Looking to create a website

Multi-Family and Apartment Investing
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Looking to create a website

Marv Edelstein
Investor · Evanston, IL · Member since 2012 · 18 posts · 4 votes

I have been investing in Single Family and am now looking for multi-family 10-30 units. I have not had any significant success in finding sellers from a website. With my new direction I am looking to put my effort and $ into marketing via direct mail and phone campaigns and create a website mostly for credibility. Any suggestions would be appreciated. (Note: I am considering Prospect Now to get leads. They do not offer a website). 

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Landon Bleau
Rental Property Investor · Toledo, OH · Member since 2018 · 309 posts · 264 votes
5y

Marv, which market are you looking to invest in?  I love the idea of creating a website to build credibility, would love to hear suggestions from others on what their site looks like?

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  • Landon Bleau
    Rental Property Investor · Toledo, OH · Member since 2018 · 309 posts · 264 votes
    5y

    Marv, which market are you looking to invest in?  I love the idea of creating a website to build credibility, would love to hear suggestions from others on what their site looks like?

    1Reply
  • Marv Edelstein
    OP
    Investor · Evanston, IL · Member since 2012 · 18 posts · 4 votes
    5y

    The Carolinas- mostly Charleston MSA. And yes, I would also love to hear suggestions.

    1Reply
  • Justin Goodin
    Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 756 votes
    5y

    @Marv Edelstein Congrats on making the move to multifamily!

    For direct mail, you can get a data list from Co star or ListSource. I would recommend taking a 'sniper approach' and marketing to owners that fit your exact criteria. Age, size, etc. Market to owners that have owned at least 5 years. You can write letters or postcards yourself, type them out, or invest in service like Openlettermarketing.com. 

    Check out this article Joe Fairless did on direct mail marketing. 

    For cold calling, you can get a data list, scrub it and have somebody call the owners directly. Cold calling is more of an art and there is a lot of information out there regarding this. 

    Let me know if I can help further!

    2Reply
  • Marv Edelstein
    OP
    Investor · Evanston, IL · Member since 2012 · 18 posts · 4 votes
    5y

    Thanks Justin. Good references and links. I will check them out.

    0Reply
  • Robert Belz
    Investor · Las Vegas, NV · Member since 2017 · 59 posts · 34 votes
    5y

    Hi @Marv Edelstein,

    I find myself in the same situation. We started investing in SFHs, then started investing in MFH. I have quickly run into the reality that it is impossible to scale on your own. In an effort to create some credibility and attract investors, I recently published a website through Squarespace. 

    I didn't want to invest the time into creating my own website, so I  hired a freelance worker through www.fiverr.com. He created a shell of a website for only $80, and I simply typed in the content. Hosting a website through Squarespace is relatively straight forward and cheap. Feel free to message me as I'm happy to provide more details. 

    Also, I'm craving any and all feedback on the website, so I'd appreciate hearing the good, bad, and ugly from the BP community!

    www.belzliving.com 

    Thanks.

    0Reply
  • Brian Pownall
    Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2020 · 77 posts · 66 votes
    5y

    Agree with @Robert Belz above.

    Sketch out what you would like your site outline in powerpoint or even just a sketch pad. This will give you an idea of how many pages it will initially include. 

    Fiverr and Upwork both have some outstanding individuals on there that will quickly give you a bid depending on the number of pages you are looking to build. I ended up doing it myself but if/when I want to build it out further I will lean on one of those contractors. SquareSpace or WordPress make it easy for really anyone to stand up a website with free templates and a "drag and drop" feel. 

    Feel free to message me as well. Good luck!

    0Reply
  • Jeffrey Donis
    Investor · Durham, NC · Member since 2020 · 1k+ posts · 691 votes
    5y

    We used apartment investor pro! It's been great so far! Let me know if you have any questions. 

    0Reply
  • Scott M.
    Real Estate Broker · Rochester Hills, MI · Member since 2009 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    5y

    Probably not the type of advice you are looking for but always remember “Perfection is the enemy of progress” – Winston Churchill.

    Get it going, get it live and you can always change/modify it. I would stay away from long term contracts and pay by the month to start if you are using a service and then after you have real world experience with it, you can sign on for a year for the discount.

    The words or design isn’t perfect? Who cares, get it live and test it, see how users react and then change/test/change/test.

    You are not writing a book, no need to get it perfect on day one. Get it live and tweak it as you go. Or a year later you will be wondering why you new website that isn’t live isn’t working.

