Time For A Change! Current Stats
Well all, it is time to move away from my basic as can be WordPress site, with a theme from StudioPress (which I love BTW!) to a new platform for my real estate website. I’ve learned a ton along the way in creating my own website but I am finding that I spend way too much personal time fidgeting with it and trying to make it perfect, and not enough time doing what it is supposed to help with, selling real estate.
My current IDX provider up to this point has been IDX Broker which is a great platform and I have had a lot of fun customizing and tinkering with their settings, but I get bored easily and I started searching for something new. Since Diverse Solutions does not service my area, I was extremely limited in my options for upgrading my site and inevitably ended up choosing Real Estate Webmasters which I have mentioned on here before. I had to have an impressive IDX integration that was indexable but also flowed very well as I know how important it is in a user’s search experience. Their platform, along with Jim and Drew’s Virtual Results websites (which I hope to one day try as well!) are pretty much the best in the business and I am extremely excited to start measuring results.
Current Look Vs. New Look
Now, getting to the point of all of this, I am going to be measuring my results on numerous metrics that I track when it comes to my website to properly gauge the overall lift created in making this change. I am not an SEO, but have studied and taught myself enough over time to know the basics of what I need to be looking for and tracking. I am not the type of person who studies analytic’s so doing this post is an excuse for me to actually come up with some measurements and benchmarks to properly measure my results. Hopefully this write-up and follow-up will be of help to other real estate professionals working on their online web presence.
Below are the stats from when I first started publishing content in May, so this is 5 months into a brand new website, content, and new domain name. One thing to note here is that my market is very small compared to many major websites. This is a small luxury ski town with a large amount of vacation homes and rental properties. Most peoples traffic will be significantly higher than mine.
Current Site Statistics:
Overall Increase of Traffic-
Search Engine Traffic:
SEO Stats:
Current SERP Results For Major Keywords:
Park City Real Estate- 29
Deer Valley Real Estate- 39
This is where I currently stand with the metrics that I do track on my site. One thing to note here is I jumped up to #2 on Bing for “Park City Real Estate” which is interesting. Hopefully Google willow follow suit! I’ll be doing updates after a few months into the new website to track improvements in SERPs, Traffic, Bounce Rates, Etc. If you have any questions about any of this I’d be glad to answer just send me an email.
Stephanie Crawford-@AgentSteph
Posted at 15:19h, 03 OctoberGood luck! I love it when agents are open about this sort of thing. I’ve never understood why everyone is so secretive….
Michael Borger
Posted at 15:21h, 03 OctoberGood luck with your new digital presence! It’s always fun, exciting and nervous, like opening up a new toy. It’s also good that you have your metrics down for proper testing. Best wishes.
Ben Fisher
Posted at 17:58h, 03 OctoberThanks for the comments. Not sure as to why others aren’t too open. The only thing not publicly available is traffic stats which won’t really help anyone in their own business. Yes the new site is just like a new toy! Can’t wait to get it live and start seeing it perform.
Sam DeBord, SeattleHome.com
Posted at 09:31h, 04 OctoberWell done. There’s nothing like statistical proof of improvement to justify your decision. (Like the SEOMoz and Bing refs as well).
Jeff Manson
Posted at 11:14h, 04 OctoberHey Ben, You are going to obviously go up in rankings if you continually work on content and incoming links. What you should be measuring is your conversion rate with the same amount of traffic. I would bet the new site will out perform the old one on sign ups. Real estate websites by companies like Real Estate Webmasters and Real Geeks convert better than most wordpress sites UNLESS they integrate the IDX properly and create a smooth user experience. I base these comments on looking at stats as well 🙂
The search engines are also factoring in page load speed and a lot of wordpress sites are slow because of the plugins agents use.
Ben Fisher
Posted at 13:46h, 04 OctoberHey Jeff, thanks for the comments. You are right, conversion on a non-custom platform just isn’t the same. I’ll make sure to include some of those figures as well on the next write. REW and you both have great products (pardon me for not mentioning you as well, as Real Geeks is really creating some impressive sites).
Jeff Manson
Posted at 14:05h, 04 OctoberThanks Ben! REW has a great product as well 🙂 I am sure you will have great success!!
Jeff Manson
Posted at 11:16h, 04 OctoberBTW: I guess I should disclose I started Real Geeks.
Alex
Posted at 12:23h, 04 OctoberCongrats, Ben. I’m sure migrating to a new platform was a lot of work but it will be well-worth your time/efforts.
Ben Fisher
Posted at 15:38h, 10 OctoberLittle update. I’m now changing domains as well! http://www.parkcityluxuryrealestate will be the new site. Much better name, domain age from 2002, and I’m 301’ing the old site over.
Jeff Manson
Posted at 16:07h, 10 OctoberShould work just fine if the 301’s are done correctly. Combining the 2 domains will make it stronger and raise your rankings if both have been online 🙂
Ben Fisher
Posted at 16:10h, 10 OctoberI found a programmer who loves working on real estate sites who is helping me out. Way above my skill level 🙂 . The old domain was doing well, new one hasn’t been active for a bit but should do well. Already transferred my main links over to the new domain.
Search Engine Optimization
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