I’m looking for advice how to going about have three websites created for my RE Investment business. I’m shopping around for the best prices. I’m a newby. Any suggestions? Thanks! :help
Just out of idle curiosity, if you’re a “newby” (by your own admission) why do you need a website (not to mention 3 websites)?
What are your plans for these?
Keith
I participated in a TeleSeminar yesterday evening and the moderators included some suggestions in building a lucrative website for investors, therefore, I am taking the initiative to shop around for a website creation…thanks.
They may be creating some niche sites. I have several sites and want a few more. I have a main site, main blog, KW, and seo site. I’m starting up some more blogs and then want some sites for buyers, sellers, and investors. They aren’t usually extensive, but will help target the specific niches.
For investors, they may have a motivated seller site, a buyer site, and maybe a main site.
Thanks DeeinAustin. That was the suggestion, three sights, one for buyers, one for sellers and one for investors.
supersmartwebprofits.com is real good. Real pricey but they offer the complete suite, website with database backend, everything you need for offers, follow ups etc.
If anyone else is familar with that website, anyone know of any cheaper but real good solutions?
You know, I found this great website that provides customized websites for real estate and mortgage professionals. Very user-friendly, this website provides various options for different needs.
I wanted a distinctive look for my website, and the iToolPro Custom Package exceeded my expectations…they rendered a very well-designed website, professional and extremely effective. Timely delivery and constant interaction made it a pleasure to work with them
Extremely affordable as well, I strongly recommend their services, if you are looking for a unique and effective website to expand your business.
URL: www.itoolpro.com
- John Paul
RE/Max
FWIW, sometimes people don’t understand there is a difference between hosting plans and buying domain names. Often times, they’ll buy a domain name and think they need a separate hosting plan for each domain name, which may end up costing them money. Most hosting providers will allow you to do what is called “domain aliasing”. Essentially, you have two (or more) domain names point to the same physical location. For instance, you can have:
www.JoeBuysHouses.com
www.JoeSellsHouses.com
www.JoeInvestor.com
And all three sites go to the same physical location. It’s then up to the uderlying CGI, Perl, Java, PHP, or whatever script to pick out the referral name and send back the appropriate code.
I have several domain names that are aliased, and use PHP to handle which code the user sees. Therefore, I’m paying $45/yr for ONE hosting site, and ~$9/yr for each domain name (total=$45+$9x3, or $72/yr, or $6/mo). It’s a lot cheaper than paying $45/yr+$9/yr for EACH domain and it’s own hosting site (total=$54x3, or $162/yr, or $13.50/mo).
You need a website for credibility. You also need a business plan if you ever want to get financing via a lender…it all comes down to credibility. I use some software that has helped me in becoming more comfortable in making wise decisions, keeping track of my properties, etc. It also helped me create my webiste and it offers free webhosting. The software is called SmartInvestorPro.
Whatever all our opinions on web sites are, we all have to realize that the Internet is here to stay and it ain’t going away any time soon. There are billions of $$$ changing hands every year in business and consumer sales on the web. Look on it as your Shop Window.
The other poster was quite right…you need a web site for credibility. Think of it as an international business card. You can get far more on a web site than you can in any ad, and you have the additional facility of Google and Yahoo campaigns which are pretty cheap if you know what you are doing.
Buyer and seller alike are using the web to search for listings way before they contact a realtor. An Natnl Assoc of Realtors study showed that over 75% of people went to the web and searched before contacting anyone.
You don’t have to have a fancy singing & dancing web site. Just a good, honest site with tons of info for potential customers. Plus a contact page for them to contact you. Have a good form on the page and insert fields to ASK for the info you need. If you don’t ask they won’t tell you.
One of the main reasons for having an informative web site is to be able to gear up your marketing to “drive” people to the site. Let people know what you are offering. If it is not for them, they will not be wasting your time.
Make no mistake…a web site is probably going to be your best marketing tool.
Only my 1.789 cent’s worth.
