If you’ve ever tried to find someone to create a website for you, you probably had a frustrating experience.
In general, you end up spending a lot of money ($2000-5000 is not uncommon) for a website that doesn’t do much for you.
Maybe it looks pretty but it doesn’t bring you orders.
One of the challenges is most web guys are not marketers, so they don’t know what works and what doesn’t to drive leads and appraisal orders.
The other challenge is web guys are notorious for disappearing, taking forever, or not even finishing what they start.
The best option is to go with a company who knows the appraisal industry, but there are a few things you must look out for before you hire anyone to do a website for you. In this video, you’ll learn what to look for so you can ensure your website is set up properly and has all of the elements for what is working right now online.
Transcript:
When you’re looking for a web designer for your appraisal website, what do you have to look out for?
Well, first of all, do you own the domain? You don’t want to work with somebody where they control your domain.
Meaning, if you stop paying them you’ll lose your domain. You need to be in control of your assets.
I’ve seen appraisers spend two to five thousand dollars for horrible sites. A lot of times they think they look pretty but they don’t convert.
What happens is they hire somebody outside the appraisal industry that tries to cram a pretty looking marketing site into an appraiser format and they don’t understand that the marketing of the appraisal industry is so different than marketing in the regular business or marketing world.
So you want to make sure that you’re working with somebody that’s familiar with the appraisal industry.
Are there any hidden renewal fees that you don’t know about working with a developer?
If you stop paying do you lose your site?
Once again, do they understand the appraisal industry? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a website that looks pretty but it is not designed for the appraisal industry.
Do they have examples of sites that rank? We just showed you a couple of examples of sites that we’ve done that are ranking in an extremely difficult market area. We’ve done this all over the country, so we have plenty of examples where we show you sites that we’ve done that rank.
Anybody you work with, don’t just hire them and say, “Hey, I need website.” Say “Hey, do you have something that you can show to me that’s actually ranking? Do you have websites that are converting into paying customers? Do you have reviews and proven success?”
So don’t just go out order a website and think it’s going to work. Make sure they have reviews. Make sure they are a proven success. And then, really important now more than ever, are those sites flexible and will they allow you to grow? Or do you have a website now that is too hard to change if you want to make a simple change or modification?
We’re going to show you an example. A lot of you know of a case study I did several years ago. We built a new business from the ground up in a market area where I didn’t know a soul. This is in Southern California and saturated with appraisers.
How did I do that? The main way I did that was with a website. That was the key foundational piece and that was the hub for all the marketing that we did in that area.
This wasn’t theory, this case study I did was fully documented. So, anybody who ever wants to question things I do or teach or show, this is something that was fully documented. We did this for our members, we showed it step by step exactly how we built this business from the ground up.
In a less than six months we were dominating this market area and getting constant work on a lot of levels and a regular flow of orders from our website that we continue to get to this day.
That was only done as a case study. So the main thing being the website is the launching pad… that’s the key, that’s the foundational piece.
And once again this isn’t theory that I’m talking about here.
What about portfolio clients?
I can share with you a real quick example. We have one portfolio client who came in and we ended up getting them. They found us on our website. They liked the design and they liked the fact that we had reviews. We ended up getting a portfolio client with 50 properties which was over $20,000 worth of work at the time to our business.
That was because we had a website, because it looked nice, because it converted and because we had reviews.
Now we have since received additional work from them and now we are also leveraging them into other portfolio clients as well.
If I have a website, think about that…that’s $20,000 dollars at the time. Now that’s going to turn into probably over a $100,000 client that we never would have gotten if we didn’t have a website and a website that converted.
These are a few tips for what to look for (and what to watch out for) when selecting someone to set up a website for you.
Do your research and make sure that whoever you select incorporates what we’ve discussed in this article. Don’t be afraid to ask the web developers questions and make sure they know what they are doing in the appraiser industry and that they will design your website with marketing in mind.
Questions or comments? Leave a comment below or talk about it in our free Facebook group.
