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Why You’re Not Getting Motivated Seller Leads Through Your Real Estate Investing Website and What To Do About It

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If you’re not getting many motivated seller leads to your real estate investing website, it’s for one of two reasons. Here, we’ll help you diagnose your “no leads” issue… This post is going to help YOU break down the patterns that lead to success in real estate investment — with a special focus on online lead generation.   We’ve focused on what investors are doing right, so it only seemed fair to focus on what’s going wrong. A few times a week the same thing happens, we get emails from non-Carrot members that look something like this: “Help! I’m not getting many motivated house seller leads from my website and I don’t know why!” It always stinks to hear that, but the good news is that most real estate investing websites struggle to generate leads for a few basic reasons. So let’s dive in to get to the crux of the problem. Getting leads online really equates to only two simple things. Traffic and Conversion. But before you get started, take a few minutes and watch… It All Comes Down To Traffic and Conversion Traffic – Are you getting traffic to your website? (ranking well for keywords that actually get enough searches to matter?) Conversion – Does your website convert enough of those visitors to leads? So, when someone emails in and asks for advice to get leads… it always comes down to those two things. Traffic and conversion. This post is mainly about the Traffic part since we already know the Carrot system converts (Conversion Examples: Here , Here , and Here ).  So first we look at the traffic… because if there isn’t any traffic going to your website… conversion doesn’t matter. If your website is converting motivated seller leads at 15% (15 of every 100 visitors sends you their info, which is solid)… and you’re only getting 25 people to your website each month… that’s only about 4 leads per month. Not much to build a business off of right? So… here’s what we do. We start problem-solving by asking the same questions. If you’re banking on SEO is a part of your traffic generation strategy… we’ll ask you this question first: How much search volume is happening in your market? In simple terms… are there enough people in the areas you’re targeting searching for the keywords in Google that your pages are ranking for? Unfortunately, most of the time we get a “huh?” in response. Then we explain: Even if you’re ranking at the top of a search, no one is going to click your link if no one is searching. Then a lot of times we’ll dive in and do a little bit of research, only to discover what we already know… that there’s little to no search volume in their market for the keywords they’re ranking for. It’s like putting a great billboard on a dark back alley street that no one sees. But put that same awesome billboard on a busy street… then it produces GREAT results. Here are Some Examples For You For a quick illustration of what I’m talking about, let’s look at some US cities and check out the search volume (using the keyword planner tool in Google’s Adwords) for a common search term in each market, “we buy houses [insert your city]”. This term tends to be a popular search phrase across most cities in the US so it’s usually a great barometer in any market for the volume of “highly motivated sellers” in that market: The Good – Below are numbers for average monthly searches for those terms in Google.  You can note that some cities … Continued

Time Saving Content Marketing For Real Estate Agents (The Power Of Q&A)

