are the hours?
   
10. Do you provide web applications that combine data and/or functionality from more than one source? (e.g “mash-ups”.)This might be as simple as placing an MSN or Google Mapping system on your website. Or as complex as combining Google Maps and Analytics with Trulia and Zillow integrated application programming interfaces (APIs).

Your website can be your best revenue source or it can be your boat anchor. The difference is sometimes so subtle. Only you can make the changes by asking the previous questions.