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Real Estate Website... a little bit of open source magic and you have a design friendly - seo friendly - inexpensive website!

By
Services for Real Estate Pros with Guru Real Estate Flyers

Hi everybody,

Just thought id talk about joomla and its many functionalities for real estate websites and the steps in getting your website set up.

First of all what is joomla?

Joomla is an open source content management system for websites. You can edit all of your websites content, change templates of the website, add forums add shopping carts add a million and one features, some of the joomla add ons come at a cost but most of them are free.

The most important thing here is that with joomla as your content management system back end you do not have to pay anyone to update your website, you can do it yourself, furthermore you can have some very advanced free SEO features available at your fingertips.

How do i start my own joomla based website what do i have to consider and what are the steps involved?

You have to consider:

STEP 1: Finding the right Programmer/Designer

Where do I find a programmer that can do this for me?

I would recommend posting your little project on freelance site (a website where programmers bid for your business). This will allow you to get the most bang for your buck - in a couple of hours you get bids on your project.

Some freelance sites I have used are:

  1. http://www.elance.com/
  2. http://www.freelance.com/
  3. www.guru.com

I could also refer you to some of my friends that are programmers (just shoot me an email).

This project should not cost you over 1200 dollars.

STEP 2: Website Design - finding the right SEO friendly website template

Considering design is very important, however considering DESIGN and SEO simultaneously is even more.

In order to consider both at the same time and not loose sleep over it,  i would buy a template from here:

http://www.compassdesigns.net/services/joomla-templates/

A designer can easily make those templates look like a real estate website, without loosing the SEO beauty those templates come with.

STEP 3 - Considering the right Plug-ins for your website.

  • SEO
  • STATISTICS
  • REAL ESTATE

SEO - so you can measure your keyword density, compose url's, view your link popularity and many other things.

Use: Open SEF Plug-in FREE

STATISTICS

Use: Google Analytics Plugin FREE

REAL ESTATE - So you can post your listings through the admin back end

Use: http://www.mosets.com/hotproperty/ one time fee of $ 119 US dollars

So, what are the total costs to you?

Developer team = 500

Real Estate Plug -in = 119

Template Design = 500

total = around 1200 dollars.

For 1200 dollars you can have a SEO friendly website design with a back end that you manage/ add listings etc!!!

Your only cost would be a low hosting fee of around 10 to 15 dollars per month with your local hosting provider!!

A website this SEO friendly and with all the gadgets it comes with can easily cost around 6 thousand dollars or it comes with one of those high monthly fees of around 60 dollars per month!

Go a head give it a try! :)

 

 

Provadus Home Loans
Provadus Home Loans - Marietta, GA
Technology bringing you home.
Absolutely!  I have designed & implemented many websites for agents & friends in the industry.  Yur figures & points are right on!  Great post!
Apr 27, 2007 07:47 AM
Bob & Carolin Benjamin
Benjamin Realty LLC - Gold Canyon, AZ
East Phoenix Arizona Homes

We are in the midst of changing over our websites to Joomla. We are generally pleased with what will eventually transpire with the new Joomla sites. But is has been a long process. As busy agents we have limited time. We initially found a "virtual assistant" who seems to know what they are doing regarding Joomla websites, but after we began the project with her, there was excuse after excuse after excuse about why things were not moving forward ~~ over promising on time lines and constantly under delivering.

We said "enough" after more and more excuses and we were not where we needed to be with the websites. Then it was again a search to find someone else to help and do the back end part of the process to get us up and running. Finally we located someone who seems to be doing an ok job, however they are also so very busy, and have many things on their project plate that things still are not moving quite as rapidly as we would like, but we are going to get to an end result soon - (fingers crossed!)

In the "early years" of the Internet i did a lot related to Internet work and knew HTML back then, but Joomla is a new and "different animal".... and there is a learning curve associated with making the site do what one wants it to do.

We just acquired a copy of Hot Property and will be implementing that also. Eventually we'll have Joomla sites that work the way we want.

Carolin Benjamin
Bob and Carolin Benjamin - The Benjamin Team - Keller Williams Integrity First Realty - Gold Canyon Arizona

 

Apr 27, 2007 09:37 AM
Real Estate Flyers
Guru Real Estate Flyers - Toronto, ON

Hi Bob,

Wow that sounds like an amazing experience! Well if you have any questions - i would be glad to help you guys out! I know of people that can do this project in 2-3 days... very little hazzle!

I also recommend the freelance websites i posted, they have very qualified programmers.

 

Apr 27, 2007 03:18 PM
Mesa, Arizona Real Estate Mesa Arizona Realtor
Homes Arizona Real Estate LLC - Mesa, AZ
AzLadyInRed
I now have a Joomla site that cost me about $3500 by the time it was done. After I hired the same Va that Carolin Benjamin did, I hired someone else to fix it. Joomla is a good idea; however, it's very time consuming to learn a new back end. Was the $400 amount for the total website such as mine? www.TeriEllis.com.  I still plan to update the look of it with another template front.....
Apr 28, 2007 10:50 AM
Bob & Carolin Benjamin
Benjamin Realty LLC - Gold Canyon, AZ
East Phoenix Arizona Homes

Yes, the learning curve of getting one's arms around a Joomla back-end is really, REALLY time consuming. Someone may set up the template/framework for you ... but then you still have a HUGE learning curve to get your content on the website, and deal with all the differences of Joomla. It's a complete different "animal" than working with a HTML site. And even once you get content on the site, I think unless you are a total techie and plan to spend a LOT of time dealing with your website, you will always need to have a techie-type to call on and get help from. When you are in the middle of a closing, or you just got 3 new listings, I am not sure where the time is to deal with some of the learning one would have to do to get/keep a Joomla website constantly fresh.... or when you try something on the website and it doesn't work as planned and the website all of a sudden looks screwy.

i think we have spent close to $4,000 on getting help thus far and the websites are still not where we want them to be.

Despite all of this, I still thnk Joomla is a good idea ... but in hindsight, now knowing all the time needed to learn the Joomla tools to make things work, I am not sure I would have opted for Joomla as the platform of choice.  But this far into the project, we'll stay with it (for now).

Carolin Benjamin
Bob and Carolin Benjamin - The Benjamin Team - Keller Williams Integrity First Realty - Gold Canyon, Arizona

Apr 28, 2007 11:15 AM
Real Estate Flyers
Guru Real Estate Flyers - Toronto, ON

Hi Teri,

Yes i would say anywhere from 1200 dollars.

Remember with joomla its all made already its just a matter of installing and knowing how to.

May 17, 2007 03:44 AM
Gita Bantwal
RE/MAX Centre Realtors - Warwick, PA
REALTOR,ABR,CRS,SRES,GRI - Bucks County & Philadel
I might use elance.com to get bids.I had read about it  but had forgotten about it.
May 17, 2007 04:16 AM
Real Estate Flyers
Guru Real Estate Flyers - Toronto, ON
Let me know how it goes...
May 19, 2007 02:14 PM