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Creating content takes too long. You spend time, money, and energy on each piece, hoping – praying – that it offers a return. And far too often, in the beginning, the return is negligible. So you quit producing. Fortunately, content is one of the best marketing methods – conversion rates are six times higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most time-consuming methods. As if building a significant content repertoire doesn’t require enough energy, ensuring that repertoire is full of valuable information is even more daunting. Because of that lofty commitment, few real estate investors and agents do it at all. What you need is audience-tested content that takes very little time to create. The answer? Q&A. You already spend time answering client’s questions. Turning your answers into valuable pieces of content is the next obvious step. But what type of content should you use (written, video, audio)? And what’s a good system for creating this curiosity-based value? 5 Time-Saving Ways to Create Real Estate Q&A Content 1. FAQ Web Page The most obvious application of Q&A content that’s worth discussing is the FAQ web page. A Frequently Asked Question’s page is a must for any serious real estate business. Give your visitors a place to find answers and they’ll spend less time calling you with low-commitment inquiries. Of course, you want them to call you. But questions about what a mortgage broker is, how someone determines the value of their home, and what kind of credit score is needed to purchase a house are questions better answered online. In fact, many people won’t be comfortable calling you until they have a general understanding of how the process works. No one wants to look stupid. Your FAQ page is where prospects get educated so that they are comfortable calling you. Ultimately, FAQ is a sales page. Which means that you need a CTA at the bottom. For example: And to give investors an idea of what questions your FAQ page should answer, here’s what the same site has on theirs: As a real estate agent, here are questions to consider, taken from Kyle Hiscock’s extensive list of house-buyer questions. FAQ will increase how much visitors trust you. And they’ll start calling you with higher-commitment questions: How do I start working with you? Can we meet and talk about selling my home? I think I’d like to buy/sell. What should I do? 2. Single Answer Content Once your FAQ page is live, use it as the foundation for more content. For most investors and agents, the curiosity-based content ends at the FAQ page. But all those questions can easily be turned into audience-tested blog posts. In other words, since you know what questions prospective clients are asking, then it’s safe to assume they are googling them as well. Why not create a single blog post around each question so that you can rank for exactly the kind of questions that prospects are asking? Real estate agents, for example, could write a full blog post – between 500 and 1,000 words – pitting real estate agents against for-sale-by-owner. Much like this piece by Michael Alan, where he discusses the pros of using an agent and the risks of doing it alone. Real estate investors could write an FAQ style post on how house buyers are different than real estate agents or on how a fair price is determined. Also consider this video we made here at Carrot, showing our clients how to make testimonials that build trust and credibility. We anticipated the kind of questions our clients … Continued

7 Content Marketing Ideas for Real Estate Agents: Inspiration to Bring Your Strategy to Life

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It’s painful, grueling, laborious work. Especially when you have so much else on your plate. As a real estate agent, you know you need a content marketing strategy for your real estate agent website.  But you also need to schedule house visits, drive homebuyers to potential houses, meet with house sellers, solidify contracts, and do a whole lot more. When the heck are you going to find the time to (1) come up with content marketing ideas for real estate agents and (2) create the content? Well, that’s exactly what we’re talking about today: Real examples from real agents who’re using content marketing to catapult themselves to the head of the pack. Because potential customers aren’t just looking online… they’re making decisions based on what they find. Content marketing is how you dominate search results, build trust, and attract new clients all before they even meet you. Why? Because your strategy has to be built on your strengths … and loves: This post digs into the details with two top-to-bottom examples of exactly how to execute your content marketing master plan and a host of supplemental examples along the way. So, let me introduce you to our content marketing test case … Judy Weiniger runs the Weiniger Group, a seven-person real estate agency in central New Jersey. She’s active on various platforms, including social media, Youtube, and her website. But, Weiniger doesn’t do content marketing just about selling houses; she makes it about what someone buying a house in the area would need and want to know. In other words, the content she provides is not one promotion, listing, or sales pitch after another. It is useful information that helps her audience. That is the pinnacle of great content. 7 Content Marketing Ideas for Real Estate Agents 1. Real Estate Content Marketing Ideas All Start With The Right Agent Website Let’s start by looking at her website. To begin, it’s gorgeous. You should click through to see the video background in the hero section; the following screenshots don’t do it justice. Visitors are greeted with a friendly hello message — “Welcome to our neighborhood!” — followed by two CTAs directing them exactly where to go next. While this isn’t connected to content marketing, notice that in the top right there’s a prominent “Let’s Talk” button for anyone wanting to connect directly. As you scroll down, you’ll see the type of content she’s releasing, and it’s just what home buyers want to see. First, there are the featured listings. If the prospective homebuyer is there to look at houses, this section lets them do that … immediately. Homes By Krista (a Carrot customer) takes a similar approach. It opens with a beautiful hero image and simple problem-solving message: “Sell your house faster and for more money” and “Find and buy the perfect home with less hassle.” To find out more about getting your conversion-optimized Agent website, go here! In Weiniger’s case, after taking care of the low-hanging-lead-fruit, she turns her full attention to content. 2. Real Estate Agent Blogging Ideas That Are Way More than Just Listings Rather than just featuring houses and soliciting sellers, Weiniger caters her blog to people who either don’t know if they want to move to central New Jersey yet or are looking to explore the area. Want proof? Scroll further down the homepage, and this is what you’ll see. Weiniger doesn’t just play the part of a real estate agent — a home-finder and home-seller — she plays the part of friendly food citric, supermarket expert, school advisor, and more. And they deliver. Two of Weiniger’s most popular posts at first appears to … Continued

