How can a $5000 real estate website cost less than a website created with a $500 template? Two areas to examine: overall website costs and income derived from real estate website marketing. The overall website costs include the initial design investment plus the ongoing maintenance and the pay-per-click advertising expense.

Database driven template websites can keep the initial investment in the website design low, but generally create a “business card” site. This is a website that, without any pay-per-click advertising, draws its traffic from people seeing the address on a business card or printed advertisement. The low cost website template solutions are often database sites, that is, their content is dynamically created when visitors come to the site. These websites are much faster to create, but they are not as search engine friendly - their content is largely unseen by the search engine’s indexing spiders.

Custom and semi-custom static HTML real estate website designs are usually in the $3000 to $12,000 range. That investment covers a larger amount of market-specific content, better and ongoing search engine optimization and monitoring, and better graphics and market appeal. The graphics are an asset to retain your home buying or selling website visitors. More critical is the content and search engine optimization. These lead to “organic” ranking on search engines. Organic ranking means your real estate website shows up high in the search engine findings based on the keyword content of your site.

Real estate websites that do not have keyword rich content or are not search engine optimized have to rely on pay per click advertising to get visibility on the first page of the search engine results. Pay per click advertising can have a place in an Internet marketing campaign, especially in high profile markets. Often pay per click keyword marketing campaigns can start at $500 a month and escalate to $4000 to $7000 a month. How can it cost that much? Pay per click advertising costs can give you an idea of what it is worth to have visibility on Google’s or Yahoo’s first page.

Custom real estate website designs call for a larger investment upfront, but over the long run, a fresh content rich custom website organically ranking on Google will hold your Internet marketing advertising budget costs down. Time is always on the side of the custom website. With unique “static” content (that is visible to search engines) and growing traffic pattern, usually within 6 to 12 months of launch the website starts climbing on the search engine ranking.

In short, the custom real estate website is a less expensive long term cost, easier ongoing maintenance and updates, and its age only increases its search engine visibility.

As more of the real estate market migrates to the Internet to view property, the bar is being raised on the visual information real estate website’s provide. Being an early adopter of the video technology has a great upside for your real estate website and internet marketing strategy - less competition, more visibility. Besides virtual tours on your own real estate website, using video to sell property on the Internet has ventured into the free for all world of YouTube.

Even though YouTube is known for postings of amateur videos on an astounding array of subjects, it has become an avenue for showcasing real estate. The reason is simple, less competition on keyword searches. For example, to use the keyword search “colorado springs real estate” on 21-Feb-2007 on Google shows 526,000 results. The same search on YouTube.com brings only 337 returns. On Google Video, the keyword search brings 523 returns, which also includes the YouTube videos.

YouTube.com, the free video streaming service that lets people view and share videos online, also has a feature that lets real estate agents embed their YouTube real estate video on their websites. By copying code provided by YouTube, Real estate website designers can easily place YouTube videos into the layout of your real estate website. This allows real estate agents to maximize their video advertising investment.

Recently, YouTube announced an upcoming feature that benefits real estate agents - a new analytic tool that gives agents the ability to see where their viewers are located geographically. Hopefully the analytics will go so far as to present a differentiation of embedded views vs YouTube views, bounce rates, average time spent on the video, as well a list of embeds driving views to your video. These analytics should be similar to website page tracking software.

A 40 second video can feature the attractive selling points of a property with a voice-over as well as prominently positioning the agent’s contact information. By simply changing the voice-over track, real estate agents can use the same video for both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking website visitors.

As more Internet users change to high speed connections, videos will be faster and easier to download, thus paving the way to the growing use of video presentations becoming the new standard for property descriptions.

As video presentations of communities and real estate property become more the standard for real estate website property presentations, real estate agents doing their own filming may want to review some filming tips from the pros. The camera is an unblinking recorder and often little technicalities can ruin an otherwise superb shot of a home for sale.

The first step (similar to writing) is outline and plan your shots of the real estate property. This keeps the time it takes to video the property down and doesn’t leave you short of material when you are editing. After videoing several properties, this outline can evolve into a simple checklist. By turning your outline into a checklist, you can check off and keep track of the property shots as you take them.

In your planning, think about any “perspective on the property” shots, such as a nearby tech park, school or playground. These features can quickly enhance a property’s value beyond the intrinsic value of the house itself. Something about location.

The second tip in filming is to expand time. Did you suffer through the Super8 home movies that were shot trying to get as many vacation shots on one reel? Maybe that was the forerunner of the fast edit music videos. To video a home for sale, avoid “ocular whiplash” and mimic a live presentation by consciously holding a shot for 9 to 10 seconds. Turn off the part of your brain that says “Alright, enough already” when it seems like a long time, but only 3 seconds have passed.

