To build or not to build--that is the ?

[ben_blonder]

Thank you for your prompt responses on the last thread about godaddy.
So when it comes down to actually making my own website, do you recommend Microsoft frontpage or something like it? Or do you recommend paying someone to do it that knows about metatags, keywords, and SEO? Because I will tell you I certainly don't know HTML or other languages, and I am not at all familiar with the myriad techniques of SEO...but I am a FAST LEARNER and not a dummy. I know there are some good softwares out there (preferrably cheap or FREE) that don't require you to know programming language--anyone recommend any? And I know that if I really study these threads I can start to learn the techniques of getting high page rankings....soooooooooo what do you think all?
Thanks again,
Ben

[SEO Jason]

I would recommend paying someone to do it. When I had to build my own site I spent a lot of time working on it myself and could just not get it to the way that I wanted it. And i did have html experience. I ended up paying someone to build a template site for me and since than have used dreamweaver to edit all my pages.

I recommend paying someone to do the template and than using Dreamweaver yourself from that point to create the rest of the site and edit all the pages.

Oh and personally I prefer Dreamweaver over Frontpage.

[David Abernathy]

Ben,

My .02 - Find a free site - like many of the brokerages provide or a Point 2 site to start with. Kick around with the site, learn from the board and then when you get ready to spend the money, spend it on a template site that is optimized for placement on the search engines.

Our office has well over 200 agents and I have helped other agents with Ala Mode, Advanced Access, Point 2, IHouse, Number 1 Expert, Realtor.com sites and many others. Two of my colleages and I have after much review decided to get on the list for the REW template sites. And even if you ignored the price advantage of the REW site, I think it is the best long term investment. I spend a great deal of time working on SEO and studying what others across the country are doing.

When my real estate friends ask for my input, I share that to me there are two solutions that I can recommend. First is for agents that don't want to spend that much time with their sites and invest the time or $$$$$ required to get top placement on the search engines. To this crowd - I recommend the free Point 2 sites and a strategic use of Google's Adwords program to drive traffic. The second group is the agents that understand the growing importance of the internet in real estate. In my opinion these agents are best investing with a niche SEO based web provider like Real Estate Webmasters (REW), Oppenheimer Group, Mike Dammann and Frobn or others that their emphasis is on building a site that places well in the search engines.

I have built a number of sites myself that enjoy good placement in my local market areas. The downside is that when I want to have better lead generation forms, a better display for listings, and other features that I see on some other sites, I have to either spend the time myself of find a service to integrate. Great for education, but as an investment the semi-custom template sites are a much better option.

Best of luck with your efforts!

Dave

[judyo]

I agree with Dave. If it hadn't been for experimenting with my first free Point2 site I wouldn't have moved on to a REW template. From the information on this forum I also took my free site to some good rankings (#1 on MSN for a few kw's & #2 on Google for my main kw's -- used to be #1 on Yahoo until their recent change). It is a niche area site, though, so not real competitive, but still pretty good for a free template site.

[SEO Jason]

That's some excellent advice Dave and Judy

[Oppenheimer Group]

Start with a good layout from a firm experienced with real estate sites and SEO and offeres an easy way to edit the site without html experience. IMHO spinning your wheels with a less than adequate, cheap or free site will in the end cost you more than you realize. Start correctly and you'll profit sooner, greater and longer.