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For many years, I have used iHouse to host my real estate website. I always had the "basic" website and received hits anywhere from 1,200 to 1,800 per month. Last year, I was informed that they no longer support the "basic" plan and I needed to upgrade to the "elite" plan. The cost went from approximately $50 per month to $90 per month. Of course, they showed me how much more professional and up-to-date my new and improved website would look 
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24 Comments on Help!?! My Website Is Killing Me
One of the reasons I chose my broker was because of his outstanding company site. Now I just point my personal domain to my agent site. You should be able to forward your domain to another site (ie your AR blog or Metro Brokers site) for very little money. If your domain is registered at GoDaddy, it's free.
Will, I DO really like your upgrade. I had not visited since your old site! A site takes so long to get recognized, I would continue to add more information that google would find informational, or call your host provider and ask for them to add more data!
That is so nice to have so many comments from fellow AR members.
The bulk of my advertising is done online and the # 1 source of leads is via my website. You need a good web site but it also needs to rank high in Google or it will never be seen. I design my own with Dreamwaeaver CS5
Doug Belcher
RE/MAX of Nanaimo
Nanaimo Real Estate
Wow Doug, Great web site you have.
WordPress is a great solution as stated above. You don't have to be a designer to get a powerful website that is SEO optimized. AgentPress is a theme by StudioPress that comes packaged for real estate. Add IDX and you will have a system that you can manage without the major expenses you are referring to.
Nic Turner
<a href="http://www.wpidx.com">WPIDX.com</a>
Will, I do not have any recommendations for you, but I was attracted by your topic. I am also looking for a website host. I've heard from several agents they were happy with Pont2, but I haven't tried it yet. Let me know if you come across a great website host.
wow, You were getting alot of hits. I just canceled my ihouse account. I was paying 67 per month. I didnt have a website with them. I just had the idx with them. I am now going to get my idx with my mls servicer for 15 per month. I will then just add it to my wordpress site. I am paying 9 bucks per month for hosting. I like to write about the real estate market in Sacramento CA in the hopes the search engines will find my site. I dont have the most elaborate site on the web but I like to give the stats and do have the mls search available. My site is www.thesacramentohomes.com
All of the $50.00 sites in the world are great but driving serious
traffic demands a solution that can be scalable and can meet market changes. Welcome to the world of open source. For those of you not using Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal I can only feel your pain. These CMS products are driving the web and are the future of Information Technology. Products like Joomla have serious partners such as Sales Force and Sugar CRM. There isn't an IDX company that can even think about keeping up with the explosion of open source components and plug-ins. The only missing component to open source is support. No worries, Galtlinedesign is one of the first supported open source IDX available on the market. If you feel like your hands are tied with your current IDX solution than come jump aboard the Galtline and Future Proof your IDX.
Hi Will,
No solutions for you.
Certainly identify with the frustration.
Good luck
PHil
Will... seriously give www.Point2Agent.com a try... but make sure you try it out first... you got three months to make your site stand out and workable... you can even transfer some of the good looking stuff from your old site to your new site... so people still recognize you... if you need help I can help... see my site at www.hjswebdesign.com... the savings will pay for the work done by me easily!
Using and Agentpress Theme and some customization you can have a very user friendy search site that is optimized for SEO. Integrate IDX Broker to create target searches, etc. example: http://destinpropertyexpert.com Let me know if I can assist you. http://www.wpidx.com
Great post..i am having similiar problem..I have enjoyed reading all the comments ..
HelpfulHannah
There are many brokers that provide either free or "required" sites these days. There are also many "template" systems that provide a lot of off-the-shelf functionality for a monthly (or annual) rate.
As a web designer, of course, I prefer the custom route (but I'm somewhat biased). I always tell clients, and potential clients, to check check check and find out:
That last point is relevant. If the underlying hosting company / service provider is getting the benefit of your traffic on their site and not vice versa, then it's a very one-way relationship. If you were to cancel your account tomorrow, there's a good chance you'd have to start from scratch.
Many of my clients have a hybrid solution where they use the broker site as well as their own (which they own outright). It's just common sense to consider that you may need to hang your shingle somwhere else one day. Your clients should be following the agent and it would be a shame if you had to go back and tell them all to "now go to my new website...."
Hi Will- As Real Estate Virtual Assistants, we can honestly tell you that having a personal website is vital!! Our job is to work with agents and help guide them in their marketing endeavors as well as give them new insight into the latest in marketing.
Having a website is imperative for providing your clients with what they're looking for. In today's technology driven society; you have to meet your clients where they're at. Having a website allows all of your information to be in one place and gives the audience easy access to every service you provide, listing you have, advice and even community information. You want to be seen as a well-rounded resource, and if people have to jump from site to site to really understand who you are and what you do; they'll quickly lose interest.
If you're interested; we'd love to talk with you about your website and your marketing needs. We've been working with agents to help boost their business and increase their online presence. We've even created completely customized websites for clients (www.judynewton.com). I know you already have a site, but we don't charge for hosting. Basically, you pay for the project of creating your website and that's it! We can even help you maintain and update it whenever you need us to.
Anyway- sorry for the long comment! We're just passionate about what we do and how we can help! Feel free to check out our website: www.realsupportinc.com, for examples, clients testimonials and all of our services. We're a small company with a hard working team, which means very personalized service for our clients. We hope to hear from you soon Will!
Depending on how you get most of your leads, a personalized website is very important. I get almost all my leads from my website and I do it myself. I know a lot of people don't have the time to build their own site, so I feel your pain. I hope you find a good company to go with. If you get most of your leads from online, or want to...then make sure you find a company that can give results! Good luck!
The key to choosing a website comes down to one question.
Is it built on open source technology.
If you go with a proprietary system your options are limited. If you go with an open source IDX solution you can grow and change your site to meet the demands of the market. If you decide to go with a proprietary system plan on changing every 2 years. I have seen this happen with agents over and over and 2 years is the tipping point for most. If you start with a flexible system you can just build on as you go. Keep is simple live and work stress free !
If you are going to invest the money do it right the first time around - Build on Open Source !
The Galtline
#12, Gordon, I really like your site. There 's lots of white space, it seems like a nice clean blog not a magazine might have. Do you use that blogging software that has a link on your page?
Galtlinedesign just launched there entry level IDX System. You can check it out here: www.drupalidx.com The cool thing about it you can buy up options as you need them. The entry starts at 500. Nice clean system with Indexable props.
I think it's absolutely critical to have an outside website. You need a website effective at generating and capturing traffic. There are lots of options available but ideally you need a host who is willing to lay out all of your option on the table and show you some really nifty ways to drive traffic fro very cehap. however, since you are blogging you are already making a huge step towards driving traffic and I'm willing to bet when they changed yoru website you lost some organic ranking due to the change in content. If you interested in jsut discusssing some ideas on how to get back there and capture some of that traffic then fell free to contact me.
Here's an example of one of our clients. Ask him how he is getting so many leads. http://www.georgiaresidentialhomes.com
DIG Marketing
Dominic Giusti
800-977-9804
dgiusti@digmarketing.com
http://www.digmarketing.com