    1Reply
  • Michael Hurst
    Loganville, GA · Member since 2017 · 5 posts · 0 votes
    5y

    Hi @Marv Edelstein,

    If you need help with getting your website setup, shoot me a message. With a Godaddy domain, you can create a simple website for $6.99/month.

    I am a website designer/developer by day and real estate investor by night. Also, big fan of Charleston, SC.

    0Reply
  • Bobby Shell
    Investor · Fort Collins, CO · Member since 2018 · 165 posts · 127 votes
    5y

    Marv, I have been doing digital marketing in this space for the last decade. I would recommend looking at https://dynamicard.com/ (ask for Ivan, tell him I sent you). You can target specific zip codes, types of owners, what cars they drive, and SO much more. This way you can target the perfect market and demo. You can also get lists from Dynamicard and capture emails that are qualified and use those to create look alikes on Facebook and more. You will be able to create some amazing deal flow using these tools!

    0Reply
  • Charlie Tunstall
    Investor · Mt Pleasant, SC · Member since 2018 · 57 posts · 46 votes
    5y

    Marv,

    I live in Charleston and own just 1 duplex in Summerville. Like you, I want to grow my portfolio with larger properties. I've begun looking 6-12 units thinking the demand is not as crazy as 2-4 unit properties. If I can be of any help with area questions, please reach out.

    0Reply
  • Steven Huynh
    Specialist · Santa Ana, CA · Member since 2020 · 25 posts · 16 votes
    5y
    Originally posted by @Scott M.:

    The words or design isn’t perfect? Who cares, get it live and test it, see how users react and then change/test/change/test.

    You are not writing a book, no need to get it perfect on day one. Get it live and tweak it as you go. Or a year later you will be wondering why you new website that isn’t live isn’t working.

    Even when it comes to writing a book, typically, new book authors write is usually trash (not always). There's this term in book writing which goes along the lines: "the first one is for the trash," I mean since you're writing words which are being printed, and therefore irreversible, I think that there should be perfection in terms of grammar, spelling, etc. But for the actual content, it's probably low quality if it's coming from a new author. This principle likely applies to all book genres. 

    But yes, I agree with taking imperfect action. It's better to get started than be perfect.

    0Reply
  • Craig Bellot
    Property Manager · CT · Member since 2014 · 687 posts · 329 votes
    5y

    Hey @Marv Edelstein, as an agent you will need to begin building your identity as a trusted advisor in home sales and purchases. I would begin with a Facebook page. 

    With social media, or any other type of marketing you need to understand VRIN scores: V stands for value. R stands for rarity or how rare it is. I stands for inimitable and N stands for non-substitutable. Value means you are giving your followers what they are interested in. Your posts need to be reaching your audience's values. I know my audience values growing their wealth safely, so I create content that shows how we do that. People value the payoff of real estate and investing, so I post my numbers, analysis and all the great tips that my businesses have profited from. Rarity is how many other accounts are out there posting similar content. The more content that you provide that not many people get to see, the more excited people will be when they see it. It’s common sense. Rarity is the amount of emotion that people get when they see your post. Inimitable means your post is hard to recreate. It means that not only is it rare, it’s unique and genuine. 

    People can tell when what you’re posting is trying to be like someone else. You have to be unique, so others can’t reproduce what you’ve created. Non-substitutable is similar to rarity, but it also means that what your posting is relatively impossible to be replaced by something new. You need to create timeless content, so as time goes on, your post is still relevant. 

    If you master these, your business will grow and you will create a loyal audience, because you understand why your audience follows you and engages with you. 

    Let me know if you have any questions!

    0Reply
  • Marv Edelstein
    OP
    Investor · Evanston, IL · Member since 2012 · 18 posts · 4 votes
    5y

    Hi @Robert Belz,

    Your website looks great - all for $80 ---awesome. Tell me more about how you communicated with the designer what you wanted it to look like.

    Thanks

    0Reply
  • Chris Levarek
    Real Estate Syndicator · Phoenix, AZ · Member since 2018 · 903 posts · 1k+ votes
    5y

    @Marv Edelstein Squarespace, WIX, 1and1, all make creating a website pretty straightforward. However if you want to just open the account and outsource the building. 

    Simply get a password software like Lastpass or OnePassword account. Doing this allows you to share out your login info through "one password" which then has the access for the website, or any app, for example to anybody you hire. We like to find talent at Upwork and have had success in this manner. Once the work is completed, you can revoke access to the password through Lastpass again. 

