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SEO vs PPC For Real Estate Investors – Which Is Best? [Infographic]

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2015.01.4-seo-vs-ppc-main

The age-old question for real estate investors and agents… SEO or PPC for real estate investing leads?

Which one do I start first, and which is right for me? Well, we whipped up a handy infographic to walk you through some of the most important things to consider when looking at SEO or PPC to help attract leads online for motivated house sellers, rent-to-own tenants, buyers, and any other type of lead.

At first glance, you may be thinking…

“But both SEO and PPC are basically going after the same people searching the same phrases… shouldn’t I just do both?”

Choosing how to drive traffic to your real estate investing website and how to ramp things up is a pretty darn important decision. Yes, both are ways to get you in front of the motivated house sellers, cash buyers, tenants, rent-to-own tenants, note sellers… yadda yadda yadda… but both are fundamentally different, and they each have massive pros and cons that you should consider.

For instance, as you’ll see below, the amount of time and money you have to invest in your online marketing will dictate whether SEO or PPC is best for you right now.

One gets leads more quickly but requires a money budget to launch. In contrast, the other one takes longer to get results but can yield the highest ROI (return on investment) of any online marketing strategy we use.

Learn more about the differences between SEO and PPC marketing as a real estate investor in the infographic below, and if you enjoy it, share it online!

SEO vs PPC For Real Estate Investors

seo vs ppc for real estate investing leads carrot

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Let’s Sum It Up For You…

When looking at SEO and PPC to attract real estate investing leads like motivated sellers, cash buyers, tenant-buyers, etc., here are a few things to consider.

How SEO Can Help You As A Real Estate Investor Or Agent

Any solid SEO strategy aims to get your real estate investor site to show up at the top of search engine results pages. And, even more importantly, in the top spots of Google, specifically. If you aren’t one of the sites that are on top, you won’t be getting the sort of traffic you need.

SEO can also build trust in the eyes of the potential lead. Search trends have shown that 85% of clicks go to organic SEO.

The #1 lead generation source was “Organic Search,” a month-over-month occurrence. In a snapshot, Organic leads accounted for 36.4% of all leads. For reference, PPC accounted for 12.3%.

Organic Search Leads Accounted for 10,547 leads from the 28,947 Carrot Members obtained in July 2018
Organic Search Leads Accounted for 36.4% of All Carrot Member Leads in July 2018

SEO is about building authority, demonstrating relevance, and matching your site to the right search keywords. It can be a long-term process, but one that is essential to your website’s performance. Once you have the building blocks to achieve high rankings in search engines, the sky’s the limit!

SEO (Organic) Search Engine Results

organic search results

Benefits of SEO and Evergreen Marketing

1. It’s free if you do it yourself

A clear SEO benefit is that it’s free to do. Unlike PPC, you don’t have to pay for it. You just need to invest time in implementing the best practices across your site.

But with that comes a whole checklist of ‘best practices, including making sure its search engine spider is accessible, responsive, has unique content, targeted keywords, and optimized metadata – just to name a few.

Need a little guidance? Check Out: A beginners guide to SEO for real estate investors.

2. It’s more likely to drive more consistent traffic in the long run (if you implement a solid SEO plan)

That’s because people tend to be more attracted to SEO (organic) results because they trust them much more than a paid sponsored link.

3. It will drive better ROI long-term

The great thing about SEO is that once you’ve implemented the best practices onto your site, the only way is up. Make your way to the top, your brand is automatically perceived as reputable, and your ROI will continue to rise. In the long run, your investment and work into building those rankings go down as your traffic climbs… meaning a lower cost per lead.

4. Not just for blog posts… try it on your YouTube videos for faster results

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Grab a little bit more of the search engine results page via video. Video is big now, and YouTube is hugely important to search results. Optimize your YouTube videos and descriptions with keywords that search engines like.

First Page of Search Engine Results for We Buy Houses Pittsburgh

first-page-search-engine-results-for-we-buy-houses-pittsburgh

How PPC Marketing Can Help You As A Real Estate Investor Or Agent

If you want the potential for immediate results or your website is in the process of ranking high but just isn’t there yet. PPC might be the way to go. If you have the budget, it’s possible to get an ad in the top four spots on the search results page reasonably quickly, but it might cost you.

