BiggerPockets

Has anyone used a preformatted website and had success? Should I do one of those or just make mine from scratch and reinvent the wheel?

before you " do a website" - make sure you know exactly what you're going to use it for.

you may find that it complicates things and keeps you from doing what you want - which is to buy real estate low and sell high, rent, etc...

it's weird, the LESS you do, the MORE likely you are to get where you want.

S I M P L I F Y

you start throwing in all this other stuff and you get bogged down and before you know it, you're sitting on your thumb...

ouch...

I had (frankly still have) the same questions/concerns as you. As an ex-coprorate technology guy, I wrote my first website myself. I then looked around and went to Top Producer for one of their template driven sites.

The pros and cons you listed are correct. I love their quick development time and access to lots of add-ons (such as IDX, contact pages, and even blogs) that I would have had to build manually. On the downside, the templates can be a little restrictive, but they (Top Producer) do allow you to manually edit the HTML, which allows you to be more flexible.

I believe I can do maybe 75% of the customization on the template site as I can on a handwritten site, but in 1/4-1/2 the time. My wife keeps telling me that Realtors should be out talking to people and not writing websites (can't say I disagree).

Lastly, I have yet to test how my site succeeds in search engine optimization long term. I may need to go back to a custom site if I can't get to page 1 on Google.

As you can sort of see there are differences in views. The biggest issue is knowing what you want to accomplish and then being able to get it done. Also expect that your early decisions might need to be adjusted or changed as time progresses.

You really need to consider if you expect the website to attract people or if you will be using other marketing to drive people there for info.

See if you can get some input from Josh as he has a web background that exceeds the BP site.

John Corey

Does anybody know of any good websites that other investors have out there? I'd like to see what other people are using successfully.

Start your own site. You'l save money and be able to update it yourself as you need to, rather than depending on others.

I would recommend a somewhat template site... There are plenty of content management system's (CMS) out there such as wordpress, drupal, typo3, Joomla (my favorite), Mambo, etc...

Many of these can be setup very easily (particularly if your web hosting company uses cPanel/Fantastico) and there are tons and tons of nice templates around that can be easily customized if wanted.

Check this option out as these CMS's will allow you to do all kinds of things and make your site nearly custom built, but still maintain user friendlyness.

Jeff, what is your technical background? Are you able to reinvent the wheel?

Here are three suggestions:

1. Use a templated site, be SURE it has an IDX option (it is well worth the money). You could also check out the free blogs here at Bigger Pockets to see if that suits your needs since it's totally hosted here for you.

or

2. Use a simple WordPress theme (Upstart & REBlackBook are right about indexing which is the entire goal of having a site- getting seen in search engines) and tweak it yourself if you have the ability.

or

3. There are designers out there that are relatively inexpensive that help with basic setup AND there are companies like realestatetomato.com that will design the entire thing for you including SEO support.

Let us know what you end up doing, we can all chip in along the way :)

I agree with UpstartAgent.

Google loves Wordpress. Most wordpress templates are SEO friendly. And if you add the top plugins to your wordpress blog, you'll be way ahead of the game.

I agree. Just pick a WP theme and run with it. Google loves fresh, new, relevant content.

I got a PR6 in four months using a WP theme, new content, and targeted KW placement.

Make sure you know your long tails.

One other thing,

You can have a wordpress blog that does NOT look like a blog. Some of the themes that are available out there, especially the paid one, are so good that you can't tell that the site is a blog.

I would stick with the wordpress blog. In my recent beta launch, I offered my buyers a wordpress blog with a Premium theme and so far, all I get from my buyers is :"Thanks Peter, this looks great."

So, go with wordpress. It's easy, fast, and can be changed in a second.

Peter