In the past few years web 2.0 has engulfed the way people interact on and with the internet. From the most basic of platforms to the content rich blogsites, there is now an engagement never before experienced on the internet and as a result consumers are looking for that interactivity everywhere they surf.

I have had the recent experience of converting my Snohomish County real estate website from antiquated web 1.0 platform to a SEO friendly Web 2.0 blogsite. It was an idea the company kicked around so we could stay ahead of the competition. But we did not make our decision until one day the Web 1.0 site crashed and our worst fears were almost actualized: loosing all web content. Lucky for us all the web content was retrieved but it actually scared us into action.

Reasons to Upgrade and Changeover

- Gain a SEO friendly platform
- Ability to grow internet presence
- Gain a strategic advantage over competition
- Be proactive instead of reactive
- Stay innovative and avoid stagnation

As all the reason “why” to make the change unfolded before our eyes the challenges started to show up. This decision was more complex than first realized because it was very strategic and could not be just jumped into.

Where to Start?

What Platform to Choose?: The new platform had to be SEO friendly, look professional and most importantly: have blog capabilities. So we started looking at the blogging platforms available, Wordpress, Typepad, Blogger. They encompassed similar technologies and featured many different themes and plugins for added customization. The platform had to have a small learning curve, be easy to publish content, simple file/image upload system and with excellent long-term adaptability.

Content Migration: Should content be migrated as is from the old to the new site? Or, should content be rewritten to further refine keywords and optimize each page’s content?

Is it Really Worth It?: Will all the time and effort placed in redesigning the entire website going to give us the marketing leverage desired?

Staying Motivated: During the process of changeover will there be a point when motivation dies off and quality suffers?

Building the Site

The process of changing over and creating a blogsite was more complex than getting content onto pages hoping it would stick to search engines. It was time consuming and required a lot of planning to make sure that ever inch of the SEO platform was going to be utilized. If planning was bad then the layout, content and site function would reflect it so extra time was spent in the first steps.

White Boarding: Grabbing the largest pieces of paper in the office I created a white board in which could be physically drawn upon. Doing this way enabled me to see the big picture, write notes, cross items out, refine keywords (title, description, page slugs) and really feel in the project. It gave me a visual representation what was going to be created.

Constructing the Navigation: Using the white board as the guide I met with the platform designer to discuss implementation of the navigation. It was more complex than just adding a blogroll; the navigation required the use a FTP site to access a NotePad ++ file. The file was all .php code and it took me a few minutes to understand what could be change and what needed to be avoided. Only once did I call the theme designer tell say “I screwed something up” which was better than past experiences.

Content Research: This area is critical to having an excellent website and the most accurate data would provide an excellent foundation. I determined it was best to use the city’s comprehensive plans since they would yield the most factual data. The plans encompassed many real estate topics: zoning, future plans, neighborhood boundaries and open spaces which resulted factual content rich webpages.

Individual Page Structure: Now came to formatting the data: headings, subheadings, bullets and italics. Most of these formatting features were used with my goal to maintain a clean, easy to read while avoiding the busyness that can be seen on other real estate websites. An example how the pages are turned out can be seen on the Lake Stevens real estate page. The page starts with a general description of the city, next comes the subdivisions and communities, then general demographics followed by a brief history and some informational links.

Critics: After each page was complete it was reviewed, edited and discussed with a person from outside the real estate industry. By having someone from outside the industry critic and evaluate the pages it gave me a greater understanding of what consumers might actually be thinking. Problems could be discussed and ideas explored more deeply making the pages as clear as possible. The critic process was long and grueling and the pages went through 2 critics before pages were considered finished and finally published. It was time well spent.

The changeover took me two months from start to finish using this simple yet strategic planning process. To the excitement of everyone involved the results have been nothing but astounding.

Restructuring the pages into a hierarchal layout, starting from the County level, enabled the interior pages to become more focused and rank over the homepage for their keywords. In less that a month, after DNS population, an interior page went from not ranking to #5 for its main keyword. In addition to rankings, sites statistics have shown a 100% increase in sessions as well as an increase of 150% in average page views.

These numbers demonstrate the power of well organized, built and designed website can make on a company’s marketing leverage. It is also better to be the first one to make a strategic marketing move to stay ahead of the competition than to be constantly wondering “how did they do that?”.

It has also allowed for us to target greater keywords and to experiment with various other internet marketing strategies and the Seattle real estate page is just one example. If you are planning to make the change from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 then take the time and make it a shining piece of artwork which encourages people to use and explore the site.

Toby Barnett, Barnett Associates Real Estate, LLC