Free advanced stats for your web January 7, 2006
John Vanhara
I think everybody already knows, but just in case. Google introduced great and free statistics program, you can you for your real estate website.
The program was formerly known as Urchin and cost about $500 per month. The company was acquired by Google and price dropped to about $200 per month and now the great statistics program is available for free.
Here is the main window showing you the trend in visits and unique page views. How many visitors are returning or first time visits. As you can see on our ILoveRealEstate.biz website we have currently 28.57% returning visitors. It shows the main sources of visitors. In our example we have 53.17% direct requests, which means people directly typing our domain name in their browser, 16.67% from Google, 4.67% from technorati.com (this is search engine for blogs and it is another example how blogs can bring traffic).
Just for knowing where is your traffic coming from is good reason why to install Google Analytics on your web. It takes about 15-45 minutes depending how many pages do you have (you have to copy and paste code to your page). If you need help we can hel you set up Google Analytics for your website. We like to keep things simple so work like that will be always for less than $50.
IDX for free - search homes tool for your web
John Vanhara
I got my agent license 2001. The first thing I was really curious about was to get the people search for homes on my website. I went and signed up and tried different service in the last couple of years. Then I got my broker license in 2004 and realized that I can get direct access for MLS data to use them in my own IDX solution.
And it doesn’t even cost any money! I checked with few other brokers I know in other states and I get the same information. To get the access to local MLS for IDX data feed doesn’t cost brokers any money! The hundreds of dollars in set up and monthly fees are paid to software company (third party providers) who use your FREE data feed to convert data to your website.
I just want to all brokers know that they have option to go and have their own IDX system in-house and don’t pay dime to outside developers. I did it myself and honestly it paid off several times in the last 2 years! You can see our IDX solution for Las Vegas Home Search and see for yourself. Here is the page showing functionality to customers.
If you want to learn how to do IDX home search yourself drop us a note.
Free support for your web problems and issues
John Vanhara
This is another great feature of the hosting I am using for my real estate websites. Any technical question or problem I have is answered within one hour. Yes, that’s right. I can write the question in the midnight, during the day, or early in the morning and I get answers sometimes less than 5 minutes! The hosting service I use have great web based support.
Here is the link:
http://www.suresupport.com/
Once you register you can type question and leave the window opened. Then check in 5-10 minutes, refresh the window and see if you question is answered. In most of the cases it takes just that! I never saw such great customer support on hosting service. And the cost of hosting is only $5 per month!
2nd step - Get hosting for your real estate web
John Vanhara
This is the second part of instructions how to get great website with minimum cost. The first task for you is to choose and register a domain name. Once you have a domain name you will need to find a hosting service. Hosting means getting space on the server where your web pages will be uploaded. And domain name is used to point to the space.
I personally tried many hosting services. I own about 50 different websites and my total winner is hosting which cost only $5 per month, but offers great customer support, stats, unlimited emails, unlimited FTP accounts, PHP support, MySQL database, cron jobs and much more. Believe me, it offers all you need to build have great real estate website! I use on my own websites like MillionSaver.com, HomesParadise.com, Highrise-Condos.com or ValuesInfo.com.
As you will probably notice I always recommend only tools and services I use myself. I usually did long research, tried several services myself and later decided who is the winner. That’s exactly what I did for hosting for my real estate websites, which are by the way very successful in terms of bringing plenty of business. When I say plenty of business that means millions of dollars in paid commissions from closed deals. My primary business is not sell hosting or marketing, but to use the same tools to growth my successful business.
You can order inexpensive and reliable hosting here.
1st Step - Register Domain Name January 1, 2006
John Vanhara
You can do it anytime. Even long before you build your website. If you get idea for good domain name then don’t hesitate and register it.
Where? I personally use GoDaddy.com for all mine domain name registrations.
Who you shouldn’t use?
Any specialized company who register domain names for REALTORs. For example this one - Internet Crusade. I cannot even believe why would anyone register domain name for $35 per year, if you can get the same thing for only $8.95. That’s a typical example of business based on REALTORs charging them 4 x times the regular price.
So please go to GoDaddy.com, find the domain name you like and spend your first $8.95. Use the rest of the money and buy your kids ice cream, which I think will be much better investment, than spending the money for the same thing from someone else.
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