You're Dead In The Water Trying To Invest In Real Estate Without A Website

Do you have a website? How often as a real estate investor are you asked this question? Almost on a daily basis if you are the type of investor who is always out in public making contacts and networking.

What was your answer to the question? If you answered yes then you already understand how important one is in creating and maintaining a successful real estate investing business. For those who don't have a website you are missing a very important tool that should be in your investor toolkit. A website validates you in people's eyes. What do you think of a business that tells you they don't have a website?

Imagine sellers looking through the classified ads and seeing ads from ten or fifteen different investors. Which one do they call? Who do they trust? Why should they call your ad instead one of the others? One little change can make all of the difference. That little change is a website address at the bottom of the ad! Adding a website address to your advertising creates instant credibility, even with sellers who don't even have a computer! That's right, we have personally had a seller, who had no Internet access, tell us that he called our ad because it had an Internet address and he felt like we would be more credible.

We are in the Age of The Internet. Most people, probably yourself included, feel that any legitimate business should have a website and any business that doesn't have one should be scrutinized a bit more thoroughly.

Part of the marketing plan for your real estate business should include a professional and full-featured website. How much you spend on your website is largely determined by how much impact you want to make in the real estate investing business. One of the first choices you must make before you should even consider getting the website is purchasing a domain name. For the uninitiated a domain name is your web address. An example of this address might be www.letmebuyyourhome.com. When purchasing a domain be creative. You want something notable and easy to remember. Let me repeat, make it easy to remember. For example I promote a website that directs people to mortgage brokers in Florida. Its web address (domain name) is www.easyfloridahomeloans.com. Memorable and distinctive. It also fits nicely on any business card. Keep that in mind too when you are doing your search for your domain name.

There are innumerable companies now selling domain names. Because of this a domain typically costs around $10 or less per year. One of my favorite places to purchase domains is GoDaddy.com. Besides offering the lowest costs for domains they also offer a myriad of other services.

Once you have found the right domain name it's time to find a place to put it. For a website to work properly the domain has to reside on what is known as a web host. These are companies that take your domain and put it on a special piece of equipment called a server. Without getting too technical the server literally "serves" your website to the entire Internet. Web hosting is really inexpensive with hosting packages costing as little as $5.00 monthly. And don't worry that because the fee is cheap the service will be insufficient. Because of the competitiveness in the web hosting business you the consumer get to take advantage of this. To remain competitive web hosting companies have to offer all the bells and whistles as their rivals. Some of these features include twenty-four hour support, and beefed up security to keep your website safe 

Now that you have found a web host it is time to build the website yourself or hire someone to do it for you. If you are working within a budget you can go online and search for free website templates. A template allows you to customize it with your content, images, etc. I have used these myself many times. My favorite place to find website templates is the Open Source Web Directory (www.oswd.org ). All the templates on this website are free. I need to mention that you should have some basic web design skills before you take this route.

If you do not posses the skills to create your own website then your only other option is to hire someone to do it for you. I suggest you take your time with this step. There are many people out there with varying degrees of skill. Go online and look around. Look at their recent work. Get referrals from them.

Once you have decided on a website designer it's time to put your ideas on paper. Yes, I said paper. It is good practice to design your website on paper before the first line of code is written. Nothing is more aggravating than having to wait through numerous website revisions because the website designer didn't have a clear idea of what your vision was for your website. Again, don't rush this stage of your marketing plan. Your website is often the first thing people see and it's how they base their first impression of you and your business.

Now that you have a website you have created instant visibility and credibility. You have also given yourself another avenue to market your real estate investing business to the world. Good luck and successful investing.