There are few things as powerful as WordPress when you want an easy, affordable, and robust solution for setting up a website or blog. It seems that there is significant interest in using WordPress to set up a real estate site and not a whole lot of information to find about setting one up or running one. Whether you have an existing site and you’re wanting to switch to a new solution, or you’re setting up your site or blog for the first time, I hope this guide helps point you get started. There are thousands of real estate sites powered by WordPress now, find out why they are using this awesome application.
Whatever the case, if you’re in real estate you need a website.
- Why should I use WordPress?
- Choosing a domain name
- Setting up hosting
- Installing WordPress
- Plugins
- Real Estate Themes for WordPress
- Content and listings
- Promoting your site
Why should I use WordPress?
There are many different options available to you when setting up a real estate site or blog. I believe that WordPress is one of the most powerful and affordable (free) programs out there that can allow you to have a professional site that easily incorporates all of the bells and whistles that you might need on a site about real estate.
- Cost - it’s free to install and use WordPress
- Support - There are thousands of people and developers that use it, so there is a large community base to help you if you have problems
- Flexibility - There are very, very few things that you can’t do with WordPress
- Ease-of-Use – Once you’re up and running, maintaining and updating your site is very easy once you understand how to use it
Choosing a domain name for your site
The first step in getting everything running is to select a domain name. A domain name is the address (referred to as a URL also) of your website: For example: www.YourRealEstateSite.com is a domain name. You want to choose a name that describes your company, services, or products. Ideally, you want a domain name that matches your company name.
- Extension - I highly recommend choosing a “.com”. While you can use the other extensions (.net, .info. us) you will save yourself a lot of headaches and frustration by choosing a domain name that ends in .com
- Keep it short – The shorter the domain name, the better
- Easy to spell – You want your clients to be able to remember your site, if you have a difficult to spell name then you might want to consider going with a more brand-able domain name
Where to find available domain names
You can find domain names through a company like GoDaddy (in my opinion, the best company out there), for around $10 per year. If your name is taken try some different variations or (if you really want a name that has been taken) contact the person that owns the domain and see if they are willing to sell it to you.
Registering your domain name
Once you have found the perfect name, you want to register it. If you plan on being in the real estate business and building a site, I would recommend registering the domain name for the maximum of 10 years so you don’t have to worry about it expiring and someone else potentially catching it when it expires.
Setting up web hosting
Once you have registered your domain name, the next step is to buy website hosting. A hosting account allows you to put a website live on the internet.
GoDaddy offers some great web hosting plans that are extremely affordable for around $5 per month (and even cheaper if you pay for a year). I have found them to be very reliable and dependable with service that is second-to-none. The great thing is that they will take the time to walk you through and get everything set up for you (which is excellent if you’re trying to set it up yourself).
You can also check out my post on Hosting WordPress on Godaddy.
Installing WordPress on GoDaddy
Now that you have your domain name and hosting account, it’s time to install WordPress.
I have set up over a hundred WordPress sites with them and the process really couldn’t be simpler. In only a few clicks you can be up and running. GoDaddy has an easy walk-through on how to install WordPress: http://help.godaddy.com/article/834
WordPress Plugins for your site
There are several plugins that I highly recommend installing:
- All-in-One SEO Pack – Makes your site search-engine friendly
- Google XML Sitemaps – Creates a sitemap automatically for you
- Google Analyticator – Allows you to track visitors and website statistics
I use these three plugins on each and every WordPress site that I set up and they are all second-to-none. Also, you may want to add some type of social bookmarking service like: AddThis, ShareThis, or AddToAny, so people can share your website and content easily.
Real Estate Themes for WordPress
WordPress themes are premade templates that you can choose to give your site a certain layout and design. It makes giving your site a professional look, very quick and easy. You simply upload theme to your hosting account and you’re ready to go!
If you are wanting to install a theme yourself, you will need some type of FTP program (like Filezilla) to upload your theme into your hosting account. Once it’s uploaded you will then need to activate it, you can learn more about uploading a theme at the link below:
There are a couple dozen themes that have been designed specifically for real estate that you can check out:
- 17 real estate themes for WordPress
- 5 Beautiful premium WordPress real estate themes
- WordPress Real Estate Themes
For professional designs I also highly recommend checking out StudioPress and GorillaThemes. These two companies offer some of the most affordable and professional themes for real estate available anywhere.
Content & Listings
You’re almost there! The next step is writing your content and listing your properties or information for your site! Katz Design has put together a great list of content and sections that you might want to include when setting up your site.
Promoting your new real estate site
Finished? Not quite yet, now comes the part where you get to promote your site and the sky is the limit! There are thousands of different ways you can promote your real estate site and listings. One of the most affordable and easy ways to market is via email and if you want a great way to build a subscriber base and keep in touch with customers or potential customers, I would recommend checking out Aweber email marketing. They offer very low monthly rates and are one of the most popular email marketing companies out there. With Aweber you can send newsletters, send autoresponders, and tons of other cool stuff.
Additional Resources & Information
I wanted to round out this guide with some helpful links to information and articles that will hopefully help you get your real estate site up and running and achieving its maximum potential. If you’re in the real estate field and were considering using WordPress to run your site, I hope this guide has helped you at least get you started and headed in the right direction, to your success!
- StudioPress – They have some great real estate themes
- GorillaThemes – Another great real estate theme site
- Building a Real Estate Website in WordPress – Part 1 & Part 2
- GoDaddy – For registering your domain name(s) and buying hosting
- Aweber – Email marketing & newsletters
