How Many Websites Is Ideal For A Real Estate Wholesaler or Flipper?
“Mark” tried to cram everything into one website. A page for motivated sellers, a section for buyers, private lenders… even rent to own. He said he was trying to “simplify” and save some money. But little did he know he was actually losing money every year by confusing his motivated house sellers on a website that was also pitching “discount properties”.
Sound familiar?
So what should you do on your website as a wholesaler or flipper?
And this is a great question.
We’ll dive into that in a clear and simple way in today’s blog post and answer that question based on data with the answer to this… “Whatever makes it easier and gets your ideal prospects to their desired result as quickly and as smoothly as possible in as few steps required to make the sale“
So, You’re Flipping Houses Or Wholesaling? What Types Of Leads Do You Need Right Now?
You might be wondering how having more than one Real Estate investing website would even help.
And that’s a really valid question!
Because, for instance, if you own a plumbing business in your local town… one website for your company is all that you need. Right?
So, the main thing to remember with your online marketing efforts when it comes to your website strategy is this…
… the more focused you can make the message to the target prospectyou’re going after, the better the results you’ll get.
As famous copywriter, Robert Collier once said…
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If you’re not joining that conversation in your prospects mind immediately… and you’re cluttering the message with things on your website not related to their problem and how you can help them… your results WILL go down.
So going back to the local plumber scenario… if you did plumbing services and you were also an electrician and did electrical work… you have two totally different services that require a completely different marketing message to effectively sell them your services (and ideally two separate websites).
You wouldn’t want to have the person looking for electrical work to have to wade through tons of content on your site about plumbing (a service that they don’t need).
Make sense?
To say it again… the more focused you can make the message on the website specific to your target prospect (and what they need), the more engaged the visitor will be on your website and the more leads you’ll convert.
Why Is A Targeted Website Message Important?
Now that we understand that targeting your message on your website as much to your primary prospect as possible is important… let’s dive into why having that targeted message is important and works.
In short, us humans get distracted easily (especially online) and removing any chance of guiding your website visitor on the wrong path always improves your chances of making sure the website visitor gets your message and hopefully engages in it by becoming a lead for you.
According to a study, 55% of visitors spend 15 seconds or less on your website. The more you can engage them and speak to them and their specific problems and needs… the longer you can keep them.
But our targeted websites at InvestorCarrot show a different story…
Why is that?
Because we’re not sending a motivated seller to a website filled with content that doesn’t help them a darn bit… like stuff about your cash buyer program, or rent to own houses, or private lender program. That kind of stuff doesn’t matter to them and it just serves as a distraction to knock them off of the path of engaging them and converting them as a lead.
We’ll get into the “why” below here in a sec.
How Many Websites Do I Need If I Wholesale Or Flip Real Estate?
The general rule once again is this: How many completely different services are you offering and completely different prospects are you going after?
If you are a local house buyer (going after motivated house sellers) and you also wholesale those properties to cash buyers… those are two completely different prospects for two completely different services you offer.
If you have lease option houses available and are looking for tenant buyers… and are also looking for private lenders… those are completely different services and different prospects.
In both of those cases we’ve found that it’s much more effective to split those messages into separate websites.
So, if you’re a wholesaler and are looking for properties and looking for cash buyers, those websites should be separate websites.
So a minimum of two websites as a wholesaler in my opinion.
You would for sure want a website dedicated to helping motivated house sellers… then your second website could pull double duty as your cash buyer website and main company credibility website (which our “Main Company” websites in Carrot do quite well).
I know there are lots of people out there who will argue with this and will say “You can put it all on one website for sure!“.
And they’re 100% correct.
You can.
But if on every page, the prospect is 1 click away from content that has nothing to do with them… and can even throw them off from the actual message on how you can help them… why would you want to take the chance of muddying the water?
If a motivated seller saw a link that says “Investment Properties 30-50% Discounts”… what do you think will pop up in their mind?
“Wow, if they can sell properties that cheap… I can’t imagine what they’re going to offer me. Darn bottom feeders”
Haha, maybe not those exact words… but even presenting a motivated seller with that content definitely doesn’t help your sale.
The “Across The Table” Test
One simple test I always run through mentally with my marketing messages is this…
… I imagine myself sitting across the table from my ideal prospect and run through in my mind what I’d say to that prospect.
How I’d find out what their main problem is, their motivations, and what they really need help with.
And then mentally run through how I can help them reach those goals.
In the case of a motivated seller… if you use this “Across The Table” test… would you hand them a brochure that talked about buying their property on one page and on the very next page it tried to sell them a discount property?
Or would you ever in the process of talking with a seller fit in… “Oh, and by the way… if you’re looking for an investment property you can get on our cash buyers list!”.
Of course not.
Why?
Because it has nothing to do with how you can help them in their situation and the only thing doing that does is potentially throw off your actual message of how you can help them with THEIR CURRENT situation… selling their house.
If it doesn’t pass the “Across The Table” test… my rule of thumb is that I try to separate those messages in my marketing as well.
On the other hand… if I’m talking to a potential cash buyer… it is very believable that I may find a way to mention our private lender program, because they may also be interested in being an investor with us as well. So those could work very well on the same website.
Make sense?
With that said, in no way am I saying that you can’t pull in online leads with an “all-in-one” site that is for motivated sellers, cash buyers, lenders, tenants, etc.
I’m just making the case for how much more effective it can be to target your messaging to eliminate the chance that a prospect would choose to not work with you because of a muddied message.
If you lost just 1 deal over a 5 year period because your website spoke to too many different prospects at once… that would cost you at a minimum $10,000.
With how easy it is to launch a website on InvestorCarrot… why take that risk?
So How Many Websites Do You Need If You Do You Need?
If you’re a real estate wholesaler or house flipper…
… we suggest 2.
One for motivated sellers and one that pulls double duty for cash buyers / main company credibility (even helps out with private lenders).
Then if you want to attract other types of leads like rent to own or note sellers… those may be great as separate sites.
The one rule of thumb is definitely don’t cram all of those “focuses” into one site. It’ll kill your performance and confuse your motivated house sellers.
If you are a note buyer / seller…
… we suggest just 1.
A person selling a note tends to be a person experienced in the process. So sellers expect to go to a “broker” and won’t be confused by seeing notes for sale on the site.
If you’re a buy and hold investor or multi-family investor…
… one total website for all of your properties works great. Your focusing on attracting tenants. But if you want to attract private lenders as well to partner on your deals… then set up a 2nd website that is a main company credibility site.
Keep it simple. As few sites as possible without confusing the message on your important prospects.
And as always… shoot any questions our way!
