Why a custom real estate web site?

Why do you want to look like your competition?

As a REALTOR®, you spend a great deal of time and energy promoting yourself as being more knowledgable, more professional and better than your competition.

You've been putting your ad in the glossy real estate magazines, the hot properties section of the newspaper and spending a fortune in direct mail to set yourself apart from the crowd. Wouldn’t it be a shame to bring them to your website to see something that proves they were right all along? All real estate salespeople must be the same, as they look the same.

My broker already has a webpage for me.
Why do I need another website?

The broker's site does one thing: sell the broker. Not you. The only time someone would contact you is if they were looking for the exact house you have listed on the site. What a typical client would do is go from page to page to page until they found something that met their needs exactly.

When a potential client finds an real estate agent with a link to their own website that is separate from the broker's site, it sends the message you are a professional. You appear more organized, more professional, more prepared to market their home for sale. It also implies that you are not a newly licensed agent. You are serious about real estate, as you have made an investment in your career by having a presence on the web. If they find nothing more than a canned page that looks like all the rest, they'll keep bouncing from agent page to agent page to agent page. What could possibly keep them interested in you on your broker's site? To the viewer, all agents are as they appear - basically the same.

Why not have one site tailored to your business that keeps viewers from drifting away to other agents? One website that has enough information to keep them interested to the point of asking YOU to find them the house of their dreams, regardless if you have it in your inventory or not.

Would you pick up a prospective client in a rusty, dented used car? Or would you choose a late model, comfortable sedan that has been recently washed? Don't you want to create the same positive first impression with your website?

I create custom websites that communicate to visitors who you are, how you do business, and what kind of treatment and respect they will experience as your client.

In addition to appearing virtually identical to your competitors, there are several major drawbacks to template sites which will cost you a lot of money:

  • 99% of the content on these sites consists of material that appears on thousands of other websites, including your competition. Search engines do NOT index duplicate content. Therefore, the majority of your website will not be indexed - therefore, you will not be found easily - if at all. You'll be lucky if your home page gets indexed. A custom site has all pages indexed. Therefore, a 25 page website will have 25 opportunities to be found, as each page will be indexed. If your site cannot be found in the search engines, it will cost you more money every month to drive traffic to your site.

  • Over time, template sites are actually more expensive than a custom site. Why spend more money to look the same as everyone else?

  • If and when the time comes that you no longer want your template site, you have nothing to show for your money. You own your domain name - nothing else. Essentially, you are renting your website. When you stop paying them - your web presence is gone. You must start over. With a custom site. It's yours. You own it.