Hello R.E. Tipster Community! I realize that a website is not required to starting a land business, but I also get that it can help build credibility with prospective sellers. For those experienced, curious if you think that at minimum, a basic informational website is vital for the first direct mail campaign, or if it's better to wait on that and simply take action- and then add a website after the first deal or two (while understanding that many factors go into the success of the mail campaign). I coud go either way with this, but would love to hear what other people have done.
@brian-sylvester I think it's one of those "every little bit helps" kinds of things. Not vital, but some people probably will do their homework on you, and when they do, it can certainly help if you provide some easy answers to the questions they're most likely to have, and just to build and maintain a good brand imagine, so you look legitimate and respectable.
Keep in mind, you can include an FAQ sheet with your mail piece to address a lot of these potential questions, but that will cost more for printing and production and it also does nothing to build your digital footprint. If you're planning to be in the business for the long term, a website is a good investment... but definitely not required in order to start moving.
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As technology advances, creating and hosting a website keeps getting easier. You can try to DYI using WIX or Weebly. If you have an IT background and don't expect a lot of visitors, you can take advantage of Amazon AWS's free tier.
I completely agree with Seth. I’m sure it’s possible without a website but why not just go the extra bit to get that set up before starting a campaign? It’s cheap and easy. There’s really no reason not to.
You can watch a YouTube video and have your site up within a few hours - I’m speaking from experience.
I’m also just thinking about it from my own perspective and how I would react if I received some unsolicited mail. My assumption is that it’s likely a scam. So the first thing I’m doing is Google’ing your company to see what comes up. I’m sure most other folks would take that same approach.
FWIW, I used Wordpress and the Astra starter theme. Check it out. It’s super quick and easy!
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@retipsterseth Thanks for this advice- makes total sense. I hadn't thought about it from the perspective of providing more up front info to the prospective seller.
@dvucak nice, thanks! I will check that option out. I'll need something somewhat quick and easy to begin with, and then move toward the buying website once the business gets going.
@brian-sylvester Yeah, check out the Astra starter theme. Basically, you get a pick from hundreds of fully developed websites and then you just update the components (elements) within the website to your specific details.
It can be 100% no code - no HTML/CSS experience necessary.
Let me know if you need any help.
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@brian-sylvester Neither actually… it’s a free plug-in from Wordpress. Although it may no longer be called “astra” but the point is there are hundreds of free starter sites you can just import and the update to your name, brand, etc.
Check out this extremely detailed YouTube tutorial. He literally walks your through every step necessary.
Let me know if you have another other question. Happy to help!
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@brian-sylvester
Personally I wasted lots of money buying templates and paying for ready made website. I’m just now on my second year and finally getting a gripe on how I operate and who I am as an investor. I’m finally ready to have a website because I know where I want my business to be in the foreseeable future. If you’re on a tight budget I’d get a few deals under your belt before you invest a lot of money on websites.
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I have a site for my buy-side activity. I use @Jessey 's REIConversion LandList site. It came with my purchase of the bundled LandList site and I highly recommend Jessey’s products. It’s hard to say which is better - their customer serine or their products - both are great.
Truthfully - I get almost zero activity on the site because I don’t do anything to drive traffic there. I now send thousand of letters monthly, along with other approaches like cold calling in areas where I’ve seen high buy side demand, tax sale deed snatching, COSL / auction, referrals, prior sellers, etc. My letters have an e-mail and PatLive # (I don’t even mention the buy-side site in my letters) and I am not doing nay SEO work.
But, I know others, like @retipsterseth who have spent years build a reputation and have SEO working for them get leads that wat all them time - so I don’t mean to say an inbound site isn’t worth having. But, I don’t think it is a must.
What I think it is much more valuable to first invest website time or $'S in:
A) a sell-side site where you can post your properties and all then information you know about it (that way when you the inevitable Facebook response of “Is this still available” &/or “Tell me more” - you can respond with "If it is still shown as for sale on our website at AbcSellsLand . com it is still available and the website has all the details we know about it. Please take a look and then let us know when you are ready to buy or have specific questions.
&/or
B) A company website that looks good and communicates as much about you and your company as you are comfortable with or you would want to see if if the show was on the other foot - you were going to decide to trust your company enough to engage in business transaction to buy or sell land. E.g. if your company name is ABC Land Co. Then build / buy a site for ABCLandCo . com so that when potential buyers or sellers Google you (and they sure will) they learn about you and the company - reputation building. Regularly I have conversations with potential sellers and buyers who have clearly been to my company site - they either tell me so or mention info that I know they got from the site. (example: “I see you are in the Houston area and your partner lives in the Waco area, I went to college in Waco, is that where your son went.” - Now we spend 15 minutes talking about Waco, Baylor winning March Madness, Chip & Jo An. Eventually we get around to me buying his property for less than he wanted and him being okay with it.)
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