On a daily basis we get emails from people that sound increasingly like this: “My developer left me high and dry” or “My SEO firm says my site can not use PHP” or maybe my personal favorite “I spent a huge amount of money with company X and they did not do what I wanted and I now need it done for nothing”. I am consistently amazed that people do not do more research into the companies and people they hire, but I am also equally dismayed by the individuals and firms who are trying to pass themselves off as developers and SEO experts who have little to none in regard to real expertise to offer.

My shock and awe aside, I wanted to post some helpful tips here for Realtors when dealing with us technical folks in and effort to educate you to help make sure you are not going to get ripped-off. Some of these topics I will discuss will be very simple and obvious to many of you, but sadly, most are often not followed or considered.

Lets talk about web designers to start. First off, if you are looking for a professional web designer, ask for samples of any sites they have created. Make sure their example sites are easy to navigate, pleasant to look at, and work for you in both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Second, try validating the site using the W3C HTML validator.. Having a site that uses valid HTML will help ensure the site always displays correctly in all browsers and also will help improve search engine rank. A competent design firm should be able to do beautiful design work and also produce valid HTML code.

Now that you have reviewed a prospective designer’s work, and have your choice narrowed down, here are some things to do:

• Have a clear understanding of what you want and type it up in detail and provide it to the firm to assist them in understanding what you want. Do not just provide this information to them orally over the telephone, as ideas explained via the telephone are not always clear, and there will be no record of your intent or expectations.
• Make sure that the contract you sign, includes everything you have asked for.
• Never pay 100% upfront.. A good rule of thumb is to pay for design in 3 stages. 1/3 down, 1/3 after layouts are finalized, and 1/3 upon completion of the work. The payment method I describe protects both you and the design firm from being ripped-off for the full amount.

So, we talked about designers, now lets talk a bit about developers. Many of the same rules above apply:

• Get references for other clients that have used your potential developer and talk to some of those clients to make sure they are satisfied with the developer’s work and etc.
• If a potential developer promotes themselves by using any of the “find a programmer” web sites, check their feedback on those sites.
• If the developer is working on a pre-existing project, such as adding a feature to your Open-Realty site. Make sure the developer is actually familiar with the script they will be working with.

Once again, you want to put all project requirements in witting in as much detail as possible, and ensure your requirements are listed in any contract you sign. You should also pay for development work in stages just like web and graphics design. When my firm used to perform contract development work, we always asked for a deposit up-front, one payment scheduled when a predetermined amount of features were completed, and the final payment when all work was delivered.

Finally, lets talk about my personal favorite: SEO firms/experts. SEO firms are a dime-a-dozen and online everywhere you turn, and a vast number of them are not worth a dime. NO ONE and I repeat, NO ONE can promise to get you a #1 spot in a search engine for a specific set of keywords. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is simply not being honest or representing their actual capabilities. A site’s search engine ranking, is NOT going to change overnight, the next night, or the next. A site’s use of PHP, ASP,  PERL, RUBY, or any other dynamic web language does NOT mean your site will not rank well. Lastly, paying for Google Adwords will NOT improve you site’s page rank.

Now that I have discussed a bit about some things that do not help, let’s review some things that do work.

• Validate Your HTML - You can not expect a computer script to read and parse your site if the HTML language it needs to read and parse is incorrect, the same applies for CSS and etc..
• Content Is King - Your site needs informative and relevant text related to your site and your visitors. Things to avoid are topics such as: your weekend fishing trip. On a real estate site, you want  to talk about the local real estate market, area school, area events, etc..
• Content Is King - Refer again to the above step, yes it is that important.
• Out Bound Links - Provide links to other related sites. You can also link to other local websites, that may interest your visitors, but do not just create link to have links it is not useful to your users and search engines will penalize you if you start creating link farms (pages or sites with nothing but links).  Also when you create the links, do not just say “Visit John Doe’s Equipment Sales Click HERE” and put a link the “click here” put the link on the key works “John Doe’s Equipment Sales”. If you talk about “Ranch style home located in beautiful down town Eaton with access to Lake Woebegone.”, create links on the words “Lake Woebegone” to a site with information on the lake if one exists, and link “Eaton” to your the Eaton city website. In other words make the links relevant to your users and the search engines.
• Inbound links - This is very important and often overlooked by new website owners. Get other sites to link to you. Get links from other local business, related website, local chamber of commerce,  DMOZ, and include your link in the  signature line in relevant forums, blogs, etc.. when you post. DO  NOT SPAM other sites with useless posts to get your link out there.
• DO NOT SPAM - Do not send SPAM, for any reason. You should only send email to someone who has expressly requested that you email them. Spam is not only annoying but can also lead to your site being penalized by search engines.
• Search Engine Friendly (SEO) URLS/Links - If you already work   with Open-Realty you probably know it supports “search Engine Friendly” (SEO) URLs. How much do SEO URLs matter? Well, first off, Google and most other mainstream search engines can crawl (spider) dynamic URLS, so don’t believe for a minute that they will not. However, using SEO links are very important. SEO links provide a link such as: “3-story-Ranch-home-Easton-Michigan.html” instead of a dynamic link like: “index.php?a=viewlisting&id=4″. Search engines do look at the contents of a link for keywords to help them rank pages, and also any user who has to type a URL into a browser, will understand what to expect.
• Title and Meta Tags - HTML has <title> and multiple <meta> tags. There are numerous sites that will teach you about these. However the things to remember is to use unique and relevant titles on all pages, and use relevant keywords on every page. Do not just copy and paste the tags from your index page into every other page.

A couple of other tips, that we see ignored far to often, that will not effect your search engine ranks, but are excellent points in marketing you site and making sure people can find you.

• Advertise in Print - Anything you print out with contact information should include you websites URL. You want to get as much exposure as possible. Newspaper Ad, business cards, billboards, catalog of homes, etc. should all have you website address listed.
• Email Address at your domain - Stop using your free email provider or  local ISP provided email address and use an email address on your domain. You want people to remember your website address, using your email account on your domain just puts your domain name in front of them one more time. It also looks far more professional.

Finally, set realistic deadlines and goals for your project(s). I often hear things from clients like: “We have ads starting next week and need this done by then” or, “I promised I could do this in a week, now what exactly does your software do again?”.. Poor advance planning simply leads to poor results. Sit down beforehand and figure out what you want and when you will need it to be available. Work with your developers, designer, and etc. to make sure that your goals are in-line with their expected time frame. Make sure your goals are being meet on time, and if not, you may need to adjust your plans accordingly. Most importantly, make sure once you have a completed web site, that it has been working for more then 5 minutes before you start advertising it and telling the world about it..

Have other tips, suggests, or just comments please leave a comment.