馃攳
I House Web | Real Estate Websites | review | idx websites | Pricing | - YouTube
Channel: Inbound Real Estate Marketing
[0]
Okay, this next review is again, this is a
series of reviews talking about the top 20
[7]
or so top real estate website providers.
These real estate website
[13]
providers will fall into a couple of
categories and by the way my name is
[16]
Robert Newman. I'm probably one of the
most experienced real estate online
[21]
marketing consultants in the US and if
you've been following me for a while and
[24]
look at anywhere else on my blog you can
quickly find plenty of information about
[28]
me. What we're looking at is I House Web.
This falls into the category of being a
[37]
real estate website IDX provider. Now
what does that mean? So these kinds of
[43]
providers tend to provide very low value
websites. Now I'm not trying to say that
[50]
they don't look good or they don't do
their job in terms of the way that they
[54]
perform on the web. All I'm saying is
that chances are strong that you're not
[59]
generating a lot of leads off this
website. You're mostly if you have
[62]
business cards you're sending people to
this website and they can search. They
[65]
can do property searches but the chances
of you getting more than a few leads in
[70]
your entire career of a website like
this is pretty rare. To demonstrate this
[75]
point and to continue down the review of
this particular provider. So here's the
[80]
pricing they range for $59.98
per month all the way up to
[82]
$299.98. Some of the
very basic things that they are not
[86]
including until you start spending more
like a hundred dollars a month is
[90]
actually integrated IDX search which is
a very basic feature. So you're probably
[96]
to get even a modicum of value out of a
website like this you're gonna have to
[101]
go at least $90 a month. So if
you've watched any of my other reviews
[106]
about real estate websites. I House Web
claims that they have thirty thousand
[115]
customers is what they're saying,
somewhere here on their home page or
[119]
something like that.
Join thirty thousand real estate agents
[127]
that have
these kinds of websites. All right, so
[132]
let's see first and foremost if that claim
is true. So here's I House Web and again
[140]
every time somebody builds a website
they put a signature on the website it's
[146]
a link, it's a liquid website address and
I have a tool that picks up those links.
[150]
So if they've built these websites and
have a link on them they're going to
[156]
come back here. Now this is saying 12,251 one links
[161]
it's possible that there is one of these
packages that says that they will give
[167]
out five agent sites. It's possible
that those sites will be on a sub domain
[171]
and that it's not going to come through
as an individual website. So maybe,
[178]
maybe, maybe, maybe they have thirty
thousand customers. I would be surprised
[184]
but it doesn't really matter. they
are one of the top real estate website
[187]
providers in the country regardless
whatever the numbers are twelve thousand,
[191]
thirty thousand that's a pretty big
number. So I've identified the type of
[196]
real estate website it is. What I do as
part of these reviews is I also pull up
[205]
and I'm sorry I bounced off that page
real quick. So I pull up the top-ranked
[212]
website and they do have a
very good one, okay. So this right here
[216]
this is a domain ranking URL link.
So eighty two is one of the highest I've
[221]
ever seen. So they have some very
established websites using their service
[226]
that have sent a ton of backlinks into
their site. So this is the
[231]
website in question. So now you get a
feel for what the websites are and I
[237]
will I do put a couple of examples under
each one of these reviews and then I
[245]
also probably have a way for you to
email me and then if you want I would
[249]
create like a list of fifty examples or
ten examples from the same website
[254]
provider but this is an example
it's pretty standard and then this, now
[260]
remember this is the number one site so
let's say that
[263]
12,000 this is the top-ranked site out
of all 12,000 I House websites. My tool
[270]
is really looking at mostly backlinks.
Now this doesn't necessarily indicate
[274]
performance in terms of lead generation
and what I try to identify is do
[279]
websites make real estate agents money.
Now that doesn't count if you've got a
[284]
business card if you send someone to the
site and then that person then says
[289]
I've been using your website you
follow-up with them by telephone
[292]
and you're always in contact with
them. If you're doing business that way
[297]
these kinds of websites can serve a
purpose. If your expectation is to drive
[302]
people that you don't know to the
website and then generate a lead off
[306]
those people that you do not know then
this is not a very good website. So this
[310]
has 114 thousand backlinks into it,
there's 228 keywords that are associated
[318]
with the site but according to my tool
they're only getting six visitors. Now
[321]
again I want to emphasize this is the
number one site out of all 12,000. So
[326]
this is why these numbers are important
it would seem that these guys are
[335]
not doing any business off their website.
