Introduction

I am a real estate agent in Las Vegas, NV. I used to work in the IT industry as a designer, web developer, and then as a project manager. I became a Realtor because I wanted to have my own business where I could directly affect my income by how I worked. However, I still love to design and do it part time.

I have done work for large corporations, small businesses, and individuals. This page is provided for the do-it-yourselfer.

Good luck!

Web Design Tips for Do-It-Yourselfers

Web design can be very fun and if done right rewarding financially for a real estate agent. It can also chew up your time and frustrate you. Some people get the knack of it and can make quite an impact. Some people just need to know what they want and let the professionals take over. Dabble a bit and see if you pick it up. It won't take long to figure out if it'll be better to outsource the work or not.

I worked in the web design industry for several years and got to design some cool sites for McAfee, Intuit, and some others. Though I love to design, web sites can become a nightmare if you don't plan them well. I definitely understand that you want to plan your site out, get it done right, and don't let it dominate you. Below are a few things you may consider when designing and implementing your real estate web site. 3 parts of a web site for you to be concerned about

1. Pages - your design and content will be built into interlinking pages like a book with the pages laying next to each other instead of stacked. More about pages below...
2. Hosting - your pages need to be stored somewhere. Companies make it their business to "host" pages on their computers called servers. A server is no more than a beefy computer connected to the internet with instructions to "serve" web pages as they are requested by people surfing the net. Your pages will need to be stored on a server so others can download copies of them. More about hosting below...
3. Domain- Each server has a name. Accept in the computer world names are actually numbers because they can be unique to each server. Because we can't remember the numbers like a computer can we have to translate them back into a name. For example: this web site www.hildrethhome.com points to a server with a number that you wouldn't want to remember. Hildrethhome is a domain name replacing the number for our sakes. You will need to get one for your site that isn't already being used. You can go to web sites like www.register.com to buy a domain name and to host your site. There are many hosting and "registrar" (sell the domains) companies out there.

1. Planning - What are you trying to accomplish? Establish a goal with your site and then stick to that goal. If you find you have gotten away from the purpose of your site just to have a cool knick-knack then build another site devoted to that knick-knack. Start by taking a piece of paper to write out your goals and objectives. On another paper, draw a rectangle in the center and call that object the home page. Draw another rectangle next to it and draw a line between them. The other object is named after a main topic on your site. You can draw as many rectangles as you want and link them together in your planning. You will be writing content about each topic. For example: scroll up and look at the left column of menu items on this page. That is how many topics I came up with.
2. Page construction - There are many scripts and languages you can build your site in. The easiest to learn and grasp conceptually is html with images. html is code that tells plain text what color or size to be. It tells an area of the page to be a certain color or size. It gives structure and consistency. Think of typing in MicroSoft Word. In the background when you tell a word to be bold a code like html instructs it to be bold. For images, use formats called jpeg or gif files. You'll need a program like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, etc. to design images or you will need to copy them from somewhere (see copy right stuff below...) Images, text, and other design elements go inside containers called tables. Tables have properties (not the real estate kind, silly) that determine how they are shaped, colored, sized, etc. You will use tables to hold your images and text in place. You may need to get programs like Dream Weaver or Front Page for help building the pages. Keep your pages small in size. Technically the page you are reading right now is what they call "too heavy". The Flash images at the very top that keep fading in and out created a very large file. That's the price I pay for being a bit too showy on the site. Now-a-days the total weight (size) of the page should be between 80 to 100 kilobytes including images and everything. People will lose their patience if they have to wait for large download times.
3. Page design - What does your logo look like? what colors will get your message across? what images are necessary? what text should stand out and scream your message? You want to build your site around our industry. If you are a real estate professional then you are going to want to have a professional "these are all of the things I can do for you...contact me" design. Use colors that describe you and your services. Add topics that will touch your market. Keep your audience on your site. Provide useful info without giving away the farm...they still need to contact you. Free info is always good though. What sets you apart from others? Try to build your site so that pages are easily reproduced. Build a template with a common look and feel then put the content in its area. That way you won't have to maintain the site every five minutes. It all looks the same and gives the same message; only the content changes per page. Don't use effects that blink or flash or annoy. Loud colors definitely annoy people. Keep it professional.
4. Hosting - You will need to be able to upload your files (pages and images) to your server. Make sure that your hosting company helps you get along there. When hosting make sure your pages are organized well so that the names make sense and so that you don't have to go digging to find a file. It is good to keep an exact copy of your site on your design (home/business) computer. Do all of your changes to the home site and then "push" your files over to the "live" public site once you have tested the files on your PC. This way you don't upload mistakes for all to see. Test and make sure the site works every where.
5. Marketing - This is the tough part...I really mean it. What if you had the best product in the world, diamonds worth billions of dollars, and you set up shop in the middle of the Gobi Desert? No one would know you were out there and you would sell nothing. You have to get your site in front of people; and it takes time. Search engines like great content and lot of it. They can only find you if they "spider" a site that is linked to you or if you submit your site to them manually. They will then log your domain name (see above) and begin to spider it too. Over time they will calculate the value of your site compared to the gazillions of others and give you a rank. That is how they determine where you will be placed compared to others in search results. The better your content is the higher your rank. The more quality sites that link to you the higher your rank. The longer your page is on the internet the higher your rank. The sooner the search engines know about your pages the better. Get them up and use great content. 
6. Ideas - Spice the site up a bit with images and flash (ask me about it some time). Add utilities like local weather, time, maps, directions, search engines, etc. Organize your content and site well so that it flows and is easy to read and navigate.
7. Copy right - Be aware of copy righted stuff. For example, doing a copy and paste of this page and publishing it would be an infringement (though I probably wouldn't mind too much about this page). Many people are very picky about their content and images. They put good hard work into that site and somebody comes along and rips it off. Some people could care less. Please respect the hard work of others.

Again, good luck with it!

And don't be afraid to contact me if you live in Las Vegas and need some pointers in getting started.

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