Originally posted by "REI":
2. People who have never received a mailing but could be interested in your services. Do you expect to only deal with them if they want to sell? Or are you expecting to capture their details so you can remind them in the future that you are there and interested in buying when they are ready to sell?
People have caught on to the "build it and they will come" myth. I took the OP to mean that he will drive traffic to the site through direct marketing techniques to sellers, and therefore the site needs to be geared toward sellers. If he meant that he will bank on a high Google ranking, let me suggest that the OP's money can be used better elsewhere.
Originally posted by "REI":
Also look at sites that do not have a specific geographic focus. Do they have a program to refer leads so you do not even need a site of your own?
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Look at the fine print at the bottom and see if a vendor is providing the site or is offering some sort of service.
No, please do not use these sites. They are useless leftovers from the portal-hype era. They promise nothing except to create a barrier between you and your customers. Just the other day, I was searching for a lawyer and kept ending up on various pages of one of these sites. Needless to say, I kept searching until I found a lawyer with an actual website.
Either a website is useful in your marketing plan or it isn't. These cookie-cutter sites cater to people who are somewhere in the middle. They feel like they should have a website because everyone else does, but they don't consider it a core part of their plan. All they're going to get is the privilege of filling out that line of their business card.
Again, either a website is useful in your marketing plan or it isn't. If it is, then you need to shell out the money to actually create a good website with good content. If a user will find value in your website, then when you build it they will come!
Originally posted by "REI":
You really do need to start with a business purpose and then worry about the right tool for the job. Hence you need to be clear as to what the site is to do and then you can find the solution to do it.
Exactly. Have a business problem and then decide that a website can solve it. I have talked to too many people who do it backwards. If these people are approaching me to do their site, then I tell them to come back when they've solidified the site's purpose*. I would suggest that the OP do the same.
*I've found that such people typically turn out to be horrible clients, because they do not know what they want starting out, and will continually add on and change things throughout the life of the project.
