Point2Agent Contact Info: Point2Agent Domain Registrars Sites with Especially Good Content Murray Knoll Partners SEO Companies Specializing in building in-bound links: Full service SEO: Please DO NOT use IDX Vendors Diverse Solutions 1ParkPlace.com
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Getting Started with Your Custom Point2Agent Web SiteCustom Point2Agent web site design is most cost-effective when created for a site whose owner has already taken certain steps to attract traffic to the site. Your custom design will pay for itself more quickly if your site has upwards of 50 unique visitors per day (which you can determine from your Point2Agent Ultrastats). In fact, the more traffic any site gets -- even a non-custom template site -- the more likely you'll get leads and will be able to afford custom design. 1. Join Point2Agent as a Professional or Premium Member if you do not already have a site. The Professional subscription is sufficient for most individual agents or small teams, which the Premium membership is designed for brokerages with multiple agents. Choose any template to start out with. I'll change the template when I do your design. 2. Point your own domain name to your site. If you do not already have a domain name, an ideal choice is one that includes some keywords, such as the name of your city. You can research and buy your domain through Point2Agent or through services such as GoDaddy or Pairnic. I recommend that you not buy domains through Network Solutions. If you already own one or more domain names, use your oldest domain name. If buying a new domain name, I do not recommend using your own name as part of your domain name, except possibly only as your email address. Choosing Good Real Estate Domain Names In case, God forbid, Point2Agent should go off line for any extended period of time, I recommend hosting your email on a separate service such as GoDaddy or Internet Crusade. To use a separate email service, you must ask your email service for your MX and CName records, then call Point2Agent and give them this info. (Note: Point2Agent has a great track record for staying online; nonetheless, I still recommend using an independent email provider.) While you can use more than one domain name, I recommend focusing all your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts on only one domain. SEO can be expensive, so keep it focused. Domain name changes may take as long as 72 hours to go into effect, during which time your Web site may be offline. You may want to make domain name changes during the first few days of the week rather than on Friday or the weekend in case you need to get customer support. 3. Subscribe to a 3rd party IDX provider to provide MLS search for your site if your MLS board allows you to do so. Ask your MLS board which 3rd party providers serve your MLS members. Currently, the best, most full-featured and cutting-edge MLS IDX provider is Diverse Solutions. Though expensive, Diverse Solutions offers a significant discount to people who are under contract with me for custom design. For info about this special rate, you must contact Sean Dolan at Diverse Solutions; their regular customer service people will not be able to help you. Sean will contact me to make sure that you are actually my design client. More IDX providers are listed in the left column. Google "IDX MLS" to find others. To install your MLS search on your site, call Point2Agent customer support at 866-977-1777 for help, or search "IDX" in Point2Agent's online manual. I recommend not requiring registration. 4. Enter your listings into Point2Agent's system: Currently, to take full advantage of Point2Agent's syndication and Handshake features, you must manually enter your listings into the Point2 system. Most of my clients set up a Featured Listings page using their own listings that they've entered into Point2 as well as Handshake listings. Point2Agent is gradually upgrading the system to eliminate the need for hand-entering listings. 5. Plan your search marketing strategy: The best web site in the world won't generate leads unless lots of people find it. I recommend pay-per-click such as Google AdWords for only short-term use, and true "organic" search engine optimization (SEO) as the best long-term investment. Decide which keyphrases you want to optimize your site for. Keyphrase tools such as Google's AdWords Tool, KeywordDiscovery.com, and WordTracker.com can help you decide which keyphrases to use. In a competitive search market, which includes most major metro areas, it may be smarter to optimize your site for less competitive keyphrases. These could include multiple suburbs, neighborhoods or perhaps a desirable school district or type of home, such as historic homes. In a major market, it can be very difficult to get on Google's first page for a major 'city/state real estate' or 'city/state homes'. If you prefer to hire a full-service SEO company, I recommend WebsTarget. If you prefer not to get into paying monthly SEO fees right now, I recommend starting out by writing optimized text for your site or hiring an SEO writer to write it (more below) and hiring Domain Drivers to create links from other sites back to landing pages within your site (aka "in-bound links"). If, for example, you have a page of SEO'd text such as one optimized for "your city state real estate", ask Domain Drivers to use "your city state real estate" as the "anchor text" for some of your in-bound links. Please contact Domain Drivers directly for fee info. 6. Create search engine optimized content for your site: The more custom-written, unique text content about your local area that you provide for your site visitors, the more visitors your site will attract. Plus, when your text content is very helpful and informative to your visitors, they are more likely to hire you. Photos of your area are great too, though they don't mean as much to the search engines! Read about how custom content attracts search visitors. I include copywriting for just your home page in my site design packages, so if you're planning to work with me fairly soon, no need to write or rewrite your home page text. Create SEO'd text content for your site's interior pages yourself, or hire an SEO copywriter to create it. (Or write it yourself, then hire an SEO writer to optimize it.) Give your writer a list of the keyphrases for which you want to optimize your site. The more text content she creates for any one keyphrase, the more likely you'll get good search results for that keyphrase. So, you may want to hire her to create 20 pages of text for one keyphrase such as "your city state* real estate" instead of single pages for each of several keyphrases. You can go ahead and create pages with the text content you've had written; I can "make it pretty" when I redesign your site. If you are planning to write your own text, here are some articles about writing search engine optimized text for real estate sites: Writing Keyword Optimized Copy 7. Planning to blog? If you like to write, have time to write and write well, go ahead and set up a Point2 blog and start using it. Be sure to use your keyphrases in your blog posts, titles, tags, etc. Don't like to write? Don't have time? Don't bother. No need to set yourself up to feel guilty about not blogging regularly. *Substitute your own city and state!!! |