It simply amazes me that there are so many Real Estate professionals without a website or with one of many cookie cutter template driven websites. There are just too many reasons this is plain wrong. Let me explain:

1. All cookie cutter, pre-packaged, template driven web sites look the same. It simply doesn’t matter what options you have to change the look, they boil down to a fixed width template that rarely follows any usability guidelines. They are simply boring and lifeless.
2. In many cases you will not own your domain name. If you are relying on a firm to give you a complete package of web-hosting, domain services, etc. please read your license agreement. In most cases you will not own your domain or any of the code used to produce your website. In fact, in most of these agreements everything you upload to their servers, the host provider will lay claim to!
3. When you want new features added to your site you will need to wait for the provider to implement it for you. You want an integrated picture gallery, too bad. You want an integrated Blog, again too bad. If you do happen to stumble upon a provider that is forward thinking, just remember item number 2, you don’t own any of the code.

There are several things you can do to make sure that you have a good web presence. Over the next few weeks I will outline what you will need to ask yourself, how you should prepare to get internet savvy. How to plan for your internet future.