When it comes to setting up a real estate agent Website, there are several options.  They range from "do it yourself" to complete solutions where all you have to do is change some text and upload your listings.  Some vendors even include marketing activities with their solutions.  The price tag, of course, varies accordingly – the more you do yourself, the less it costs you.

Realtors who have the time and inclination can save a lot of money by rolling up their sleeves and creating a Website themselves.  Most hosting vendors offer free templates that can easily be modified to create a basic agent Website of a half-dozen pages or so.  Inexpensive real estate Website templates can also be purchased and customized to build a more elaborate online presentation.  You even get email accounts that include your domain name.  The benefit of this approach is two fold: 1) start-up costs are usually under $100, and 2) ongoing website costs are under $10 monthly.  If you have a little technical acumen, you can even use this approach to create a sophisticated Website.  For a free ebook explaining how to "do it yourself," go to http://www.renewsletter.com/ebooks/Budget_Real_Estate_Website.

In the middle are solutions that provide a fairly elaborate real estate Website solution, usually for about $30-to-$50 monthly with a start-up free around $100.  These allow you to choose a standard design template and provide tools to easily customize your selection to include your photo, name, contact information, logo, etc.  They include not only your own domain name and email accounts, but also lead generation tools (e.g., mortgage calculator, newsletter subscription form, visitor information capture, local data, etc.).  They also support IDX/MLS interfacing so that both your personal listings and access to your local MLS are offered.  Tools for search-engine optimization and listing your site in real estate directories are included as well.  You will find good support behind these comprehensive solutions too.  RapidListings.com is a good example of this class of turnkey real estate Website vendors.

At the high-end, a new class of real estate vendors has emerged.  These take online marketing one step further by offering more hand-holding for real estate agents and providing more online lead generation mechanisms.  Z57.com is typical of this new breed of real estate Website solutions.  They actually provide a "customized" email newsletter as part of their service, along with additional lead generation and capture/notification tools.  If you want an online marketing solution that involves as little work as possible, this approach may be for you.  It's relatively expensive, however.  Expect to pay several hundred dollars in start-up costs and the ongoing monthly fees can range from $60-to-$300. 

No matter what approach best fits your situation, expect to be involved to some degree in the initial Website set-up and its ongoing maintenance.  As with all marketing, decisions must be made about Website content, look and feel, adding listings, offering incentives and essentially all the ingredients that go into a successful online campaign targeting buyers and sellers.

About the Author

Al Kernek is a real estate broker and author of "Creating E-Mail Newsletters – A Practical Guide for the Real Estate Community" and "Put Your Business Online."  To learn more about increasing real estate sales using low-cost Internet marketing techniques, visit http://www.renewsletter.com

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