    If the website is just for credibility, should be quick work. IF however you want to generate leads or traffic to the website, SEO(search engine optimization) becomes quite important. 

    0Reply
  • Marv Edelstein
    OP
    Investor · Evanston, IL · Member since 2012 · 18 posts · 4 votes
    5y

    Thank you @Chris  Levarek

    0Reply
  • Mark Shaver
    Specialist · Boston, MA · Member since 2020 · 125 posts · 40 votes
    5y

    Teaser: "The Fiverr' and Upwork' experts reduce website traffic by 2-7 times."

    @Robert Belz wrote: "I hired a freelance worker through www.fiverr.com. He created a shell of a website for only $80, and I simply typed in the content. Hosting a website through Squarespace is relatively straight forward and cheap. <skip> I'd appreciate hearing the good, bad, and ugly from the BP community!"

    It's good that you create a website and you write your own articles.

    It's not good that you're giving a small budget to the website. You get exactly what you pay for. For $80 you get the website, which is hostile to potential customers.

    Google PageSpeed test showed:

    Only half of the potential customers have the patience to wait the long 8 seconds for your website to fully load.

    The other half of potential customers leaves the site before the long loading time is over. They do not even have time to read your texts and enjoy the design of the website.

    The low-budget website halves any effort and money you put into the website - PPC, content marketing, SEO,...

    @Chris Levarek wrote: "We like to find talent at Upwork and have had success in this manner. <skip> IF however you want to generate leads or traffic to the website, SEO(search engine optimization) becomes quite important."

    Alas, Upwork's talents are not compatible with attracting potential clients to the site and SEO.

    Example. Your site uses Squarespace. Google PageSpeed test showed:

    There's a problem with potential customers. Only 14% of leads have the patience to wait 15 seconds for your website to fully load. The other 86% of potential customers leave the website without waiting for it to fully load.

    There is a problem with SEO. Upwork's talents will take on SEO without further ado. But the search engine will show your website in the last place. Google doesn't see the point of sending their visitors to your website, which will drop 86% of visitors in the first 15 seconds.

    Bottom line

    1) Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy and other website builders are very slow. They are not designed for business. 

    2) Fiverr and Upwork talents will take any job at any price. But they don't care about the end result. "Talents" will never tell you the client that website builders can't be used for business. Look for developers who understand the specifics of real estate investments.

    3) The investor's desire to save once on website development will result in a very slow website. Then the investor will overpay every month 2-7 times to bring visitors to the website.

    4) First, speed up the website full load to 3 seconds. This will raise visitor retention by 90%, according to the Google PageSpeed Test. Only after that do your marketing - PPC, blog articles, SEO,...

    0Reply
  • Chris Levarek
    Real Estate Syndicator · Phoenix, AZ · Member since 2018 · 903 posts · 1k+ votes
    5y

    @Mark Shaver SEO being what is, quite complex, I would never hire out to Upwork. In fact, my internal team manages our website and SEO fully as it is a very crucial piece to visibility. I was suggesting Upwork for web creation on these platforms, especially for the new or small business owner.

    I also disagree with your suggested model for a new business owner. A new business owner can spend a fortune on a custom website before their product, audience and goals are even flushed out. Better to have a website up with these easy platforms, then flush out the product, audience and goals. You can always come back and restructure or redirect the website. If you aren't in the market, how do you know what even works?

    Our website organically ranks quite well on a number of keywords, has a good amount of traffic and these translate very effectively. Can it always be improved, oh of course. But to say, page speed is the sole factor for retention :) 

    Where are you getting these numbers?

    "half of the potential customers have the patience to wait the long 8 seconds for your website to fully load.",

    "Only 14% of leads have the patience to wait 15 seconds for your website to fully load."

    How on earth would you or any platform ever lump the data together for every website for lead conversions? Nobody knows lead conversion rates, except maybe the company who is converting them. 

    Come now, I'm a 12 year IT Infrastructure engineer and my family ran a Multilingual Search Optimization company for over 20 years. We mustn't lump everything under one solution/issue. Website creation, traffic and maintenance is a very large game and no one technique such as page speed will fix all. 

    1Reply
  • Mark Shaver
    Specialist · Boston, MA · Member since 2020 · 125 posts · 40 votes
    5y

    Teaser: "1) The difference between Google PageSpeed Insights and Google Analytics. 2) Speeding up website loading kills half dozen birds with one stone".

    @Chris Levarek wrote: "How on earth would you or any platform ever lump the data together for every website for lead conversions?"

