Do realtors need their own website if the brokerage provides one?

Your brokerage set you up with a free website, and now you're wondering: do realtors need their own website if the brokerage provides one? Honest answer: the brokerage site is a fine place to start, but it's built to promote the brokerage. A personal site is built around you, and if it's on a web address registered in your name, it comes with you if you ever switch brokerages.

Whether that's worth paying for depends on where you are in your career. Here's a fair look at both, so you can decide for yourself.

What a brokerage website does well

Brokerage sites get a bad rap they don't always deserve. They do some things very well:

• It's free or cheap. For a newer agent watching every dollar, that matters.
• Listings are already connected. Your brokerage's listing search is usually built in, with no setup on your part.
• The branding is handled. Logos, brokerage details and required wording are set up the way your brokerage wants them.
• There's no work. Fill in your bio, add a photo and you're done.

If you're new, that's a perfectly good starting point. The question is what it can't do as your business grows.

Brokerage website vs. personal website: where the brokerage site falls short

It's a template, so you look like everyone else

Your page usually has the same layout, colors and wording as every other agent at the company. A buyer comparing three agents from the same office sees three nearly identical pages with different headshots. Nothing tells them why you're the one to call.

You have limited control

Template sites often limit what you can change: which pages you have, how they're worded, whether you can add town pages or write articles. If you want a page about buying a camp on your favorite lake, there may simply be no place to put it.

The same goes for lead forms. On many brokerage sites, inquiries go through the company's system first, and you can't add your own home-value form or change what it asks.

Search engines credit the brokerage, not you

Your profile usually lives on the brokerage's web address, something like brokerage.com/agents/your-name. Any search credit that page earns builds up the brokerage's site, not a site under your own name.

When you leave, the site stays behind

If you switch brokerages, your profile page, its web address and anything you built on it usually stay with the old company. Inquiries that came in through it may stay there too. You start over somewhere new.

It's hard to stand out in a Maine niche

Plenty of Maine agents build their business on a niche: waterfront homes, camps, land and acreage, relocation or second homes. Showing that expertise takes pages a template usually doesn't have room for: guides, local knowledge and answers to the questions those buyers ask.

What happens to my website if I switch brokerages?

This is the question that matters most for many agents. With a brokerage site, the answer is usually simple: it stays with the brokerage.

With a personal site on a domain registered in your name, the web address is yours. When you move, you update the brokerage name, logo and contact details on the site, and everything else keeps working: your about page, your town guides, your reviews and the search credit they've built up. People who bookmarked your site or saved your card can still find you.

Before you switch, read your brokerage's policies on things like leads, listing photos and content created while you were there, so you know what goes with you.

When the brokerage site is enough

Honestly, sometimes the free site is all you need:

• You're brand new and still learning the business. Spend your energy on your first clients.
• You work part-time and aren't trying to grow right now.
• Your business is all sphere and referrals, and those clients already know how to reach you.

When a personal website makes sense

• You're building a long-term personal brand in your market.
• You focus on a niche or a handful of towns and want pages about them.
• You want your own seller-lead and home-valuation forms, sent straight to you.
• You're thinking about switching brokerages, now or someday.

A personal site isn't magic. It works best when you keep it current and point people to it: on your business card, your email signature and your social profiles.

If you want more ideas on building leads you control, see my guide on how Maine realtors get leads without Zillow.

You can use both

This doesn't have to be either-or. Keep your brokerage profile and link it to your personal site. On your personal site, link to your brokerage's listing search, or add listing search through a third-party IDX provider if you want it on your own pages (IDX is the system that shows MLS listings on an agent's website). Each points people to the other.

What to put on a personal agent website

One more thing: agent websites need to follow your brokerage's policies and the Maine Real Estate Commission's advertising rules, which include things like showing your brokerage's name. Check with your brokerage before you launch.

The bottom line: do realtors need their own website if the brokerage provides one?

Not on day one. But if you plan to be in this business for years, want to be known in your towns or niche, or might ever change brokerages, a personal website is one of the few marketing tools that keeps paying off no matter where you hang your license.

Where I fit in

I build personal websites for Maine agents, with town pages and lead forms, hosted and kept updated for one monthly price. Your domain is registered in your name, and the text and photos you provide stay yours. You can see what I mean in my real estate agent websites page and my portfolio.

• Starter, $65 a month: up to 5 pages, mobile-friendly, a contact form, hosting, SSL, backups, basic on-page SEO and 30 minutes of updates a month.
• Business, $89 a month: up to 12 pages, including service-area and gallery pages, 2 hours of updates a month, monthly analytics and priority email support. This is usually the right fit for agents, because it has room for town pages.

Both are month to month with no setup fee and 30 days' notice to cancel. See my simple monthly plans and how the free preview works: you'll see a homepage designed for you within 1–2 days, free. If you like it, your site can be live about 3 days after you approve it. I work with agents all over the state, from Bangor to the coast; see website design across Maine.