Anna, I too would like to know how those that have used the single property sites have worked for those that have used them.  Keep us posted on your feedback.  Thanks, Vickie

Single property sites should do well. You build it, advertise it, no searching. If this is what your looking for, it has to be good. Of course it takes more time and money to do this.

I think this is a gimick of the domain sellers and one more expense my office does not need.  Spend the same money learning how to optimize your site - not hiring someone outright, but learning the concepts behind it.  Then you will be able to judge the one you hire to do it much better.

For example, your website is http://www.annaboyd.com/.  Your keywords start with el dorado hills real estate, but you may find more results with el dorado hills ca (129,000 vs 3,420,000 requests).  Your keywords may be more targeted the way you have them, but increasing the pool you can fish from will probably increase your results.

If you learn just the basics, you can talk to an expert with more confidence.  I am a novice but I work at it daily to make my pages useful to listing agents.

I have just started looking into these type of websites. I do believe they would work to ones advantage in marketing a property. The ones I have seen were for free for one year and needed to be cancelled within ten days before the year is up. A person would have to be well organized and on thier toes to make sure not miss the deadline and be stuck with the fees.

You would be better to have a featured properties section on your own site. Bloggin about the properties on your own blog is also a good idea. 

A single property web site in itself isn't going to bring you much traffic or do much good but a single property website that is properly advertised in search engines will make all the difference in the world. Good property website providers will optimize your property site and even submit it to other online directories.

See this hubpage discussing the topic http://hubpages.com/hub/Single-Property-Web-Sites-and-Why-They-Work

What sites are you referring to as "single property websites?" Anna Are you referring to an agents website that is not advertised or submitted to online directories? does it mean that agents have properties on activerain for the last year that havent sold? or that networking on this site doesnt help sell properties? Im new to activerain so please clarify a bit for me thanks

Cape Cod Realtor 

Hi Stephen,

I'm referring to using a company such as listingdomains.com, paying around $50 and getting the property name registered as a domain name and being able to put up photos and text and add links.  Site name such a www.1234harbor.com

 You can pay extra to have a sign rider.  Then if flyers are out, someone can just jot down the website and know they'll go direct to that rather than doing full scale searches.

 Makes sense to me.  I just hadn't done it yet.  And getting it on search engines would obviously be important.

Hope that helps in describing what I was thinking.

Oh ok now I understand what you mean. Thanks for the clarification. Yes Ive seen agents who purchase & submit a website for all of their listings. They buy a .com with the name of the address of the listing and advertise each separately. Great if you have the $ to purchase a .com for each listing and the time to advertise and submit each website to search engines individually. Someone like me, I have my own .com where I can advertise all the properties I want on one website!?

Cape Cod Realtor

I've got 3 separate websites.  One for everything, one for my horse and acreage properties and oen for investment properties.  How many hats can I have?  And I have domain names registered I haven't even begun to use yet. 

Guess I just money burning a hole in my pocket.  Anna

I agree with Misty Lackie. Agents should focus their efforts where they hopefully would do best. Separate websites for each listing doesnt guarantee any traffic or buyers only more work and money spent. If a seller demands his own website (I ve never had one?) maybe you should to get the listing. My easiest response is that yes I have a website and my broker has a website. Your listing will be in all of these including MLS as well as all of other free websites available where we list. Web exposure is great but if youre not where the buyers are to notice you and convert them to an real (not web) buyer what good is it?

 I also agree with Eric Bouler about blogging being a good idea as well. I just installed a blog on my website. Its a good interactive function to get surfers to start a conversation with you, to try you out for a test spin!

 Cape Cod Realtor

Buyers and sellers are fickle anyways. What happens if you lose the listing 3 days after they sign. You still have to pay for the .com domain registration fees.

Anna - I was thinking about this again. It could prove useful to have 1 generic domain name that you could use for one property at a time (sort of like time exclusive). the generic name could be something like http://www.annslisting.com/ Sort of like a showcase listing exclusively for one property. You could change the property as often as necessary (say monthly or longer).

Another thought that could work (more so with a commercial property or more expensive homes) is getting a domain name custom for that property. such as www.4990SleepyHollowRd.com , I noticed this was one of your listings. The new home owners might want to buy it, or you could just give it to them at closing (possible as an incentive to buy). if you're good with websites, this doesn't even have to be costly.

Domain names are the real estate of the Internet. If it's a commercial property, chances are that the new owner may want to buy the domain name from you.

Anna - you prompted me to write a blog on this subject, take a look:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/470103/Domain-names-are-becoming

also, here's an example of an actual in use domain name address:

http://www.427bedfordroad.com/

I did my first one http://www.tesororanch.com/

I used Ihouse (ihouseweb.com) and the charge is $50 including the name.

Also I used http://www.dotphoto.com to upload pictures and make them a virtual tour (only because my client had so many pictures beyond a normal virtual) - but I really liked the photos and the dissolves and page curls (too bad you can't choose your music) - but can't beat the price - FREE!

Here's photo show:  http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=awbnet&P=&AID=5210825&Show=Y

Anna

Yikes - $50 for a single property site?  For that price did you get listing syndication, virtual tour, click-to-call, search engine optimization, open tracking and click tracking reports and all the other important things?

We wrote an AR blog post on this exact subject recently http://activerain.com/blogsview/468416/Do-Single-Property-Sites