But…utilizing effective PPC techniques such as long-tail keywords and location targeting, you can build highly targeted campaigns. So, you can place ads in front of the right searcher at the right time.

Overall, you must make sure you take the time to develop a strong PPC marketing strategy.

PPC Benefits

1. It offers instant results

The most significant benefit to PPC is that you don’t have to wait around for that traffic to come. Set up an Adwords campaign, and you’ll start to see the results instantly – which is particularly helpful for investors just starting up.

Here are 20 tips to get your Google Ads PPC marketing up and running.

2. It’s highly targeted

PPC offers the edge on conversions, with paid results more likely to convert. The great thing about PPC is that it is highly targeted to the customer, whereas organic traffic can be slightly unpredictable.

Although you need to bid on keywords, Google also uses a quality score metric to decide how relevant your ad is to that user. So, you can be sure that when a person clicks on your ad, they will genuinely be interested in what you’re selling.

3. It’s protected from the “intimidating” algorithm updates

There’s nothing more frustrating for an SEO marketer than an algorithm update. The good news is that PPC is protected from algorithm updates, so you’ll still continue to see traffic heading to your site no matter what changes are made.

Actual Stats On A Motivated Seller PPC Campaign
motivated seller adwords account


You Don’t Have To Decide On One Or The Other. Leverage Both SEO and PPC Together For Even Greater Results

We usually start SEO and PPC in conjunction with each other. We start a PPC campaign to get leads in the short term and SEO to build up over the long term. You can amplify your overall results by using SEO and PPC together.

Generate more exposure – An obvious benefit of combining SEO and PPC efforts is added visibility on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Dominating the SEO search results will significantly increase traffic and give the impression that you’re an established presence in the real estate investor market.

Increase intent keywords – Simultaneously running SEO and PPC campaigns allows you to double the keyword data to analyze. Determine which SEO and PPC keywords have the highest conversion rates and use that information to optimize your strategy.

Use high-performing ad copy and SEO content – If it works for PPC, it also often works for SEO. By determining which PPC ads result in the most lead conversions, you’ll know how to create title tags, meta descriptions, and page content for the real estate investor blog posts you write. The benefit is allowing you to potentially rank higher in organic search results. Using PPC, you’ll also quickly know what works and doesn’t. While completely testing titles and meta tags, strictly organic, can take a long time.

Test keywords utilizing PPC before committing to SEO content – PPC ads are a great way to improve your SEO keyword strategy. As your long-term SEO keyword strategy develops, test the conversion rate of the keywords you want to rank for with PPC ads. You’ll get immediate feedback on the effectiveness of the SEO keywords you’re after and can tailor your investment strategy.

Share This Infographic With Others And Get To Work!

Driving traffic to a high-converting lead generation website is important. You can achieve high ROI using SEO, PPC, or in combination. This is why you might need to work with a search marketing team. If you need help, get in touch with us today. We can take on SEO and/or PPC marketing for you.

If you’re already a Carrot Member, join us on the weekly Coaching Calls when we cover a wide range of strategy topics, including SEO and PPC.

Not a Carrot Member yet? Take a demo of our online marketing software for real estate professionals. Be sure to hit us up with questions!

Trevor Mauch

Trevor is the CEO of Carrot and knows a thing or two about inbound marketing and generating leads online in the real estate industry. As an investor himself, he's generated tens of thousands of real estate leads and is a leading expert in inbound marketing for investors and agents. In addition, his true passion is helping entrepreneurs grow businesses that truly help you live a life of purpose.

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6 responses to “SEO vs PPC For Real Estate Investors – Which Is Best? [Infographic]

  1. Great infographic. When trying to explain SEO vs. PPC, I like to use the analogy of PPC being city water and SEO like digging your own well. With city water, you can turn your water on immediately, but you’ll be paying for it. With SEO, you have to make that initial investment of digging the well, but the long-term residuals are worth it!

    1. Hey James! I LOVE the analogy. Never heard it explained that way but love it. Heck I may borrow it from time to time :-)

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