Nearly all successful real estate investors these days have a website (or three). Buyers and sellers are turning to the internet more and more to look for properties.
If your real estate business does not have an online presence, you are potentially missing out on a whole lot of customers.
By far the most popular way of building and maintaining a website is WordPress. Although many people think of WordPress (WP) as more of a blogging platform, the power of WordPress is unbelievable. Tons of e-commerce, marketing and general websites are built using WP. Blogs are just one small aspect of the overall sites.
One of the reasons WP is so popular is that it is pretty user-friendly. You don’t have to know some cryptic computer language or have grown up playing video games in your mom’s basement to run it. But you don’t want to try to keep up with all the new features and tricks to using it either.
Especially when you have a real estate empire to run.
Time to Outsource?
So you look to hire someone to do all those tasks. But does the website need someone looking after it full time? After all, we’re not talking about a website like Amazon or eBay. We just want one that picks up some wholesale leads… or finds buyers in your area.
Or maybe helps run your rental business.
You want someone who you pay when you need them. Maybe they can even offer some suggestions from time to time? Or add some new feature that you learned about from other investors.
Even if you outsource your website to a full-time person in a 3rd-world country, you will be looking at several $100s per month.
One way to do it is to outsource each task. You can go to sites like Upwork or Fiverr. From there you can spend a whole lot of time evaluating developers, getting bids, explaining your site and generally wasting your time for some small upgrade or change.
Rather, you want someone who:
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Understands your site
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Is not full time
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Can make the necessary changes quickly
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Make suggestions for improvement
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Charges a very reasonable rate
You’re not alone. Lots of small businesses both in and out of real estate want this.
Where There’s a Need, There’s a Market
A company called Kitedish came about to satisfy those intermittent WordPress needs. Kitedish works on the concept that you will call them when you need them.
The company offers a subscription service for a low monthly fee that will provide fixes to your WordPress problems only when you need them.
Does it seem weird that if they only fix stuff when you need it, why should you pay a monthly fee? That makes sense. But when you consider the value you receive, you may find it is the most inexpensive way out there for maintaining your website. Plus you will be maintaining a long-term relationship with Kitedish. So they will understand your site.
That’s far cheaper than doing it yourself (in terms of the value of your time) or hiring a full-time programmer.
What do you get for your monthly subscription fee? Here are some of the benefits:
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Troubleshooting of your site for any glitches or bugs that slow it down
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Proactive upgrades to new versions of WP, plugins and themes
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Security measure additions to protect your site from hackers
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Set up backups to restore the site in case it crashes
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Tricks to boost your site’s speed so people don’t get bored waiting and leave
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Configuring third-party integrations like Mailchimp or Woocommerce to help with your marketing efforts
The Better Your Credit(s), The Better Your Website
Kitedish works on a credit system. Depending on which subscription pricing plan you decide to use, Kitedish will give you a certain number of work ‘credits’ each month:
One credit is worth a half hour of work on your site.
The basic plan ($24/month) won’t give you any credits. But you can buy credits at a $6/hour rate. All of the other plans come with a certain amount of credits included. Then you can buy extra credits at the $6/hour rate if you need more.
Think about that. If you go with the basic plan and just use one hour per month, you are paying $30 ($24 for the plan and $6 for the credits) for the hour of work. But if you use 5 hours ($24 for the plan and $30 (5 x 6) for the credits), you are paying under $10.50 per hour for a WordPress developer.
Did I mention the first month on the basic plan is just $0.99?
For more regular WordPress work, you can upgrade. Take the Standard Plan, for example. If you use your full 12 hours on the Standard Plan ($95/month), you will only be paying less than $8/hour for the work.
Another advantage of the plans are that the unused credits carry over each month. If you find yourself accumulating a ton of unused credits, you can temporarily suspend your subscription until you use them up.
Sure overseas VAs are less expensive with their hourly rates. But do you think they will want to wait around for the next time you need them if they’re not getting paid – or just do 12 hours a month?
The monthly price also includes detailed notes for each task they perform so you understand what they did. If you have any questions, they are always available for 24-hour email and chat support.
Your time as a real estate investor is too valuable to spend it learning WordPress on the side. You will find your time can be used much more profitably by getting out there and making deals. Kitedish can help you increase your free time AND your profits.
Have You Gone Kite Flying?
Do you have experience with Kitedish or plan to use it? Share below, friends.
Outsource! – Look at your real estate business - besides your website, what else can you outsource? See what actions on your part make you the most amount of money. Do those. Don’t do the other stuff.
Get Your Business Online – Even if you don’t think you will find a ton of leads on the internet, the leads you do find will want to know more about you. They will look for your website.
Make Your Website Professional – In our ADD society, people have very short attention spans. A website that takes forever to load or looks awful on first glance will not help your business. Keep your website in top condition.
Shop Around for Help – Just as you might interview several contractors before hiring one, look at several website-support services before you choose one. Did you find other great support besides Kitedish? Let other Mogul members know in the comments below.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.