When building a “niche” or “farm area” real estate website, ensure that you can get the data feed of listings for that specific target area onto the website that you’re building.
I apologize in advance for getting a little techy here, but there are a few tech items to check off the list if you’re going to create a successful niche website, and the top of that list is: LISTINGS.
If you’re in the pursuit of a real estate website that easily tops Google’s search results and stays there, with minimal input from you, you should absolutely have listings that auto-populate on your website.
Let me give you some examples, because I want you to see how powerful it can be.
Each of these websites show up for top search terms for their narrow niches: Klahanie Port Moody, Vancouver Penthouses, Kitsilano Houses.
- http://www.klahanieportmoody.ca/sahalee-651-nootka-way-condos-for-sale-port-moody-bc
- http://www.vancouver-penthouse.com/West-End-Luxury-Condos-Ian-Watt
Automated listings save you valuable time.
You’re going to put time into your website, you want it to be time doing things that only you can do – like writing a blog post or adding photos of the area – not time loading listings or other tasks that can and should be automated.
The key to success in this process is to create a website that takes you less than 30 minutes a week to maintain .
Having a website show up on page one of Google for your targeted search terms, and only having to put in 5-10 minutes every day or two would be the goal.
(This is not to say that you absolutely can’t load listings to a niche website manually. It’s been done. It’s simply not ideal because it’s relying on you, your vigilance, and your availability, instead of being done automatically.)
Look for a real estate website provider whose data links up to your real estate board.
The best case scenario is a company whose sites and data have the ability to create pages with specific search results, not just one that frames in a search or that allows people to search for any listings anywhere.
For reference, Ubertor provides data from the following real estate boards to create the pages that I’m describing:
- REBGV (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
- FVREB (Fraser Valley, BC, Canada)
- Chilliwack, BC, Canada
- Victoria, BC, Canada
- Edmonton, AB, Canada
- Calgary, AB Canada
- Red Deer, AB, Canada
- TREB (Toronto, ON, Canada)
- Mid Florida, USA
- Chicago, IL, USA
- Nashville, TN, USA
- Austin, TX, USA
If you are with one of these real estate boards, then Ubertor is a great provider of data for a Niche real estate website! Not to mention some of the easiest-to-use Realtor website software around.
Keep in mind, when you are targeting something like “waterfront”, ensure the feed can be narrowed to reflect your interpretation.. If not, review the feed options to see what workarounds are available.
Don’t forget that you’re not trying to be the MLS (aka: everything to everybody). Concentrate on providing website visitors with data, listings, information and search functionality for the target your website is focused on.