How To Identify A Good Real Estate Investor Website

How To Identify A Good Real Estate Investor Website

by

S.Macharia

A website is one of the most basic necessities of any business – including real estate investing. But you must get a web site that serves to make your business easy, profitable and fun to run without being a computer geek. Unless you do some proper home work, you could find yourself in an expensive venture that does not serve your real estate investing business well.

The following golden rules apply when you are shopping for a real estate investor web site.

1: Privacy

You must have control of your real estate investor web site and its contents. You must OWN it. Especially you must be able to host it where you want without unnecessary limitations where only you control access to your data. If the company provides hosting, then capability to control the hosting account and your web site is a must.

Try to avoid companies that ask you to sign up for free, build up your web site with their templates, and then pay them a monthly fee. If the web site must run on their server, be careful. The reality is they own your website for a monthly fee.

2) The web site must be database-driven

A good real estate investor web site must save all information into an in-built database so you can have unlimited access to it at any time, and manipulate it any way you want, such as sending email, importing and exporting data, etc.

For example, when a motivated seller comes to your web site, they should be able to submit their property information effortlessly.

Likewise when selling houses, potential buyers should be able to sign up to your buyers list.

Every time someone signs up, you must receive information via email, and get the information logged into the database.

3) It must be interactive

You must get a real estate investor web site that interacts with visitors – this is actually a basic element of any modern website.

Then you can collect information from website visitors such as motivated sellers, people looking to buy houses, etc.

Your motivated sellers must not only be able to submit their houses for sale, but must also be able to leave testimonials, a crucial element to profitable real estate investing.

A modern real estate investor web site also needs to be web 2.0 enabled. It must allow people to interact and share your website through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus etc.

Even if you do not use social media, your visitors will be able to share your properties with their friends on social media, exposing you to wide audience and more profits. In today\’s world, most real estate investors use social networking sites.

4) It must be simple, well designed and informative

Obviously your website must look unique. You must be able to choose from a wide selection of designs, which must be customizable to suit your needs.

Ability to brand your website is a must, such as a logo and custom colors. Any design you want must be accessible to you at no extra charge.

Equally important, you do not want your visitors going through a maze to find out how you do business. A good real estate investor web site must be simple and informative, so that motivated sellers do not have to call you, but instead t hey can submit their houses directly on the website, thereby pre-screening and pre-negotiating deals hands-off.

The web site must seek to convert your target audience, such as pre-educate motivated sellers so they see you as the only professional qualified to solve their house problems. Motivated sellers must be convinced to submit their information on the website instead of having to call you.

When you are selling your properties, it must serve to present them in an easy, friendly manner so a potential buyer can tell in a few minutes if it\’s a deal for them or not.

5) It must be optimized for search engines

It must be easy for motivated sellers to find you on the internet. So must house buyers or other leads that you target in your business. It is therefore crucial that your real estate investor website is well optimized for search engines.

If you do business in your local market, then it is important to target your search engine optimization to your local market.

6) It must be easy to maintain

Most real estate investors are not good with computers. A good real estate investing web site should be easy to manage and run. If at all possible, the web site should be controlled from a virtual back office (admin panel). The front end should not need any maintenance.

7) The web site must be easily adaptable and flexible

One size fits all does not apply to real estate investing. Each business is unique, and a good real estate investor web site must adaptable to your current real estate investing model without major changes.

The website should allow you to create new pages, add or edit content, as well as forms that allow you to collect any information you need.

You should be able to change your business model easily, or switch designs without making major changes.

Sometimes you might be doing other things on the side, sich as being a Realtor, mortgage broker etc. Your real estate investor web site must allow you to supplement these services along with investing in real estate if you want to.

8) It should offer automation capability

Automation is an essential necessity for marketing on the internet and making the running of your business easier.

A good real estate investors web site must allow you to create unlimited follow-up autoresponders to manage email campaigns for your motivated sellers, buyers lists or any other lists you manage on your web site.

For example, you can set up a \”Thank You message\” to motivated sellers after they submit their information, so that once they submit their house information, they get an instant message that says something like Thank you for your enquiry. We will get in touch with you within 24 hours or something like that.

You must also be able to create automated reminders for important events in your real estate investing business. Your busy schedule should not get in the way of important follow-ups so crucial to successful real estate investing.

9) It must be loaded with marketing tools

A real estate investing web site is no good if it cannot attract visitors and convert them to closed real estate deals. A good website must be loaded with tools that attract visitors to the website, convert them to prospects and eventually to closed real estate deals.

A good website must be loaded with the following marketing tools:

i)Video speaking models – if you do not capture the attention of a website visitor within 20 seconds, you will lose them for ever. A video speaking model serves to capture instant attention and deliver a message that serves the needs of the visitor in a down to earth, natural and friendly manner. Particularly, it must compel the website visitors to take specific action, such as signing up.

ii)Ebooks – Informative Ebooks must form part a good website. The Ebooks must be fully personalized with you as the author. In order to get access to the Ebook, the visitors must sign up, providing opportunity for automated follow-up marketing.

iii)Squeeze pages – A squeeze page, or landing page, asks for contact information in exchange for a gift, such as an Ebook. It should not offer other choices except providing their contact information. A good website must also employ use of video and speaking models in the squeeze pages, and offer a variety of squeeze pages for various real estate investing business models.

iv)Follow-up autoresponders – A good website must come with in-built follow-up autoresponders, pre-loaded with marketing messages at carefully pre-timed intervals. This means that your website should take over the role of follow-up marketing automatically to convert visitors to closed deals.

10) It must be affordable

Unfortunately, most websites are just too expensive. You either get hit with a hefty upfront fee, or you are stuck with a big monthly fee.

None of these should apply for a good real estate investing web site, or it quickly becomes a liability for your business.

It should also be possible to run it from any server you choose if it meets your needs and budget.

11) It must offer free lifetime support and upgrades

Make sure your real estate investing web site offers free lifetime support and upgrades.

If a web site charges for everything they do for you, run the other way. Free support must come with a good real estate investing web site.

These tips will help you shop for a good real estate investing web site. Even though there are other few minor things we did not cover, if you follow these tips you will be happy with what you get.

To cap it all – your w real estate investing web site must make your business simple and fun to run.

If you are looking for a good real estate investor web site, check

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