Comments on: 5 Steps to Turn Your Template Website Into A High Ranking Business Tool

By: Steve Babbitt

Steve Babbitt — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:37:54 +0000

RT @AngelaPenkin: http://bit.ly/Nr0fL Great info{good article}

By: Angela Penkin

Angela Penkin — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:08:41 +0000

http://bit.ly/Nr0fL Great info

By: Angela Penkin

Angela Penkin — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:16:49 +0000

Hi Mariana, great article – so much info that I was looking for – yep, found this page on google, although I do receive emails so I guess I must have subscribed too! But what I am specifically trying to find out is: can I add google analytics code to my ihouse template website pages? Another question, if I build single property websites, may I (would I want to?) add these to google through the tool you listed in your articel? And thanks for the great info, I am going to start making some changes right now.

By: Stigliano Jones and The Template Of Doom | national real estate opinion column - agentgenius.com

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:30:41 +0000

[...] Mariana Wagner wrote a great AG article about how to make a template site better, so if you’re still inclined to keep yours, read it [...]

By: Mariana

Mariana — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:45:28 +0000

Hey Ginger – As long as you can keep up with the sites, you could have a great boost in business!

By: Ginger Wilcox

Ginger Wilcox — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:11:02 +0000

I am so glad Benn directed me here!! I have a ton of domain names registered in my market that I am not really using. These might be worthwhile to convert into inexpensive template sites that I have customized per your instructions. Apparently I have some research and work to do.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:37:12 +0000

I agree, there is more to this than just the author of the website.

By: Zoomf Blog - UK Property Blog » Blog Archive » UK property websites are 80% templates with no soul

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:48:04 +0000

[...] Pretty short list right? So how do you turn that drab and content-poor website into something that can actually help your marketing efforts like outlined here by Agent Genius? [...]

By: Ken Smith

Ken Smith — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:28:31 +0000

I am a “.com snob”

Think you have to be unless you like sending traffic to your competition.

By: Ken Smith

Ken Smith — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:27:03 +0000

IMO I would not use anything other then a .com UNLESS you NEVER plan on passing out the URL on any marketing material, verbally giving to potential clients, or having anyone in the future verbally pass it on to a friend. (impossible to assume this IMO)

The problem is that people just assume .com for a website and if you are .info you will just be driving traffic to the .com version. If you are comfortable with the potential of loosing clients down the road to save $5 per year then that is your choice, but not a very smart business decision IMO.

The more niche the market the easier it is to find a quality .com domain to brand.

By: Mariana

Mariana — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:20:24 +0000

I am a “.com snob”. People think in terms of “.com” and I try to only use “.com”. I only have one .net site and it frustrates me. But, I also advertise my site offline (newsletters, etc.) … If I was only linking to them, I suppose a .info site would be okay.

By: Barry Cunningham

Barry Cunningham — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:07:19 +0000

Ok Mariana..I did not think of the shared links part of it. I was just looking at it from a opne blog point of view but this definitely makes sense.

Ken..excellent info..nnever thought of that…

Would either of you use .info sites (they are really..really cheap) since all we are doing is neighborhoods with them would that be ok? Normally I hate .info sites but in this instance it might be ok..your thoughts?

By: Mariana

Mariana — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:37:13 +0000

Jon- Dumping the canned content is KEY when trying to make a template site do well at all. Good Luck!

Barry- Okay .. Yes. A page on my blog WOULD be good. I rank for 2 spots on Pg#1Google for “Colorado Springs Neighborhoods” – from interior pages from my main blogsite. But, here is my thinking on this …

1. I already had 2 template sites – One was free and one was almost free. I was making use of what I already had, but assigned them the role of being a hub for 2 main sub-areas that I work in.
2. When someone goes to these sites, it is ALL MONUMENT or ALL STETSON HILLS … not just a subsection, or afterthought. I believe it shows our team as more of the authority in that area.
3. Both those sites now rank a PR3, and between those sites and my main site, I can’t help but believe that the shared links between them are helping ALL of them.

Ken- I agree – the smaller sites DO allow you to “test things out” … that you would not be comfortable doing on your main site.

By: Ken Smith

Ken Smith — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:21:57 +0000

Barry there are multiple ways to go after niche terms. Taking a site that is already an authority and adding pages (or posts) to it is an option. It will rank for the new term fairly easily. The other way is to set up a new site to go after the new term. Based on how niche the term is it really isn’t that hard to rank the new site. My approach has been to use both so I have 2-4 of the top 5 spots between multiple sites.

Everyone needs to decide what works best for them based on the time and skills they happen to have. The reason I like the multiple site approach is it allows me to test things and take some risks with smaller sites that I wouldn’t ever dare to do with my main site.

By: Barry Cunningham

Barry Cunningham — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:53:30 +0000

Mariana..I have a question..would not just a page on your current blog do the trick for the other neighborhoods ? I mean would not a seo page on your current blog have more juice than an old template site? Just wondering

By: Jon Sigler

Jon Sigler — Thu, 22 May 2008 11:54:12 +0000

It used to be said that template sites were no good, you had to go custom to get anything from them, to get ranked, etc. Sure certain template sites still are useless getting ranked in the search engines, especially the mothership ones, but a lot of template sites have great SEO abilities. I recently switched from a limited one to an xSites by a la Mode and now come up first on “zero down mortgage connecticut”, the exact keyword I wanted. You have to make sure the template site allows the user without charge to control the title, keyword and description tags. Right now I’m working on the dumping of the canned content and writing my own.

By: Ken Smith

Ken Smith — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:57:00 +0000

There is no question that the niche sites require way less work. Set up a simple site and for the most part you can forget about it. Big advantage to websites over blogs.

By: Mariana

Mariana — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:25:03 +0000

LHFS- Yes. Patience is a virtue, but well worth it!

Ken- You are right. It has to be worth it in the long run. Foretunately, the niche site require less work, so the ROI should be easier…

By: Ken Smith

Ken Smith — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:48:22 +0000

Niche markets don’t take much to rank for when building a website around it. Have taken new domains to #1 position multiple time in under a month for niche markets. It’s all about figuring out if the term will bring in enough leads to make it worth the investment, all that matters is the ROI worth it. Most of the time it should be as long as you are following up with the leads.

By: Mariana

Mariana — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:40:11 +0000

Dale- Yay! I wish you luck in your venture... Mack- You are right. That is important, but that is just MORE work and not everyone has the time to gather effective backlinks for more than one site. I believe that you can get the job done without putting too much effort into it.