Advice needed on site design

[rvolk75]

Hey guys,

I need your advice on something. Hope I can get some good answers here.

Currently, I have a REW template, which I got in October, 2008. I’ve had some great success with my site. My website concentrates on the entire Bucks County area, which is the area right next to Philadelphia. Our office is about 1 mile from the border of Philadelphia. I currently rank on the first page of Google for majority of my “bucks county” keywords.

Myself and my broker are currently in the process of starting a new brokerage and are planning on redesigning my website. The plan is to build a LEC4, which will concentrate not only on Bucks County area, but also on Philadelphia and Montgomery County areas. Montgomery County borders both Philadelphia and Bucks County. Basically, all 3 areas are very close to each other, but rather large. Our office is about 5 minutes away from the intersection where all 3 areas meet.

Here are my 2 options.

1. Build a LEC4 for Bucks County area only. With time, add other sections to the website such as Philadelphia and Montgomery County.
2. Build a LEC4 for all 3 areas.

All of the linking and marketing that I’ve done were purely for Bucks County area. Since I don’t want to lose my current rankings and the amount of leads that I’m getting in Bucks County area, would it be dangerous/risky to suddenly concentrate the site on 3 areas, instead of one like before?

Also, my domain name is ephiladelphiarealestate dot com. So I thought the domain would fit in nicely if I were to concentrate on all 3 areas.

Which option would you suggest?

Thanks in advance.

[Madtown RM]

Hey Russell,

Since you've already got a website that's focused exclusively on Bucks County and that's doing well, if I were you I would build the next site to do exactly what it sounds like you've already set out to do and that is cover the three areas all in one site (Bucks County area, Philadelphia and Montgomery County). That way you've got a bigger broader site for people who have narrowed down their focus to that part of PA but who haven't necessarily decided exactly which county/town/city it is that they want to relocate to. The Bucks County site can remain focused exclusively on Bucks County.

Sounds like you're doing great so keep up the good work and just expand into those other areas with a site that has a broader focus so you can capture an even larger visitor base. That's my advice.

Good luck!
Jolenta

[AugustaREGroup]

Which is the biggest?

If it were up to me I would have one main site for the entire MLS area (hopefully the nicest)... then if budget allowed, would have sites for every "area". Now having the man power/funds to maintain these sites is another story.

[Portland Real Estate]

Why not keep your existing site and build the LEC 4 on a new domain?

I realize it's a tough decision because the existing site already has some rankings and a good domain which you could build on, but I think that tightly focused/targeted websites work well, and so my company is working on building more of them.

If you do opt to replace the existing site then I would recommend keeping all the existing content/pages and basically just adding new content for the other areas. This way only the homepage would change dramatically but all the other pages would still be the same for ranking purposes.