All Forum Posts by: Jeff Deville

Yeah, I think wordpress would probably be a great solution for you. There are a ton of free, nice templates, and wordpress does a better job out of the box with SEO. There are plugins out there to make it even better.

If you have substantial 'link power' on the search engines w/ your current site, you can preserve it with a plugin like this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/redirect-list/.  Basically, you tell the plugin what the old url and new url is, and it will handle redirects for you automatically. 

eg: 

http://www.sellmobilehome.net/Content.aspx?pid=135... -> http://www.sellmobilehome.net/professionals-refer-...

By using what's called a '301' redirect, you're telling Google et. al that you have permanently moved the page from the previous URL to the new URL. The search engines will respect that, and transfer any link power to the new url. Also, if someone has linked to your old url structure, they'll be taken automatically to the new one.

Hope that helps!

Jeff

Hi @Marc FaulknerThe content is looking much better.  Here's a little more info on the tone comment from the "About Us" page. And bear in mind that tone is notoriously hard to pick out with just text, so it's possible I'm alone in my analysis here. That said, I assume that people who are selling to you are probably on hard times, and a bit desperate. They probably want to someone who will empathize and help them get things done quickly and without ripping them off.  Phrases like: "most aggressive .. home buyer', and 'allow folks to sell' make it sound like you're a big engine of profitability for yourself. I could do some analysis of the other paragraphs if you like, but I'd encourage you to go through the site and ask yourself: "What would a person who has fallen on hard times and is being forced to sell an already modest home going to think about this statement". If it's not relevant, not empathetic, or not reassuring, then you may want to consider changing or removing it.

Remember that even though this page is 'About Us', it's really: "About Us that you, my would-be customer cares about"

The content part of your homepage is looking a lot better though!

Few other comments:

SEO- I would ask your provider if they can provide search engine friendly urls.  This link: http://www.sellmobilehome.net/Content.aspx?pid=135... doesn't tell google that the page is about how to refer a manufactured home sale

Design - To be frank, if this is a new site, the design is starting out pretty dated. You can buy flexible, beautiful themes for almost nothing.  Here's a nice example: https://wrapbootstrap.com/theme/unify-responsive-w...  It looks like your web designers are using a really old version of ASP.net, but I'd still push them to see if they can't give you a fresher design.  

All that said, your homepage is shorter, and has the form right there now. And that was probably the biggest improvement you can make.  I'm just stepping down to lower priority items now.

Good luck!

You seem to have a very analytical mind. Do you mind if I ask you how you chose those 3 investment home areas?  I'm working on my criteria for choosing turn key providers presently.

Hi Sunny, I'm no expert. In fact you sound like you're further along than I am. So take that heavily into account.  But here are my thoughts:

1. re: crowd funding investments. How much will you be losing to taxes? My understanding is that you don't get any of the tax benefits when you go through those sites.

2. It sounds like you're aiming to diversify with those 8 homes, which seems wise. You sounded pretty confident on your returns expectations for those 8 homes. Do you have experience there?  If not, is there any way to dip your toes in  the water with your savings to test the voracity of the claims on the 8, and then jump in when you're comfortable with the operating relationship?

Other than that, your math seems sound. I'm sorry I can't speak to the impact to your credit score. I know that 1 component of your score has to do with the requests / time, so it seems reasonable to assume that applying for 8 simultaneous mortgages would be a problem.

Warning, I do web dev for a living, so I ha e a fairly critical eye. Also I'm on my phone so this is gonna be to the point. When I clicked your link on mobile it took me to some kind of intermediary page. There wasn't much there. There was a button that said View Website, which kinda doesn't make sense. But that took me to a full width site which is what I assumed you were looking for feedback on. I'd kill this mobile landing page, and just make the entire site responsive. * The header image looked like clip art, and doesn't add any value to your message. I'd removed it * the quote was never 'closed' or attributed to anyone. I'd kill it anyway, because I don't think anyone would believe it was legit given that this is your site anyway. * kill the last paragraph too, it says the same thing as the second * the form should be inlined directly on the home page. The link to it looked like a banner ad. I would not have even realized it was there if I wasn't looking for it. * you have a menu at the top, one on the side, and 2 on the bottom. Get it down to one. * your phone number is top left, but the company name and address is bottom left. Put them together * your about us page tells people who have to sell their home that you are out here to buy a ton of these houses and that your life is good. Not sure that's the tone you want to go with Figure out what you want to have happen with your site. If it's just that form, then make 1 long marketing page where you use bullets to convey your value proposition, and let the customer fill in the form immediately.

I recently discovered this site http://turnkey-reviews.com/ , started by some BP members. Should help give you a leg up with company reviews.  I'm trying to come up with my criteria on evaluating locations at the moment. Seems like a good place to use virtual assistants

Hi Rob, have you checked out Turnkey-reviews.com? It's what I'm using to help get my mind around the locations and companies.

One other thing in Dropbox and Google's favor is that a lot of people already have accounts. So sharing is easier.

@Brie Schmidt@Jay Hinrichs  

This looks like a fantastic resource, thank you! 

As someone w/ some experience running large review-centric sites, I have a few suggestions that all boil down to 1 overriding principle: Trust.

1. If all of the reviews are basically 5 stars, it tends to erode trust in the platform being legitimate. I really only saw 1 negative review total. You may want to try and seek out users who have had negative experiences if only to provide some balance
2. There needs to be a way to verify that a user is indeed a customer of the service. There are a few approaches here that might work. Having the user include the address of the property they purchased would be one. You can cross reference that w/ the county records, and then perhaps find the property on the property managers' website.

Other recommendations:

• Informationally, it'd be nice to see some comparisons of the various turn-key markets.  The data you have is great, but some charts of relative growth rates would be fantastic.
• CAP Rates! Yeah, it's great that the reviews are thrilled with the customer service, but what are the returns! Breaking those down by company on 1 axis, and geography as another would also be nice.

You probably need to be more specific, Nathan. Are you talking about commercial or residential?  Most county assessor sites have a fair bit of historical data available that you'd have to scrape. As scrapes go, they're harder than most sites because the sites are so so horrible. The big daddy for data out there seems to be listsource.com, but I'm not sure that they sell the historical side of things. One of the interesting things about this industry is that the data seems to be a real PITA to get. It's certainly available, just a little difficult to access.