    The lead generation funnel includes many stages. Each has its own conversion. I should probably clarify again, what conversion we're talking about.

    Marketers are interested in the conversion rate of visitors who come in and fill out a form on your website. Google Analytics produces similar information for marketers.

    Google PageSpeed Insights is designed for professional website developers, so investors and marketers know almost nothing about it. It examines only the loading stage of a website. Google PageSpeed Insights does not show the conversion of incoming visitors to those who fill out a form on your website. It does not analyze the content of the website.

    But Google PageSpeed Insights shows dozens of parameters of website load. Among them only 2 critical parameters are important for website owners:

    • Percentage of visitors who have the patience to wait for the website to fully load. (Conversion from those who clicked on the link to the website for those who started to browse the website after it fully loaded.)
    • Time to fully load the website.

    Google PageSpeed Insights doesn't worry about what happens after a website is fully loaded. It ignores visitor dropouts caused by the website being uninteresting.

    When Google PageSpeed Insights shows your website conversion rate (performance) of 14% load, this means that by the time the website is fully loaded, you have only 14% of visitors, because it lasts a long 15 seconds. The other 86% of visitors didn't wait until the end of the full download and left your website.

    Chris Levarek wrote: "Where are you getting these numbers?"

    Google calculates these numbers from actual visits to your website. The process looks like this.

    Google periodically sends visitors to your website with the Chrome browser.

    Each Chrome browser reports to Google how long it took for your page to fully load. Google averages these reports and finds out that it takes the "average" visitor 15 seconds to fully load a page on your site.

    Those users who didn't like the long load time on your website, clicked the back button on their Chrome browser, and returned to Google for the next link within 15 seconds. Google sees that it is sending visitors to you, but 86% immediately went back to the results page for another link. The Chrome browsers of the other 14% visitors told Google that visitors started exploring your website after it had fully loaded. That's how Google knew your website had 14% performance (visitor retention) while the pages were loading.

    How Google builds search results

    When visitors are unhappy with the slow loading of your website and go back to Google, they are unhappy that Google took 15 seconds of their time.

    Therefore, Google avoids showing on the first page of results websites which are slow to load. Google shows first on the first page websites which load fast.

    I made demonstration pages that show investors what a really fast loading website is like. Google PageSpeed Insights rates my demo pages like this:

    My really fast pages load in less than 1 second. At that time, even the most impatient visitors don't physically have time to hit the back button. Not surprisingly, 100% of my pages visitors start exploring the site in the first second.

    But for practical use, Google considers 90% or higher visitor retention to be enough. To do this, the full loading speed of the website should be 3 seconds or faster. Such websites are considered by Google to be in the green zone and are shown on the first page at the smallest opportunity.

    How to kill half dozen birds with one stone

    Chris, you have done a great job. Your website is great. It works effectively with visitors - 125 pages, a blog, 2 e-books to collect E-mail,...

    Let me repeat my advice. You need to speed up the loading of your website in 3 seconds. Then you will kill half a dozen birds with one stone:

    • Visitor retention during website loading will rise to 90% and higher
    • The number of visitors exploring your website will increase by 6 times
    • Google will see that your website not only loads quickly, but also retains visitors very well and even generates repeat visits to the site a few days later.
    • Google will raise your website even higher in the tops on your most key phrases
    • An uncommonly quick website without additional words will inspire your visitors that you're different from your competitors
    • Visitors will be pleased to stay longer on your website and explore your articles.

    Continued discussion

    The topic of fast loading websites is a very big one. If you want to chat about it, please contact me via direct message.

    0Reply
  • Carl Smith
    Member since 2023 · 4 posts · 0 votes
    2y

    Creating a website, huh? That's awesome! It's like building your own little corner of the internet. I've been dabbling in web stuff myself lately. Have you thought about what platform you'll use? WordPress, Wix, or maybe something else?

    0Reply
  • Carl Smith
    Member since 2023 · 4 posts · 0 votes
    2y
    Quote from @Carl Smith:

    Creating a website, huh? That's awesome! It's like building your own little corner of the internet. I've been dabbling in web stuff myself lately. Have you thought about what platform you'll use? WordPress, Wix, or maybe something else?

    BTW, recently I stumbled upon searchseo.io recently, seems pretty cool for optimizing your site and getting it noticed. SEO can be a game-changer! Anyway, good luck with your website adventure! Can't wait to see what you come up with!
    0Reply
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