A few years ago I was hot and heavy into real estate investing. Unfortunately for me, so was everyone else. It was on more than one occasion where I had a $30,000+ deal all but locked up only to have another investor swoop in and steal it from me.
I finally decided that instead of competing against all the other investors, I would create a website that served them. With the approval of the boss (my wife), I pulled the trigger and plunked down my first grand and RehabMe – a site where you could buy and sell fixer-upper properties – was born.
Mistake 1: Trying to Knock it Out of the Park
I see people and businesses making this mistake time and time again. There is a fallacy that a website is a finite, permanent medium. And that’s what I thought when I began building RehabMe.com. I figured it had to be perfect. It was my grandiose idea and I wanted it to be amazing. Not only that, but I was really relying on it to support my family. If I was going to put all this time and money and energy into it, then it needed to be incredible.
The problem of course is that websites aren’t static and permanent. They’re alive. And they need to breathe and grow, preferably from the help of your customers or community.
SOLUTION: A much better approach would’ve been to, as Google calls it, “launch and learn.” Get something, anything, out there and do it fast. Get feedback, find out what’s working and what’s not. Learn from your site’s visitors.
Mistake 2: Letting My Ego Make Decisions
One reason why it took me so long to launch RehabMe.com was because I felt like once it was “out there” many people would come to it. I was concerned it wouldn’t reflect well on me personally. I feared I only had 1 chance at a first impression and I didn’t want people to think poorly of the site. In short, I sought approval (which is all about me) instead of seeking to meet other people’s needs (which is where the focus should be: all on them).
Additionally, the longer the website was unknown to the world, the more chances my ego had to delve in and tweak this and rearrange that. This wastes time and a lot of money.
SOLUTION: Get yourself out of the way, get your website “out there” and start listening.
Mistake 3: Outsourcing the Creative
The one thing I really had nailed down with RehabMe was the vision. I knew what I wanted: (a meeting place for buyers and sellers of fixer-upper properties). But, for some reason, I didn’t trust myself. It was my first real website so I figured I had to hire a “professional.”
What a waste of money. It’s not that the professional wasn’t great. He was pretty good. But, in the end, I ended going with what I laid out in the first place instead of the recommended option the professional gave me.
SOLUTION: Trust yourself. Trust your vision. And know that no one knows it better than you. Don’t rely on someone else who doesn’t understand the opportunity as you see it. Have faith in your ideas. (Also, see the solutions for mistakes 1 and 2).
Mistake 4: Building the Website Before Knowing SEO
Not understanding the basics of SEO was my biggest mistake. I was under the false impression that I needed to first have a website and then I could market it. This mistake cost me the most money, flat out. If you’re new to SEO, let me quickly illustrate the concept using a more tangible example:
Let’s say a real estate developer wants to build a new strip mall. He sources all his materials and begins building. As you can imagine, lots of cost goes into building this strip mall. And it’s not just any strip mall by the way, it’s a high-end strip mall, complete with waterfalls and extravagant landscaping features.
But, there’s one issue. The developer has NO IDEA where he’s building the strip mall because he’s building it beneath a giant tent. It’s not until the entire project is complete when the tent is removed. Only then does the developer realize he’s built the strip mall out in the middle of the desert. And no, I’m not talking about Las Vegas (or Dubai). I’m talking about no man’s land.
Granted that would never happen, right? Because, what does a real estate developer do BEFORE he even thinks about building a strip mall? He finds the right location, that’s what! He makes sure there’s plenty of traffic that drives right by his strip mall every day.
Understanding search engine optimization is like putting your website on 1st and Main Street instead of out in the middle of nowhere. Also note: It’s not just what you put in your website that positions it in front of the right web traffic, it’s also HOW the website is built.
SOLUTION: Learn the basics of SEO (or hire someone who does) before you build your website.
Do you have any similar experiences? Share your most costly mistakes (in terms of time, money, opportunity, etc) in the comments field below so others can learn from you and not repeat the same mistakes.