Looking for new ways to market your listings? Build a website for your individual listing

I know what you are thinking: "A website for each listing? Thats a lot of work!"

I agree it might not be worth your time for your listings under $200,000, but a website might be the ticket for your higher priced listings. It actually might help land listings because people will think, "Wow! They are going to create a whole website just for me!"

"Ok, I'm interested, how do I do it without lots of money and time?"

Hire me! Whoops how'd that plug get in there....Well actually you can do it on your own if you have a little tech savvy-ness. Here's what you need:

• A domain like 123addresscityst.com. Buy it from a place like godaddy.com - $10 a year
  
• Buy the hosting as well from godaddy.com or some other website hosting company. (preferably whereever you buy your domain, so you don't have to transfer the domain or set different nameserver info) - $60/year
  
• Now that you have a domain and a hosting plan - call up a web designer/developer to set up a Wordpress blog. It only takes a couple hours to set up the blog so you might be looking at $50-$100. You will want to tell the person you hire to install the sitemap generator plugin that automatically updates the sitemap (found here) so google and yahoo stay up-to-date and find all the pages on your site. - $100
  
• Once the blog is set up, you create posts on different areas of the home listing adding all sorts of content that Google and yahoo will place in their index.
• TOTAL INVESTMENT: Around $200
  

It might take a little bit of learning the first time but once you get the hang of posting, you will love creating your own content. Another benefit is when people search for a specific MLS listings or home address, sometimes it goes to other realtor sites. Having a blog on a single listing will almost ensure you will be on top of google for those specific searches.

Other option to get more exposure for your listings:

• Create a blog where you showcase all of your new listings on separate posts. This could be an extension of your own website. Blogs are naturally search engine friendly because you are creating relevent content about your subject, real estate.
• Create a blog on free blog sites like blogger.com or wordpress.com
  

What ever website/blogging method you use, decide on it and stick with it for the best results!

Other Resources:

• My blog post about blogs
• An example single listing website

Good luck selling!

CALVIN HANSON, DESIGNER
WEB - www.pgraphics.biz
BLOG - www.graphicdesigngreenville.com