websites

[Chris Damato]

Any suggestions on website dos and donts? Thinking about mobile website and regular website.

[Ruben Aguirre]

Chris, That's a pretty broad question. Do you have any specific questions? Here's a starter that I use with clients that I originally posted here http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/53/topics/55506-wholesale-website-design:

Who is your audience? This is very important and is often overlooked. For example, rehabbers may not cut it if you know you're audience more closely. The more detail about your audience, the better off you will be in defining a clear message for them on your site.

What are you promoting/selling? What problem are you solving? This is where your Unique Selling Proposition comes in. For example, you're not necessarily promoting rehab projects, cashflow deals, etc. What you are promoting is a service where a lot of their homework is done up front for them and they can quickly do a first evaluation on deals. They don't have to drive to property to take pictures, do their own preliminary cost guesstimate, they don't have to screen through 100 deals to get to the ones with potential, etc.

How does your audience find you? Did they search for you online, did you find them offline? How are you getting people to your website? A website is useless if you aren't getting any traffic to it.

What do you want your audience to do? VERY VERY IMPORTANT! I see so many websites miss the mark here. Do you want them to buy a house, or simply call/email to set an appointment, register with you to receive regular notifications? I would imagine that getting them to buy a property right off the site is not realistic as the primary goal, but you may know that once they set that appointment via the website, you know how to convert them from browsers to buyers, so the primary goal is the appointment. Everything else in the website supports this. So you may have an ancillary call to action, such as "register to get my latest deals."

Why should your audience "buy" from you? This is where the about us page, testimonials, and appealing to their WIIFM station (what's in it for me), testimonials, and more testimonials! You're already in the business, you're already working with other investors, ask them to send you a blurb on what they like most about working with you. This will even help you discover/define your USP. This is why other posters are bringing up an about us page, mission statement, build trust, etc. And make your mission statement outward focused. Mine is "Run Your Business, Not Your Website", as opposed to I do this, or that, and me, my, I, we, us)

These questions will then drive everything on your site, beginning with what the sitemap/navigation should be, the layout of your site, the content on each page, and the last thing you need to worry about is design. Quite frankly, like any marketing piece, a 1990's look with the right message to a targeted audience will deliver 100x more (amount is an exaggeration to prove a point, I have not actually documented the validity of that statement (-:) than an awesome design without any thought to the above questions.

Give me a shout if you have any questions.