The keyword that is associated with
[339]
their website is Jerry Diorio and
they're in position number 9. So another
[346]
thing that I like to do when
I'm kind of researching companies
[349]
especially when I'm doing these kinds of
reviews and I know that people get a
[353]
little mystified by why I do this but I
do like to look at the leadership of the
[357]
web development companies. Now this is an
interesting case Paul Sheng is the CEO
[364]
of I House Web. According to his
LinkedIn profile he's been the CEO
[369]
since 2005 which probably means that
he's the founder. He knows a friend of
[376]
mine, who is Howard Taylor maybe a
friend is a little bit too
[380]
aggressive. Howard Taylor is a business
associate at one point. He's head of
[384]
technology and I was talking about a
partnership. Nothing ever came of it, I
[387]
never did business with him but I've met
the man a few different
[391]
times. I have a lot of respect for him, he
was the founder of Tiger Leads. He sold
[395]
Tiger leads and they turned into
Commission Junction. So he and Paul know
[400]
each other
that doesn't mean very much because a
[403]
lot of these guys that run these
companies are very savvy technology
[407]
business people and their main objective
is to build the company up and then sell
[412]
it. Now Paul has not done that with I House
Web and that's one of the reasons I like
[416]
to look at these profiles. He probably
certainly has a company valuable enough to
[421]
do it at this point. I House Web has 45
employees listed. You can look at
[427]
Glassdoor, the reviews because I do
always check reviews when I'm checking a
[433]
technology company. The reviews are a
little bit mixed in terms of I House
[438]
Web. So here's the search that I did I
House Web reviews. So there's 16 reviews
[445]
on Activerain which is a go-to for me
when I'm looking at real estate and
[449]
they're all good, I've read them all,
they're great but there's a thread on
[455]
Activerain that started in 2013 that is
talking about how this person did not
[462]
get quoted a $15 MLS charge I House Web
weighed in and tried to address the
[468]
problem and I don't know if they were
able to or not but then in addition to
[472]
that on the thread there appears to be
basically a lot of conversations about
[477]
sales people at I House Web not knowing
the product well enough to be able to
[481]
pass on or discuss all the fees
correctly. There's also a lot of
[485]
conversation about people not getting
calls back. My experience 10 years in
[490]
this business dealing with every real
estate website competitor that there is
[494]
out there. Usually on the lower end like
this, actually in a lot of cases I can't
[500]
really say that. Some of the higher-end
companies are pretty bad too but in the
[503]
lower end for sure you really do have a
very uneducated staff that are servicing
[509]
the customers. It is not at all
surprising and the MLS structure is very
[513]
confusing and you're dealing with real
estate agents from all over the country.
[517]
So honestly I don't really take this too
seriously. In addition to these, there are
[522]
a couple of I House Web
customers that weigh in on this thread
[526]
and they basically say that they've been
using I House Web for 10 and 11 and 12 or
[530]
13 years and that they've always had
very good, very reliable service with
[533]
them. My overall impression after doing a
lot of research is that this is a pretty
[539]
sharp technology company that has a good
service, that's probably going to cost
[543]
you between$100 and $250 a month. I think
[545]
there's other services of this type you
can get more for your money from but if
[550]
you're looking at them, I mean and you
understand very clearly what it is that
[554]
you're signing up for then, these guys
aren't bad. This is the I House Web contact
[560]
information. Now one of the another of
the many things that I do when I'm
[564]
researching somebody like a lot of
companies are very good about hiding
[567]
their information not giving great
numbers to call, always sending you down
[571]
into a customer service process and you
can have a problem in that customer
[574]
service process. it's very difficult to
break out of it. So what I like to do to
[578]
potentially, to maybe figure out a way
around that is to look at who has
[584]
registered their website. In this
particular case it was a corporation
[588]
that registered the
website but it does give us a street
[591]
address and a phone number that might be
different than the other phone numbers
[594]
the have listed. Ultimately
speaking, my recommendation as with
[600]
almost all real estate websites. Is that
if your only objective is to put a
[606]
business card online if
that's all that you want to do this is
[610]
not a bad company to go with and they seem
pretty reliable and honestly I have
[616]
also read their Glassdoor stuff
which Glassdoor is a review service that
[621]
looks at employees reviews and most
of them say the CEO is distant. I
[626]
honestly think that tech is a very hard
place to be a leader and yes you'd want
[633]
to be you know as cozy and friendly as
possible but this company's shown
[637]
consistent growth, it has a huge customer
base, so this person that's running the
[641]
company has done a fairly good job. They
have a fairly good product, they seem to
[646]
care about what their customers are
getting or experiencing. You know there's
[651]
a lot of information posted, it's easy to
find who they're 45 employees are.
[657]
All together, all in all, I think that
they're a company that does the best
[660]
that they know how to do. Having said that
there are a lot of other better
[665]
solutions out there. They've been in
business a long time, they haven't tried
[668]
to keep up or really do anything
leading-edge for the amount of money
[670]
they charge and now there are people
that charge roughly the same amount that
[674]
will give you a lot more for the money
and I'll cover them later. All right
[677]
thanks for spending a moment with me. I
hope that you found this review on I
[681]
House Web as a real estate website provider
useful along with the written scorecard
[686]
that will be on the website.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage