I’ve just completed what seemed like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride through the wacky world of Wordpress. My brokerage site has been on Wordpress (Thesis) for a few years, and I got a bee in my bonnet to move the site onto Studiopress. I thought I did my homework, but I did not.
Suffice to say that the migration to StudioPress did not go well. I’m really into aesthetics, and the migrator had other priorities. So, I backtracked. I returned the site to Thesis and returned to my original developer.
Agents ask me all the time who they should get to develop their website. They want to have an online presence, but aren’t always so clear on what’s involved.
If you do not have a large online presence, the first thing you need to ask yourself is this: Am I going to be willing to work on the site several times a week?
If the answer to that question is ‘no’ (that you do not want to spend time grooming the site), than you need to purchase a standard site from a provider of your choice (and some have better SEO and IDX than others), and perhaps customize it just a little bit.
If you are a diligent, systematic, methodical cookie like me, than you have met your match with Wordpress. A Wordpress site is a blog site, and you can feed that blog regularly (by writing new posts). If you want to give blogging a try but are not ready for Wordpress, then stick with ActiveRain. It’s a great forum for learning about SEO and developing a blogging rhythm, style, format, and personal voice.
The thing about developing a Wordpress site is that you need to really think everything through to the n’th degree. You need to map out the site. What do you want in your main navigation? What do you want in your sub-navigation? What do you want in your sidebar? Thinking about these things and developing the site does not happen overnight.
When we developed the Broadpoint Properties site in 2009, I spent tons of time on the navigation and the text for each of the pages. Still, to this day, we are adding pages, moving things around, and making improvements. I’m pleased to say that right now this site receives a 99 from website grader—and there are still a few things that we are planning to polish in our spare time.
(Shameless plug here, so watch out.) So, I just want to give a shout out to Matt at Proof Branding. I have now worked with him on at least five different Wordpress projects over the last two years, and he just gets better and better—so professional, so responsible, so efficient. There is lots of fodder on ActiveRain about creating a website, so I just wanted to throw in my $.02—for what it’s worth!
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