EP 98: The Value Of Having Optimized Websites For Real Estate Agents by AgentCarrot with Connor Steinbrook

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Listen to the CarrotCast Podcast and Subscribe Below! One thing that a lot of people miss with their websites on their cell phones is the conversion elements aren’t where they need to be on the cell phone. The buttons and the forms aren’t the size that they should be or the placement based on people using thumbs to type things in and those are things that we really dial in and make sure the mobile experience, what are those things we need to serve up to someone when they’re in the moment of looking to buy or sell. Trevor Mauch If you guys go back to the episode that I recorded that is called Planting Seeds, that’s something that I’m always doing. That’s one of the biggest things I can attribute any success I’ve had is to planting seeds with people. You know I see a lot of opportunities, a lot of potential in someone or working with someone and even if I think it’s completely out of reach for that person to work with me or for them to change what they’re doing, or I just have no clue how we’re going to work together but I know that there’s a quality person that wants to. I plant seeds in a very specific way. It’s turned into business partnerships, it’s turned into amazing things.  Now we’re nearing episode 100 and I’m crazy about that milestone. Of hitting 100 podcasts because when we launched the CarrotCast, I didn’t know what it was going to be. I didn’t know if it was going to be, you know, 20 episodes, 25 episodes or if we were going to stop at 50, 100, 1000, I don’t know. And I still don’t know when and where this podcast is going to go specifically. But what I do know is we’re going to continue to deliver things that inspire you. Continue to do, deliver things to help you be a better entrepreneur. To help you get more freedom, flexibility, grow your finances so you can have more impact in this world. And, today’s podcast episode is a recording actually from one of our clients, but also an amazing investor and agent Connor Steinbrook from his podcast. I’ve been on Connor’s podcast a couple times and the first time it was on the investing side of things and this time it was on the agent side of things. He’s growing a really, really, really fast agency right now with EXP Reality and it’s just amazing what he’s doing in his business, it’s amazing that so many of our other clients are doing on the agent side in addition to the investment side. So he interviews me about how agents can leverage Carrot, and how agents can leverage content on the web to grow their businesses better. So hopefully you pick up a couple tips here if you are an agent and you have your license. We have some really cool case studies coming up with other clients that are crushing on the investor side of things as well as crushing on the agent side of things. So keep an eye out for those as. Have an amazing time listening to this episode if you are an agent! Listen to the CarrotCast Podcast Listen to this episode of the CarrotCast with Investor Army’s Connor Steinbrook to Learn About Carrot’s Optimized Websites for Real Estate Agents 1:30 – Brief history of AgentCarrot, optimized websites for Real Estate Agents. 3:20 – How AgentCarrot is different from InvestorCarrot websites. 8:35 – The mindset of how people look at pricing and what the … Continued

Announcing Carrot Real Estate Agent Websites: Helping Agents Stand Out From The Clutter Online

