Point2 sites CAN be SEO'd!

Suzanne - It sounds like somebody is losing market share, so they lie about their competition. We realtors get to deal with that a lot. But it's still wrong, and I hope everyone who has AA reads this post so that they can understand they lack of ethics that AA is showing.

 Ethics are the law for realtors, so this should be very bad for AA.

There are a lot of different platforms out there.  Advanced Access has some high ranking sites.  Do a search for Phoenix Real Estate...  It's an AA site...  However I have a fundemental problem with any template websites.  You get locked into their platform and loose flexibility in building out your site over time.  The AA structure hasn't changed much in the 6 years I've been following them and the same is true of Point2, however if you move to your own site or a different template site (not a good decision in my opinion) you will loose all of the directory structure from the previous site mainly because there are a lot of db calls to build out the template sites.

If you can hire your own web developer and create sub neighborhood pages with static URLs that won't change you'll be ahead of the game as your site changes over the years.

All the Best,

Glenn Sanford
--
Founder / CEO
Working The Magic, LLC
Check out my Real Estate SEO Blog.

I am not a client of Suzanne but I think she has proven over and over again what can be done with a "template website."  SEO will work with such sites.

Suzanne- I do not like AA sites and maybe some of them get to #1 but most do not. Point 2 is a much better website and also is much more versatile.

Suzanne - Point2 is awesome and I have only scratched the surface on my site on what point2 can do. The site works really well for SEO. Check out these terms: Metrowest MA Real Estate, Hopkinton MA Real Estate in the serps. I have about 7 or 8 more areas where I am on the 1st page and usually near the top. I would love you to take a look at my website and let me know what you think.

Hi Suzanne...Great post, points2 has worked well for me for several years I am always in the top three under Victoria BC Real Estate, plus many other search terms.

Cheers

To all,

I try to stay away from "template vs custom" site discussions, when it comes to SEO. I have seen template sites rank well, and I have seen custom sites rank well, and I have seen examples both accomplish nothing, in terms of SEO.

With hosting, there are a lot of considerations to address, many of which go far beyond SEO.

But when it comes to SEO, it always comes down to WHAT you do, and not the tool behind it.

The main difference between sites with good rankings and those without

Point2 gives you the ability to enter your page title, meta tags and keywords for each page. We are testing the site and so far like it a lot as a secondary site. We are using more for the syndication value.

I had an Avanced web site a few years ago,  At that time it placed  very poorly on the search engines.

Everon complained but it seem to be out of their control. 

I'm working with Brand X consultants to move up in the search engines and nothaving much luck. It was a new domain in December, so I hope it's just a matter of time. How long SHOULD it take?

Vickie,

I have sent you an email, privately, with a review of your site and link profile, as it exists now. 

I try to avoid making public commentary about other SEO work, as I do not know the scope of the work, or the cost. For that reason, it is not fair to judge the work of an SEO consultant. In addition, the competitvie environment comes into play. Competitive metro areas simply take more effort, and time.

My subsequent comments in this post have nothing to do with Vickie's specific situation or her  existing consultant. They are being made here for purposes of discussion about SEO work, in general.

I would say to all agents that self-education of SEO basics is the single best way to assure that you are hiring the right consultant who will be both thorough and cost effective.

You need to know what to ask, and what to demand, when reviewing quotes for SEO work. If you don't, you may not get much actual work product, for your money.

Unfortunately, we see a lot of that. If agents know what to ask, there woud be a lot less of it. The reliable, responsible SEO companies will survive, and the rest  have to change their ways or find it much more difficult to sell service.  

To that end, here's a multi-page document that was specifically written for real estate professionals, using real estate examples:

Search Engine Optimization Basics For Real Estate-Related Websites
http://www.domaindrivers.com/seobasics-realestate-main.htm

I hope it helps.
Also, you can create your own optimized pages easily with our new landing page tool, here:
http://www.domaindrivers.com/pagegumbo/pagegumbo-test.asp
http://www.domaindrivers.com/pagegumbo/pagegumbo.asp

The first link is an "example" page, and the second is a live tool that you can use at anytime. The tool forces agents to put more of the secondary real-estate related keywords on their pages.