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How To Set Up Your Very Own Real Estate Website

Frank DeFazio
1 min read
How To Set Up Your Very Own Real Estate Website

It’s a known fact that almost everyone buying or selling real estate in today’s market relies heavily on the internet.   So much so that having a real estate website with social media exposure may now be a necessity for the real estate investor looking to sell his own flips or to find sellers to buy properties from.  For many, building a website complete with social media components seems like a herculean task but it doesn’t have to be.  This post will break down how you can setup your own website for your real estate investment business in just a few simple steps.

Set Up Your Website With WordPress –

The first decision is how and where to build your website.  Building your website on a WordPress platform is pretty much a given in my mind. The reasons are simple:

  1. GOOGLE LOVES WORDPRESS (this is enough of a reason alone)
  2. WordPress is SEO friendly, upgradable and versatile – as the web and search engine algorithms change so can your website.
  3. Worpress is open source and free
  4. Plugins are free and constantly updated and versitle
  5. Blog integration is simple and seamless.

There are companies out there that specialize in WordPress real estate website and who also offer extremely reasonable rates and training.  Do some Google searches, make a few phone calls and hire one of the companies.  Make sure to host the website with the company that created it or a hosting company.  Don’t host at wordpress.com.

BiggerPockets recommends HostGator or BlueHost for your web hosting needs.

IDX with Lead Capture –

If you have a real estate license (and maybe if you don’t)  you can associate an IDX feed which will allow visitors to search for properties on your website just like they can on other major search engines like Trulia and Zillow.  Most of the top IDX providers offer map based searches, mobile compabitlity, and some form of lead capture that requires visitors to input contact information like name, email and phone.  This information is critical because those web registrations end up being your leads for either people interested in selling their properties or people interested in buying yours.

Content Creation –

Someone, either you or someone you designate will be responsible for content creation.   Sounds like a scary, complicated word but all it means is that someone will have to make new, relevant pages and blog posts so your website will be recognized as authoritative and relevant by search engines.  Plan on creating content on daily basis (at least a few times a week).

Incorporate Social Media –

The best and quickest way to drive traffic to your new website is through effective use of social media.  For this you should turn to what I call the Four Pillars of Social Media:

  1. Facebook
  2. Twitter
  3. Google+
  4. LinkedIn

Any time you create a page or post make sure to blast it out on all four social media venues.  This will lead to clicks, likes, retweets, +1s and LinkedIn shares, all of which will help your rankings with the top search engines.

Email Contact Program –

After you have captured all of your potential buyer and seller leads you should input the contact info into an email contact program that periodically emails these registrants with whatever message you are trying to get out to the public: “Just completed a project at 123 Main Street – looking for buyers” or “Have cash and can close quickly, looking for sellers”.

An overwhelmingly large amount of real estate buyers and sellers are using the internet, mobile apps and social media to buy or sell real estate in today’s market.  To reach the greatest audience and fully capitalize on these phenomenon real estate investors should set up their own website capable of generating buyer and seller leads.  This will assure the investor that his or her message is reaching the largest possible audience.

Photo: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.