Similar to holding a shot, always video more than you need. With more material, you are better able to pick the best shots and have a very good overall presentation. Plan for a two and a half to five minute video, depending on the property and the file size you want. You can always create a 40 second overview video for YouTube or Google Video that directs the viewer back to your real estate website for the director’s cut version.

Use a tripod. Shaky videos inherently are agitating and mark your shots “unprofessional”. When buying a tripod, test it to make sure the panning (side to side movement) is very smooth. Cheaper tripods may have a stutter step panning that ruins the smoothness of a pan shot.

Frame your shots. Between your video appearing on a small screen and your large nature of the property, make sure your perspectives are correct. Don’t make something look too far away or so close that you don’t capture the entire house or room.

As with any new skill, practice first. Video your own home or office. While editing you can see how lighting affects shots, how furniture placement may change the feel of a room or that next time you will look for the dead plant or odd sock that appeared in the shot. Also check real estate videos online with a critical eye. Note what type of shots made you like a property and what shots left your mouse click finger itching for exercise.

Mortgage websites utilizing the immediacy of Internet marketing are converting more website visitors to leads that websites that follow traditional loan application methods. Is your mortgage website going down the less effective, though more traveled route of converting leads? Internet Marketing Consultants (IMC) has created successful mortgage broker websites that ease the website visitors’ path to getting you the necessary information to start the loan process.

1. Build credibility with solid loan information. IMC offers a complete package of articles, guides and checklists that helps educate home buyers or people in the market to refinance their homes. At the same time, this information helps build your credibility as a mortgage and real estate expert.

2. Offer a fast method for loan preapproval. Even though the 1003 Application is the main application form to capture loan qualification information, on the internet, it is a major barrier to converting a visitor to a lead. IMC’s mortgage websites offer visitors several methods of sending their prequalifying information. The first offered is a “short form” application that gives you enough information to narrow down the possible loan packages available for that lead’s financial situation. The regular 1003 Application is available, of course, but that isn’t necessary to get the process started. Once you have made contact with your lead, you can help them fill out what to many people is a daunting application.

3. Search engine optimize to your specific market. All IMC mortgage website designs are search engine optimized for your particular mortgage market, whether that is defined by geography or the nature of your clientèle - commercial, residential or investor borrowers. Optimizing for the general terms “home loans” puts your site in competition with the entire world. With Internet marketing, specific keywords is the key to driving lower quantity, but much higher quality leads to your mortgage loans website.

4. Use a blog or neighborhood news tools to keep your site fresh and up to date. Blogs and neighborhood news tools are a great avenue for keeping your contact base apprised of today’s financial news that can benefit their efforts towards getting a home loan or refinancing their current home mortgages. In today’s intense mortgage market, opportunities tend to go to the loan officers with the best communication tools and skills.

5. Check your graphics. Your graphics are tools to reinforce the benefits that your services can bring to your website visitor. The main benefit they are looking for is the American dream - home ownership. Research has found that the pictures of a smiling happy family are not as effective as images of nice homes in which people can envision themselves. Apparently the happy faces images only convey someone else living the dream, not your visitor. Images of homes and lifestyles trump images of someone else’s success.

It is never too late to start or upgrade your internet marketing presence with a mortgage website. IMC has several web designs that have, for several years, successfully helped mortgage brokers convert their website visitors to warm leads and sales.

With 80% of real estate buyers and sellers turning to the Internet for their information, custom real estate website designs set a solid foundation for high-visibility Internet marketing.

It is as true for website design, as it is for any service; you get what you pay for. The drawback of free real estate templates is that a web presence is not enough.

Custom real estate website designers know what designs and content create an Internet presence that translates into your financial success. Here are five reasons you can afford a custom real estate website design:

1. Custom real estate website designs use keywords optimized for your specific area of market specialization. High search engine ranking is a result of initial search engine optimization and continual monitoring of content and keywords to see what combination advances you the quickest in the rankings.

2. By investing more, your custom real estate website can be designed to carry your personality and brand. Your homepage especially and the overall page style carries a message - it is your Internet curb appeal. If the homepage design is professional and well crafted, it leaves your website visitor with a positive feeling. A website visitor with a positive impression of your real estate knowledge and your awareness of buyer’s and seller’s needs is more likely to pursue you and fill out the online contact information form.

