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Eight Steps to a Farming Web Site - Web Site 101

By
Real Estate Agent with Healdsburg Sotheby's International Realty

Web Site 101- Eight Steps to your FarmI'm going to make your next web site a Google Success.

During the month of December I'm going to walk you through the building of a simple web site to promote you as the right real estate agent for a neighborhood or subdivision you work in. I can't guarantee that you will be Number 1 in Google search results. On the other hand, if you work along with me you should succeed in getting a top page result for your site.

This is a hands-on, doing it now project.

This is not about reinventing your corporate web site, your IDX feed, or your ActiveRain blog. This project is to create a tightly crafted and specific web site for one purpose; to make you the most visible agent when people search for information about a specific neighborhood. From now on, I'm just going to call it your "farm", but it can refer to a small town, a neighborhood of a big city, or a complete subdivision. What you choose to focus on is up to you, but start thinking of it as your web farm.

Motorcycle riding skeleton saying HTML is not scaryYou will be building a real web site...yourself

Here's what we're going to do:

Step 1. Pick a farm

Step 2. Register a domain name with hosting

Step 3. Build an SEO optimized small site

Step 4. Creating optimized HTML (cookie cutter templates make it easy)
Step 5. Adding Pictures
Step 6. Links to your other sites

Step 7. Announce your site on ActiveRain

Then we sit back and check your Google ranking. You can also have fun and check your site on an iPhone or other mobile web browser. It will be one of the cleanest web sites you'll find on your mobile device.

There are a lot more bits and pieces we'll look at along the way.

  • Photo editing software
  • File Transfer software
  • HTML editors

There are many tools in each category. I will make some recommendations for free software that you can use, but if you have commercial software or other favorite packages, by all means use them. This is going to be a process that assumes you have few tools at your disposal.

So, I want the brave and willing to step up in comments and commit to building a simple web site for themselves. This is going to cost you less than $20 and will be your tool for as long as you want to pay for hosting. For those who are in their second or third or fourth agency, think about the power of having your own site to take with you wherever you go. For everyone who has been intimidated by HTML and SEO and the web, this is your chance to dip your toe in the water in a highly supportive environment.  All you have to lose are your mental chains. So sign up and start thinking about your farm. We start with Step 1 on December 1.

Martin E. Kalisker, Esq.
Natick, MA
Real Estate Law From A Practical Perspective

Looking forward to it.  I've got you bookmarked!

Nov 30, 2009 08:47 AM
Tammie White, Broker
Franklin Homes Realty LLC - Franklin, TN
Franklin TN Homes for Sale

I hope I'm up to the challenge.

Nov 30, 2009 08:58 AM
Betty Knowles
Southwest Missouri Realty - Springfield, MO
Ready to sell? Call Betty!

I'm looking forward to it Dave. I already built and maintain our site but there's always more to learn!

Nov 30, 2009 09:26 AM
Sherry Chastain
Hendersonville, Nashville, Old Hickory, Lebanon Tennessee - Hendersonville, TN
Realtor, Selling Homes, Lake Properties,Luxury Homes,Short Sales

Okay I'll do it. Do I just subscribe to your blog?

Nov 30, 2009 09:28 AM
Dave Roberts
Healdsburg Sotheby's International Realty - Healdsburg, CA

Betty & John - You're already high on Google results for your city. Congratulations! You can help with advice since this is probably a post you could write.

Sherry - subscribing works fine for keeping track of a serial project like this.

Nov 30, 2009 10:30 AM
Lina Robertson
AMAX Real Estate - Springfield, MO
REALTORĀ® Serving Springfield, Nixa and Ozark, MO

Dave - Anthony Ebright wrote about you tonight and I just had to see what it was all about.  I'm glad I came.  I'm looking forward to your posts throughout December.  Thanks for sharing with everyone!

Nov 30, 2009 02:40 PM
Nevin Williams
Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation - Cary, NC
Senior Mortgage Advisor

Dave - I'm in dude!   subscribing to your blog. I'm a confirmed LO and work weekly with Steven Graham so I have few items I can use but a clean site and lead capture is what I need so I'm all ears and keyboard ready...

Nov 30, 2009 02:43 PM