Why the REW Challenge?

I've decided to take the Real Estate Webmaster's Challenge after talking on the phone with Matthew from REW.  

Now it's not like I had to be convinced that REW has a great product.  I have been knocking around REW's message boards for years.  I've often been asked, if money were no object, who should I get to do my website and I'd answer as if I'd been an owner of a site forever, "REW,  here, let me send you the link!"  

Here's the deal though.  I've thought over the years that I was pretty smart.  I built a Point2agent website that outranked a lot of sites for very important keywords and I had pretty good organic traffic.  Then a few years ago, I parted ways with P2A and I've been without a really GREAT site since.  Heck, my site then wasn't really all that great...traffic was there, conversion, not so much. 

I knocked around with a ZILLOW site...it was inexpensive at $10/month and it gave me a doorfront on the web but not much more than that.  

I knocked around with building my own wordpress site...never got traction with it.  I'm sure it COULD have worked but there really was just TOO much to do.  

I talked to Morgan at REW online a couple of times, yet it just seemed like SO much money!  

Red Adair said something once that I've seen quoted a million times :  If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.

So I have admittedly been an amateur on the web and ultimately, the game has gotten far too complex for someone not immersed in it to really master.  I'm a real estate broker.  I sell homes.  I'm not a web guru or coding expert and certainly not a GOOGLE expert to know everytime they switch something around and how to combat loss of ranking, traffic,  PR (what the heck is PR anyway, but I digress).  

Then I did the unthinkable.  I fell for the sales call!  Not that all sales calls are bad mind you, but the guy was persistent...I think he called me a couple times a week for a month... I had a ton of questions, he had all the right answers.  Finally, he called back and spoke my language.  I'll waive the set up fee and your site will cost you $79/month.  Ok!  Now, were talking.  Or are we?

After that, it became a real disappointment.  I wouldn't say nightmare as it didn't keep me up at night, but I was really disappointed.  200 templates and nothing that I really liked.   During the set up they asked for all this stuff so they could "set it up for me"  and a couple months later, I was still waiting for it to be set up.  Customer service was virtually nil.  My sales guy pretty much dropped out of sight.  

That's when I decided to ask a few questions on the REW facebook page.  Matthew got right on it, got me on the phone and like I told him,  I KNEW better than to go somewhere else but the cost is an important factor and there isn't much trust in me about how "if you just make 2 sales, you will have trippled your money" like so many other companies tell you (have you ever been told that? Or for more expensive products it's like If you make just one sale it will have paid for itself...yeah, but I would have WORKED for free! LOL!)  Again with the ADD digression.  

Here's the long story short.

 My business needs a shot in the internet arm.  I've known for a long time that REW was quality in both product and service but couldn't swallow the sticker price.  The REW challenge lets me get down to brass tacks and tells me that they are just as serious about ME interviewing them for a job as they are about interviewing me to see if they want to go to work for me...it's  a two way street!

My domains are old and seasoned (some are 10+ years old).  Some of my domains are new (within the last 2 years to as short as 90 days ago).  My old domains had pretty good traffic and backlinks but not sure that's a good place to start and we will have to decide together if we build based on an older or newer domain.  

My traffic, regardless will not be that great starting out so I'll have to go the PPC route...that's ok, Matthew had that covered as well!   

I'm personally drawn to the PtPR 3-green REWsite but I'm open to suggestions as to what WORKS best.  

So as a customer, I've already proven to have a big mouth and tell people when I'm happy.  I'm SURE REW will make a site I will be happy with so it seems to work well together!

Time to get down to business!  I challenge you!