3. Your custom real estate website design incorporates your real estate blog into your site, maximizing both the blog’s content’s search engine optimizing ability as well as its ability to boost your trustworthiness as a real estate expert. Having your own blog on a free blog site does not necessarily draw website visitors to your personal real estate website’s guestbook pages. Giving information without an opportunity for capturing contact data is a largely waste of your time and expertise.

4. Custom website design companies can relieve you of webmaster headaches by hosting, monitoring the secure firewall, and protecting you from an influx of email spam.

5. Custom website designs incorporate compelling pages, such as the VIP Buyer and Seller pages, that compel passive website browsers to become active home buyers or sellers. Creating real estate websites that generate leads is the goal your custom real estate designer.

Save yourself time and money by harnessing that expertise for your Internet presence. If real estate buying trends persist in the online direction they have been taking for the past decade, your future income depends on this decision.

“Permission Marketing” author Seth Godin gave several great tips for your real estate blog in a recent interview with Wordtracker.com’s Academy, a leading keyword analysis company. Tips from a successful writer who understands marketing and creating loyal customers as well as writing are always helpful.

• Story telling is most effective when told right. “The story has to begin with something compelling enough that you want to learn more about the story. The mistake marketers make is that they tell all the story at once, take it or leave it. People need to realize they have to ensure an unfolding dialogue.” Your stories can be like the jokes in a Crosby-Hope Road Show, a theme that keeps popping up and changing to add liveliness to the scene. Your client’ testimonials can be a great source of anecdotes that add to your unfolding story.
• Create your own feedback loops to spur improvement or cover popular themes. When Seth was asked if he felt under pressure to always be coming up with new ideas, he responded “I do it because I want to do it. Every time I am interacting with the outside world I‚m thinking about why that interaction happened, whether it was a good one or a bad one.” If your entry is a “good one”, the result may be your client receives information helping them with the selling or buying process or impels them to respond to your call to action. Listen to your clients when they give feedback on your real estate website.
• Sit down and write, don’t let the perfect kill the good. “I am not a perfectionist. I think that I am very focused on doing the best I can quickly and fixing it to make it better. A perfectionist doesn‚t do things quickly, it takes them too long to shift.” A short entry with good information that carries your personal enthusiasm is much better than sporadic short pieces that have been crafted with the word crafting ability of Edgar Allen Poe. Plus, by the time you get that blog entry perfect, the real estate market may have shifted!
• Content is king. Asked about search engine optimization (SEO), Seth pointed out there are no short cuts. “The best SEO is great content. Don’t do that and you don’t get much.” The reason real a estate blog helps with your search engine ranking is that it is a great opportunity for adding useful keyword-rich information to your website.

Wordtracker offers a free keyword search trial at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/. You can type in the keywords you are planning to use in your real estate blog entry and see what variation is the most used one on the search engines. Then you can modify your blog entry to use that keyword variation.

For real estate agents, getting qualified real estate leads from the Internet can be a frustrating, time consuming process. Buying leads from Internet real estate lead generation companies often brings the same dismal 1% hit rate of a massive direct marketing campaign. A 1% return means sifting through a lot of gravel to find the few sapphires. Savvy real estate agents are finding that the Internet itself can qualify, as well as generate, real estate leads.

Use these time tested techniques to maximize the return on your internet marketing investment:

1. Rely on your own personal real estate website to generate leads. The benefit of a personal site is that it:

• Your website is search engine optimized to your real estate market and area of expertise;
• You control the content and can update the content without waiting for IT;
• Works for you 24/7 and follows you to whichever real estate broker you work with.

2. Work with a real estate web design company with proven search engine optimization methods. You know real estate is a competitive marketplace; high ranking in the search engines is a must. Unlike the traditional marketing, where you want to be the last real estate agent a client talks to, on the Internet, you want to be the first.

3. Use your auto responder to quickly follow-up a lead with your contact information, but then give them a benefit, something useful, with another email. For instance, give information of homes in your listing or interesting articles in your blog or neighborhood news area of your website. Then follow up with a phone call. These are most likely those basic steps you already take to establish “mindshare”, just make sure you do them consistently and in a timely manner.

4. Monitor your lead responses. Track the number of calls and internet leads and the outcomes of those leads. Use your feedback to tweak information on your site, possibly target new keywords, fine tune follow-up techniques and assess where to invest marketing funds to most effectively expand your Internet presence.

Your real estate website is the technology to help you generate leads from a fast-growing segment of the real estate market - the Internet buyer. As well as your website is designed to build a relationship (even if virtual at first) through its information, your follow-up techniques to this powerful lead generating tool are the key to its maximum success.