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Over the past 4 years, we’ve grown Carrot from a fledgling “real estate investor website” software into the most effective tool for generating leads online for real estate investors. Bringing in more online leads than any other platform, climbing well into the millions of leads across thousands of active Carrot clients all across the U.S., Canada, the UK, and even some successful clients as far off as South Africa. While our main clients are house flippers/wholesalers, land investors, and other investors looking for motivated sellers, cash buyers, and tenant leads… we’ve found the clients who consistently get an edge in this competitive market are the ones who are also real estate agents. Why? Well for a few reasons. Listing on the market is a viable solution for more sellers in up markets. Agent/Investors can turn more leads into income vs. discarding great leads that don’t perfectly fit just that one box. Giving house sellers multiple options (list with us or sell to us) helps improve the close ratio and build trust with sellers. Agents have access to data and tools that non-agents don’t. In competitive markets that are cluttered with competition, you’ve got to do everything you can to avoid being caught up in the clutter of options. Does Your Real Estate Agent Website Leave You Lost In The Clutter? When you look at most real estate agents websites most of them tend to do the same things. They have… A pretty picture of you somewhere on the site Local MLS listings Fancy calculators and tools … and a bunch of generic content for buyers and sellers not unique to your expertise as an agent When buyers and sellers are looking at their options, if every agent they look at all has only the usual things on their websites (those things above) it’s the agents that build trust, authority, and credibility with content that win out in a competitive market. Are you standing out with your website and content online or just becoming part of the clutter? One lost listing per year from an underperforming website can cost you what? $3,000? $5,000? $20,000? How AgentCarrot Can Help You Stand Out From The Clutter Introducing Carrot real estate agent websites. For years the way Carrot clients began to dominate their markets online started with a highly optimized website (for SEO and lead conversion) then amplified with our content marketing tools and training. We’ve been in the beta phase with Carrot for the past year and now we’re rolling it out of beta with a crazy exciting vision on how we’ll continue to improve how real estate agents and investors grow your business leveraging the web. Now we’re bringing that same technology and strategy to real estate agents to dominate the online conversation in your own market. To leverage your own unique expertise to stand out from the clutter so you’re the best viable option for your ideal client in your market. How does AgentCarrot help you do that? Let’s dive in and check out some of the ways AgentCarrot will help you save time and stand out from other agents in your market who are all doing the “same ol’ things”. Beautiful High Converting Website Designs + Optional IDX Nearly 60% of the 10s of thousands of leads our clients pull in each month are on mobile devices. So we’ve taken a mobile-first design approach… ensuring that your website not only looks beautiful and converts well on the desktop… but especially on mobile devices. Beautiful Featured Property Listings With AgentCarrot you can create Featured Property Listings to really showcase your best listings with any content you want to add. You’re … Continued

How to Use HARO to Get Backlinks

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If you’ve ever run a successful SEO campaign before, you’ll know that building high-quality backlinks to your site is critical. If you want to win organic search traffic via SEO, you need to be sure that all 3 pillars of your campaign—technical SEO, content marketing, and backlinks—are executed on correctly. It’s easy to use an off the shelf platform like Carrot to ensure your site is technically sound, and it’s relatively simple to write and publish high value content to your site. The biggest challenge most people have involves link building. While many methods are highly complex, and others feel uncomfortable or unethical, one stands out as a clear winner. You can earn backlinks from some of the highest authority websites without having to write long articles, building an extensive network of industry influencers, or speaking on endless numbers of podcasts. In my experience, this single strategy wins out against the rest, bringing the highest ROI of all link building methods, landing links in key media outlets and major publications such as Forbes, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Yahoo Finance. In this article, I’ll explain the HARO link building process, and how you can use HARO for your real estate SEO campaign. Introduction to Help a Reporter Out Help A Reporter Out, or HARO for short, is a simple platform that connects journalists and content producers that with expert sources, to give their content more credibility, and deeper insights. Every day, hundreds of HARO queries are sent out from journalists, asking experts to provide input into their content. Most of this input is in the form of a quote, but it can also involve TV or radio interviews as well. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) was founded by Peter Shankman as a service for journalists to connect with people who could be relevant sources for their reporting. HARO was later acquired and is currently part of Connectively. In 2024, Peter Shankman launched Source of Sources, based on the original HARO model. Qwoted is another popular tool for connecting journalists with subject matter experts. You can follow the guidance below to connect with journalists via the platform of your choice. Why You Should Use HARO for Link Building Building links with HARO outreach involves finding journalists looking for relevant sources for their articles. Unlike other forms of outreach (like guest posting), these journalists need a source, and they want to hear from you. In exchange for your valuable quote, they will credit you, typically with a dofollow or nofollow backlink to your site. Yes, that’s right. SEOs like yourself can use HARO pitches to secure backlinks from websites with tons of link equity, for free! Your quotes are often syndicated in other publications across the internet, shared on social media, and included in other related press mentions, all of which can boost the power of your links further. It also helps with improved brand visibility as both your personal and business name become cited sources. This adds trust when potential clients or sellers look to find an agent, agency or investor to work with. The end result is, you get hard-to-get links from credible news sources, bringing traffic from the journalist’s article, a high-quality backlink to your website, better search engine rankings to your content, and most importantly, more leads for your business. Other Benefits of Using Help a Reporter Out As I mentioned above, backlinks are just one of the many benefits. Many people think of this practise as “HARO SEO”, but the benefits really don’t end there. While I’ve had my fair share of success through SEO, I’ll … Continued

