The Perils Of Some Real Estate Gurus Masquerading As Web Designers
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, 29 of August , 2007 at 4:27 pm
Real estate agents like to buy the newest best thing. If I were a real estate agent and wanted to build a website, I would stay as far away from real estate gurus who claim to have the best method for building a real estate website. For one thing, if they’re worth their weight in salt as a real estate agent they probably don’t know squat about designing or building websites, let alone search engine optimization. It doesn’t really matter what industry you’re in; to succeed online today you need to have a firm grasp on search engine optimization and how to rank your site well at the search engines.
I visited one real estate website and noticed at the bottom that there was a copyright notice showing the owner of the content was the person who had developed the website, not the real estate agent whose site I was on. That’s a big no-no. If you pay a web designer or another professional to build you a website, make sure that you are buying the content. You don’t want to pay someone to build you a website only to find out that they own the content. You won’t be able to modify it and what good does it do to have a website that you don’t own the content to?
The Other Mistake: PLR Is Duplicate Content
That was the first mistake this real estate agent made. Upon further investigation, I found out that the owner of all of that content also licensed the rights for other real estate agents around the country to use it as well. The company actually had links to their customers’ websites. They all looked exactly the same! It was one template and all of the website contained content that was exactly the same. They were PLR articles. It looks like real estate agents who bought into that plan paid for a template with duplicate content so none of them got any SEO benefit out of their websites at all.
When you go to build your real estate website, be sure you don’t buy a package that looks just like everybody else’s. More importantly, make sure the content is not the same as anyone else’s online. If even one other web page has the same content that you have and that web page got that content first then your web page won’t rank in the search engines. It’s duplicate content. You’re only killing your business. Why would you do that?
Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.
Category: SEO
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Comment by Tim Judge
Made Thursday, 30 of August , 2007 at 11:55 am
Nick
You are right on! I have had my template website for for 3 years and its gotten me nowhere. I’ll be switching over to my own wordpress based site and that should start to climb the engines alot quicker. Thanks for all the helpful tips. Keep’em coming!
Your Loyal Reader
Tim Judge
Comment by Nick Stamoulis
Made Thursday, 30 of August , 2007 at 4:55 pm
Thanks for chiming in Tim, and thanks for being a loyal reader! 
Comment by Rory
Made Thursday, 30 of August , 2007 at 5:48 pm
Hi Nick,
I am a real estate agent, and I wrote my website myself with the help of a designer. As for all code, copy and links I manage those myself. I develop my own 100% unique content, with the exception of those areas where I’m using a mash up.
If you want to offer your services to real estate agents, you might want to check out the Active Rain Network. There are a few companies on there that provide cottage SEO service to real estate agents who are in a desperate need to understand this very topic.
Made Friday, 31 of August , 2007 at 11:16 am
[…] that SEO Service Provider wasn’t the only one discussing this issue. Nick Stamoulis at the Search Engine Optimization Journal also wrote a post on the topic and actually had some real estate agents chime in with their own […]
Comment by namecritic
Made Saturday, 1 of September , 2007 at 3:21 pm
It5’s about time people learned the truth about web seminars that sell templated websites and duplicate content.
They travel the country doing these seminars. They tell everyone their clients are making money being in their system.
Some of them set up such and such mall.com and sell people a templated website on a subdomain with duplicate content.
They sell this for $5000 and up to be part of their “system”. The only people who benfit from this is the people holding the seminars and the people who own the “system”.
They get away with it because they know people do not understand the web and want an easy way to own a web business. They play on people’s gullibility and the speakers at these seminars are good at selling it. They get people excited. They get them to sign up right on the spot.
I had a lady call me recently. A senior citizen. She was asking me for prices for writing content for her. I found out she had bought into one of these “systems”.
They didn’t provide duplicate content. They just provided a template, a subdomain, and the products to sell. She was not allowed to sell anything other than what they approve. This “privilege” cost her $6500.
I told her I would not write her any content. I told her that she should ask them for a refund. I would not cost her more money for something that would never make her a dime.
To own a web business means owning your own domain name, having your own hosting account, and having the freedom to sell whatever you like through your website. it also means that no designer owns your template, images, or content. it’s your money you are investing to own this web business, so own it.
I’m just glad someone is posting about these “systems” that are just no good. I’m not saying that all of these people are scamming. I think some of them actually believe their own hype. I think they did not bother to learn anything about seo and decided they knew everything anyway.
I hope a lot of people read the blog post Nick wrote and learn that there are no shortcuts, no magic pills, and no secret formulas to success on or off the web.
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