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Over the past few decades, the internet has become a massively important source of information for real estate professionals. It's where most of us do the bulk of our business: finding deals, doing property research, getting properties sold, networking with other investors, finding service providers, educating ourselves, and a lot more.
Considering everything the internet has done for the business world, there is absolutely no reason a serious real estate professional shouldn't have at least ONE solid website representing their company.
Creating a Website Is Simple!
Luckily, building your website isn't nearly as complicated as it used to be. But even though it's simple, it's still not the most naturally intuitive thing for the average person to do.
When I started building websites for my business, I always needed an idiot-proof, step-by-step guide on how to do it. So my goal with this blog post is to provide the best instructions I can.
In Step 1, I will show you how to create your website with a company called Bluehost in less than five minutes. Together, we'll walk through the following steps:
- Registering your domain
- Setting up your hosting plan
- Installing WordPress
If all of this sounds foreign—don't worry. Just follow the directions in this video:
A well-built website could easily be the most powerful asset at work in your business, regardless of what your real estate business does. A website can bring A LOT of benefits by helping you do things like:
- Build your credibility.
- Position you as an expert.
- Represent your company image.
- Advertise your listings and services.
- Generate leads around the clock.
- Reach a global audience.
- Offer your business info to the public 24/7.
- Automate your communication.
- Make you instantly accessible to prospects and customers.
Any of these things can have an enormous impact on your business. And the real kicker is—it's not expensive to do this. You can have any of these things TODAY for less than a couple hundred bucks.
Getting Past Mental Barriers
I understand the hesitancy that many people have in building their websites.
You and I are real estate people. We're good at finding deals, negotiating with people, crunching the numbers, and managing relationships. We're NOT a bunch of people who sit around and write code all day.
Creating a website was out of the question when I first got into real estate investing. I didn't know the first thing about how to build, edit, or design a webpage that would actually be useful. And when you have no idea what you're doing, it's pretty easy to ignore or downplay the importance of the issue.
After a long period of procrastination, I eventually hired a developer to build my first website. The end product ended up costing me $1,500. It looked good (which was a great deal at the time), but it wasn't the most functional. It made me look credible—which certainly counted for something—but what I REALLY needed was a website that would give people the exact information they were looking for as quickly as possible.
If I had known THEN what I'm showing you NOW—I could have saved myself thousands (which I desperately needed at the time).
Taking the Next Steps
Step 2 of this process will vary depending on what kind of website you're trying to create. In the links below, I'll show you a few different ways you can proceed by building any of the following:
Each website is designed with a specific purpose; all can be very powerful when used correctly.
Do You Need a Real Estate Website?
Having a website is not so much a question of “Can I live without it?” and more a question of, “What am I missing out on without it?”
A website won't automatically solve all your problems. But, if you want to automate your business, build credibility, provide information to your customers around the clock, and make more money in the long run, a great real estate website is a fantastic way to help you do it. I'm not sure why any serious real estate professional wouldn't have a website at work in their business, especially considering how simple and inexpensive it is to set up.
I have encountered several people who have never gone through the motions of creating their websites. They did survive, but I think it has made life significantly more difficult than it needed to be.
Trust me—a good real estate website is an extremely helpful tool to have at your disposal. I'm promoting these resources here on the blog because I know how powerful a good online representation can be for your business. All of my websites have been HUGELY helpful for my buying and selling efforts.
BONUS: Real Estate SEO Guide
Since I'm a referral partner for Bluehost (i.e., I make a few bucks if/when you set up your website through my affiliate links above), I wanted to give you a little bonus if you decide to use this service.
I spent a good chunk of time laying out how I've generated a lot of quality traffic for my various websites. This blog gets hundreds of thousands of visitors each month if that's any indication. If you're interested, I'd like to show you how to generate this kind of traffic for your websites.
If you purchase through the affiliate link above, simply forward your receipt to me at REtipsterBonus@gmail.com, and within 24 hours, I'll send you an email that you can use to download a copy of this guide.
There is no extra charge for this report. I just wanted to make it available as my special “THANK YOU” to those of you who are helping me keep the REtipster Blog afloat.
