Before choosing my current website provider, I created a 30 point checklist to ensure that I ended up with the real estate website that I wanted.
This was motivated by a poor previous selection in 2013 when I chose the wrong company. I knew a few people who had similar sites and I did not do a thorough screening of their work (partially because they are a very well known name in our industry).
Prior to choosing that company, I maintained my own website using Wordpress. Back then, I absolutely dominated the search results for my local market. As you likely know, "organic" or free referrals from Google are highly valuable and have a solid conversion rate.
Little did I know that my rankings would get decimated when I went with the new company, and it was a costly and painful lesson to learn.
Lesson Learned
While SEO is not the only thing that the previous company did poorly (like when they charged me nearly triple the price that they had quoted me when I first signed up), it is obviously very important to me.
So, after three months, take a look at how my organic traffic has turned around.
The following graph shows just the organic traffic that my site receives from Google.
The graph has three segments.
On the left, you see where my Wordpress site terminated in March 2013 and the previous version took over. My 13,000 average monthly visits from organic Google searches declined to an average of 5,000 (a drop of 62%!!!).
On the right, you can see where my SierraInteractive website has turned this around rapidly, and January has already recorded 12,846 visitors from Google search results. I look forward to seeing how this progresses in the coming months.
If you are interested, you can see my site here: https://www.manausa.com/. Of course, you can also find it easily on Google (again).
Note:
This is a follow-up article in a series that I wrote about the process I used to choose a new real estate website provider, you can view the previous installments on ActiveRain, which can be found here:
- HELP! I Need A New Real Estate Agent Website (Chapter 1)
- My 30 Point Checklist For Choosing A Real Estate Website Provider
- Who Will Build My Next Real Estate Website?
- Progress Report - New Real Estate Website Is Almost Ready
- Going Live In Just 9 Days
- SOLUTION! A Real Estate Agent Website That Works (Final Chapter)
I hope these tips help, I can assure you they are worth money in your pocket when you next decide to get a new real estate website provider.
Comments(33)