Comparison:

A Highly Customized XSITE
vs.
A Site Designed from Scratch

An a la mode XSITE (or any other web site product) will always have more limitations on what can be done than designing and coding a web site from scratch. Personally, I think the real trade-offs are entirely worth it, most trade-offs are mythical - especially if you get help from a web designer and, in fact, the XSITE weighs in as the clear victor over 'from scratch' sites on real cost and actual return. That's why when it comes to real estate sites, I work exclusively with a la mode XSITES as a member of a la mode's reseller network.

For one thing, I don't know that most designers that design and/or code a site entirely from scratch fully exploit the resources available to them. I've seen all kinds of 'from scratch' sites that were shortchanging the site owner in terms of features, search engine optimization, and capabilities. I'd much rather see a fully optimized XSITE than a merely 'good' site built from scratch - any day of the week.

XSITE Limitations: The important ones currently have to do with graphics: On the side navigation bar: you can only add one photo - so no additional clip-art to that portion. On the top/header: only one header graphic (which a la mode calls a "background") and one logo or other graphic can be used in most themes. There are multiple workarounds that a competent web designer can use. So truly the most significant limitations are only the graphics you provide me and what I can/can't do with them (see the clipart article in this blog). These are limitations of the XSITE that you don't have if you have a site built entirely from scratch. For most people, the limitations actually lend a professional and logical structure to the site.

Limitations of "from scratch" Web Sites

1. Costs: To have a site built from scratch that approaches the quality of the XSITE's initial appearance, and provides at least on the surface, it's basic functionality, you're looking at $1500-$5000 and/or a monthly fee (more about fees below). Sure, you can get a kid to design it, and it'll look like a kid designed it (and hopefully he's around again when you need him). But there are other issues - these are just a couple:

2. You lose more than half your marketing potential by losing the integrated tools built into the XSITE that are often even more important to marketing and growing your business than the 'front end' of the site itself - tools that make it so much more powerful than a 'from scratch' site, because you've got a team of programmers working on them, not one or two guys. For instance, you could have forms on a custom-built site, but they wouldn't integrate with XSellerate in any way or have any way to add people automatically to an XSellerate campaign. You could make listings pages on a custom site, but you'd have to update them by hand each time and they wouldn't have any of the special listings tools that work only on the alamode network, like listing exchanges that promote your listings on other XSites. No one will find you via the XSites Network (if you're not listed in it, and you have an XSite, you really should get that listing setup properly). If you currently think of your site as just a web site, just email, just a dot com - then truly that's all your getting.

3. Your site is on a slippery slope to obscurity. This one is huge! Sites that aren't updated frequently tend to drop off in the rankings. It's not enough to be the first listed when you search "Hezekiah Mortgage Agency" - how many of those do you think there are in the world anyway? But if you search Palaluma, New Mexico Appraiser, and you come up on the 50th page, who do you think is going to call? Try searching for yourself under your cities and towns that you cover -[e.g. mortgage dallas or real estate tuscon] and see where you really are. What a lot of designers do is sell you the initial site design, and maybe then a contract to stick around and make any changes you want, while they're overcharging you for your e-mail, dot com, and so on. And lo, they're willing to talk to a la mode for you, which is very little hassle for them. But when's the last time they asked you if you had any new material to put on your site, and gave you industry-related ideas to keep your site content constantly updated? Did they give you a way to jot down anything you want and have it automatically published to your site on demand? Why not?

Blog: The XSITE's blog tools make it extremely easy for you to update your site with your latest thoughts on the industry, what's happening in a certain real estate community, or even just your latest hunting trip. Copy/paste in new material or jot a few notes - If you're a real estate professional, jotting a blog entry is about the easiest thing you'll do all day long. It automatically publishes itself to your site. No web designer needed. Sure, someone like me could take your money for that - that's not what I do. I help you get the site looking lavish, make it more effective, and optimize it for search engines and, if you want, I'll stick around for significant things, and help empower you w. tools you already have.

With a site built from scratch, you either have to have a web designer make all the changes, or learn how to code. But who is going to write up new content all the time, and how often is that designer really going to make those changes. If you start having thoughts at 6pm three times a week that, normally, you'd just type into your blog for automatically publishing on your site, the price is going to go up if you're not using a la mode's blogging tool

Tradeoffs: So yes, there are tradeoffs, but the reason I work exclusively w. alamode/XSITES for real estate sites, as an alamode reseller, is I think those tradeoffs are totally worth it. Typically, 'from scratch' sites are updated far less frequently and tend to be half as effective, with lots more effort to update, and they often don't look half as good as a truly customized XSITE.