I’m in the process of building a website to help with my marketing campaign. I’m not much of a web guru, but I found a site that has thousands of free templates. I picked one out this morning that looks pretty good and I’m now tweaking it, I’m also looking into a free webhosting services. Hopefully by the time I’m all done the only thing I will have invested is about 10 dollars for purchasing the domain name and about a day of work in tweaking and editing the site design.
If anyone needs help getting started with their own site let me know, I can point you to a few helpful resources.
For you investors who already have a website in operation, please share a link. Also maybe some of us cqan email each other and talk about networking for future deals. For example if I happen to come across a deal in Connecticut I would likely get in touch with Rich. Or if one of you knows of something available in Illinois you can contact me and we can work out some arrangement. But back to the website again, here are few questions:
Has your site generated any leads or deals?
How much response do you get from having a website?
How do you market your website?
I’m not much of a web guru, but I found a site that has thousands of free templates.
That’s where I got mine. I tweaked it to fit my need and it is working great. All the author asked is to add a small statement signifying he designed it originally, which I did.
I’m also looking into a free webhosting services.
All the ones I know that offer “free” either have hidden costs or force you to put advertising all over it. Why not spend $7-$9/mo on a quality hosting service?
For you investors who already have a website in operation, please share a link.
Wow, that’s a really nice job. The design is great and you also have lots of useful information, I’m very impressed. (in fact I might have to borrow a few ideas from you, for starters I need to investigate getting an 800 number)
So has the site helped you to generate any income or good leads?
Also how long have you had your site in place?
Thanks. The main things to keep in mind are (1) make it professional looking and (2) KISS (keep it simple stupid). I despise web sites that have flashy text, 100’s of colors, goofy images (and/or images that have no connection to the site itself), etc., as I’m sure most people do. I stick to just a few shades of brown/orange and only two (soft) images in my whole site. It hasn’t generated a ton of leads, but some (thanks mainly to my other marketing). It’s been up for about a year now.
BTW, I just added the AJAX code recently. Before, I had popups, which I found necessary but highly annoying. Now I don’t need them.
Have a website, I’m looking for free reports that cater to motivated home sellers (maybe on probate or selling your home fast) to provide content for them to come to my site. So looking for content for that target market if anyone has ideas. Have the reiclub reports for investors so far.
I have 2, see sig. I get some leads through it, kind of suprising considering I don’t really advertise them much outside of Craigslist and signatures on forums. Bandit signs are coming soon.
I can’t speak highly enough about having a website. It is working 24/7. Showing properies, taking rental applications, answering questions. It is a no brainer.
my site is http://www.Myluckyhouse.com
I have many websites. My land/investing site is www.vacantfloridalots.com
I use a web host called www.hostexpress.com . I bought server space for $24 per month and can have around 150 domains/websites before I need to upgrade. It’s great because I can purchase a domain and have a site up in minutes. Of course to put up a nice site takes much more time.
It’s also handy for direct-mail, too, because some people do not want to pick up the phone and call until they know more about whom they are calling. It’s a credibility thing, I guess. Also, they can get in touch with me using the form as opposed to calling if they are more comfortable that route, which clearly many of them are.
I think a Web site is 100% necessary, but that’s just me.
The only problem with that cheap hosting is that you’re on the same server as about 1,000 other sites. And if you ever need customer service, that can be spotty when you are paying so little.
Once you start hosting enough domains, it’s probably cost effective to get your own dedicated, managed server. We have a machine dedicated to us that is managed by Rackspace in Texas.
I also have a smaller hosting service, though, and I admit that I get better service from those guys. I can always just call “Brian,” the webmaster, and he’ll help me out.