1st Website Guidance

[Mick_Keyou]

My head is spinning from reading all of these topics. I have an approximate budget of $500

For all of those who have built websites over the years, if you were doing this now, knowing what you know now....

What would be the first few recommendations for a new life/health lead generation website?

Specifically:
1. Website name: Something basic and catchy? keyword type domain? Company name?

2. Web design company recommendations? I don't think I have time to learn & construct a good site on my own anytime soon.

3. Additional suggestions?

Thanks everyone.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

Go with an exact match domain!!! OK...A bit of sarcasm there.

For $500 you can get a lot of work done, but use someone with a proven track record and success. Not for a few months. But a few years.

I like who built mine and I have no agenda. Feel free to PM for info.

Of course there are folks here that will also do a good job. But ask them to show you a site they built two years ago that is doing well. Not two months ago.

 

[Josh]

I'd definitely take Chumps up on getting info about his recommendation, there are several others as well.

The most common platform for sites these days is WordPress, for a good many reasons.

For $500, I would keep your expectations low. At that price range you can get a decent looking site, but if you're expecting it to generate leads for you, the results would probably be better spent elsewhere. The fact of the matter is in this day and age you need a website, so to some extent it's just a cost of doing business. In addition to paying for a website, if you want to get traffic to the site you'll need to hire someone competent to do SEO (if you're not going to do it yourself). If you want a good domain you might want to go ahead and invest some time and/or money into doing keyword research to see if a good EMD is going to help you AND get an idea of what keywords you want to be ranking for in terms of what's viable and what's not. Or, you can just get a domain you like.

What are you expecting your $500 website to do for you?

 

[Mick_Keyou]

Thanks for the feedback, fellas.

Josh, I'm hoping to generate leads in order to conduct p2p, online, and/or f2f business. I'm not looking to sell leads. I'm just confused with how to proceed with my first website. What I mean with that is many of you have multiple websites that seem to have different objectives. I'm definitely confused with the threads that I've read regarding multiple sites/domain names/etc.

I just want to start with one site and I'm not exactly sure with its focus.

From what I've gathered from many of the posts, I need to provide a quote engine for prospects, blog with original content for SEO, and keep it simple and clean overall. Should this be my game plan for my first website or would a different strategy be more appropriate?

I'm actually really interested in all of this. I enjoy technology & being hands on, but I think that will have to wait until I get things in motion and generating business.

 

[Josh]

If your goal is to generate leads for your business, I wouldn't expect a $500 website to do much.

SEO is a constantly changing game with many complicated aspects. There are some agents that using a small budget have done well by doing most of the work themselves. There are others that have done well paying other companies to do work for them. Most agents don't get much action from their websites. You're competing with armies of folks all over the world that do nothing but build and rank websites so it makes it difficult to rank, even if it's for a specific niche.

If I were in your situation I would start with a basic site that you can use to build trust and credibility with prospects (which is about what $500 will get you). From there, start blogging about long-tail search terms and do that a few times a week. That's the least expensive way to get started and if you stick with it long enough you'll likely get some action. Agents with 10 year old sites that have consistently added content have sites ranking pretty well. So how do you get a 10 year old site with regular updates? Start typing!

To be perfectly candid, I think your expectations are more than a little high considering the budget. If you really want to do well with online marketing, it's like anything else, you need to invest some time and money in learning it.

 

[AgentProvocateur]

If your goal is to generate leads for your business, I wouldn't expect a $500 website to do much.

SEO is a constantly changing game with many complicated aspects. There are some agents that using a small budget have done well by doing most of the work themselves. There are others that have done well paying other companies to do work for them. Most agents don't get much action from their websites. You're competing with armies of folks all over the world that do nothing but build and rank websites so it makes it difficult to rank, even if it's for a specific niche.

If I were in your situation I would start with a basic site that you can use to build trust and credibility with prospects (which is about what $500 will get you). From there, start blogging about long-tail search terms and do that a few times a week. That's the least expensive way to get started and if you stick with it long enough you'll likely get some action. Agents with 10 year old sites that have consistently added content have sites ranking pretty well. So how do you get a 10 year old site with regular updates? Start typing!

To be perfectly candid, I think your expectations are more than a little high considering the budget. If you really want to do well with online marketing, it's like anything else, you need to invest some time and money in learning it.

I think Josh gave the OP great advice. All agents would love to have a website generating exclusive leads for them. It's easy (and affordable) to have a site designed to get leads and make sales. It's not easy for your site to beat out the competition, and for potential customers to find you on the Web.

I know agents spending more than $500 to have someone build them a website few people ever see. They pay for the site and do nothing more with it. You can spend a lot of money for SEO services promising to boost your site traffic, but I doubt the results will be worth it.

If you are going to have a website, and I think you should, you need to incorporate it into your overall marketing strategy. You can outsource the site design, but using the site to help you make sales requires your effort.

 

[Mick_Keyou]

Thanks again guys. I'm not expecting much for $500. I guess I'm looking to see what I should expect for that amount (Look & feel, options, etc.). I know that the guys that focus on selling leads are going to be hard to beat in terms of Google rankings.

Is there a different strategy when targeting & building a reputation with local markets vs entire state/country?

 

[Josh]

Is there a different strategy when targeting & building a reputation with local markets vs entire state/country?

Yes, there are many different strategies. Entire books and forums all about it.

 

[Mick_Keyou]

LOL...great! More reading. More confusion.

 

[Josh]

LOL...great! More reading. More confusion.

Tons and tons of reading. To make matters worse, there are always conflicting opinions about things and what's working now might not work in a week.