Greetings from Mount Rainier Country
I’m surprised not one person has mentioned setting up a WordPress blog. Blog does not mean boring. When you configure a blog that right way with a quality ping list and some great plugins. You have a marketing tool that will drive traffic to your website and establish you as an authority on that given topic. The more you post origianl QUALITY content, that more your traffic increases including your search engine rankings.
Seems everyone is focusing on the traditional website. WordPress blogs are “web 2.0” Its the new way of the internet. I know It is working for me. I have many blogs. I set up one of them to have a website feel and you may not notice (if your a first time visitor) that it is a blog It’s http://www.winatmoney.com My other blogs are real estate related.
WordPress blogs can be added to a website
Example www.yourwebsite.com/blog
Just offering a fresh idea.
Gary
Point 2 is free and pretty flexible. They have sites for “builders” and property managers. You may be able to use one of those templates. http://nls.point2.com/Content/Who.asp
The wordpress based site idea is the best of the bunch I feel.
You can update it easilly and no great amount of Html/php is required.
Yes I’m totally sold on wordpress. And you’re rigght no html requrired.But I want to point out something. There are 2 types of wordpress blogs. One is where wordpress will host it for you and you will get a sub domian.
The second one, is where you install wordpress on a hosting account with your own domain name. This is what I like to call an 'Authority Site". Make yourself the authority in your given expertise and blog about it. Your readers will come to you when they need your assistance, service or product. TAG your keywords!!!
Traditional html websites are out. We are now in a web 2.0 era. What is working for me are websites that use scripts and ofcourse wordpress with a ton of plugins, to make my sites do alot of neat things.
One thing to know about web sites… You can now get non-U.S. web designers to do really good sites for your business at very reasonable prices. For a very large site (hundreds of pages) for my CPA firm, I paid a Philippine designer somethink like $300. (And she was not the low bid.)
For a couple of e-commerce sites I had done (including the one referenced below in my sig) I paid, I think, about $100. I.e., the site you see if you click the link below cost me about $50.
I don’t think I’m allowed to post URLs to the services that connect you with these offshore designers, but you can poke around and maybe search on terms like “freelance web designers”… or similar terms, you’ll find what you need.
BTW, the designer I know work with (and she’s great) is very efficient and her billing rate is $10 an hour.
P.S. If it’s to post a link to an example web site that connects people to offshore designers, let me know and I’ll provide that info. (Er, my only connection to the service I’d name is that I’ve been a customer.)
I love the blogs! great functionality and easy to put together …
For my buyer’s list website i have switched to blogs… you can check one out here
http://www.jaxrehabdeals.com and see how we use them in our business…
mine have some custom modifications to it but you can easily download many of the free templates…
google “word press templates”
crischico your blog is awesome. It is just what I had in mind for my blog here in central Virginia but I just didn’t see how to pull it off. Forgive me for modeling my blog after yours. It is just perfect. I also found the other website helpful. Especially the tip on using a reseller account.
SJB
you can check out a few others…they are all the same
www.southfloridarehabdeals.com
www.sanantoniorehabdeals.com
please note that i dont drive traffic to them. meaning that if you are wanting to place people on your mailing list the i would drive to a squeeze page to get them inside …
i place the blog on the root domain since the squeeze pages are run off another domain
but you need some mechanism to automate your list building and additionally you dont want to send it via your own personal email
the service that i would recommend for this is www.aweber.com
if you are looking to create static sites i would recommend using www.xsitepro.com . its a great tool for creating websites quickly without having to know anything about web development
a quick and ugly site that I put up is www.charlotterehabdeals.com . this site took about 45 min. but it would take you probably a few hours as a first timer. It’s actually for a buddy of mine that needed a quick site and I was too lazy to put a blog
I prefer to work with dreamweaver since it know a bit more and can actually go in and modify the code but it really is unnecessary. Your priority is speaking with sellers and buyers and leaving the IT stuff to someone else
you could always go to elance.com or rentacoder.com and hire some guy from romania to put the thing togther for you for a few bucks start to finish.
also with the blogs you can get a ton of themes for free …and can change them very easily.
in the near future I’ll try and do some video on getting the blog set up…time permitting of course
i hope this helps