The Best Real Estate Websites For Lead Generation Have This Simple Element In Common

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What if I told you that, by adding one element to your real estate website, you could increase your conversion rate by 10%? You wouldn’t have to increase traffic and you wouldn’t have to do more marketing. You’d just have to add one dead-simple thing to your homepage. And boom. 10%. Would you do it? If you’re like most real estate agents (72%), you’re already dissatisfied with the number of leads that your website generates. So I’m going to safely assume that the majority of you would welcome a 10% increase in your website’s conversion rate. Sure. 10% isn’t huge. But it’s something. And in an industry where one deal can equal tens of thousands of dollars, 10% often separates the wheat from the chaff. Where, though, am I getting 10% from? Well, it’s an estimate. This little trick probably won’t double your revenue or change your business completely, but it’s a simple way to increase your conversion rate in very little time. And who knows? For you, it might make all the difference. Interested? Here’s what it is. The Best Real Estate Websites For Lead Generation Have This In Common: The “Call Us!” CTA I’m not going to splice words, here. This is the trick. (Image Source) That’s right. That “Call Us!” CTA in the upper right corner of the page drives leads and converts visitors. If you don’t have it on your website, then there’s a good chance that you’re missing out on about 10% of your potential lead generation. But you don’t have to take my word for it. As they say, “the proof is in the pudding.” So let’s talk about the pudding. Proof that the “Call Us!” CTA Works on the Best Real Estate Websites for Lead Generation 44% of website visitors will leave a company’s website if there’s no contact information or phone number. Dead. Buried. Gone. And you and I both know that the moment they leave your website is the same moment they go to the competition’s website. When that happens, your part in their story is over. In fact, 73% of buyers say that they would use their real estate agent again in the future — they’d even recommend the agent to a friend. Once someone’s gone, they’re gone — and so too are their recommendations. Naturally, you can’t afford to lose website visitors (and their friends) to the competition for such a silly reason. If having this “Call Us!” CTA really makes a difference, then you damn-well better include it on your website — especially when you consider that it’s only going to take about five minutes for you to add. Talk about an ROI. But in case you don’t trust the stats I’ve already presented, maybe you’ll take better to our own (Carrot’s) data from nearly 4,000 websites across tons of different real estate niches (wholesalers, rental owners, house flippers, and agents). First of all, we found that 91% of people who become leads on these real estate websites convert on the same exact day of their first visit to the website. This means that high-value people who visit your website want a solution right now. 91% of the time, ideal prospects aren’t on your website to browse around and come back tomorrow. They’re on your website because they want a solution… and they want it right now. In fact, prospects are so ready to take action that the vast majority of our customer’s leads come from the home page. Which means that they visit the website and become a lead before even clicking anywhere else. They take action.  But what does that have to do with the … Continued

[NEW] Motivated Land Seller Websites

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Land is hot right now. I was talking with one of our Carrot members recently and they’re seeing a really great opportunity to sell land all across the country. So, we worked with them to create a Land Seller website system here at Carrot! Here’s how it works… Introducing Our New Land Seller Websites for Motivated Seller Lead Generation Over a few-month period, we researched and tested websites in some select markets to create our first version of a performing-based land seller website that you as our Carrot members can access and set up in your accounts. We’ve kept these land seller websites simple… but effective. We’re actively testing the sites, for instance, and will be adding elements that help increase conversion rates each and every month. See for yourself … Investor Land Seller Website Sample The Design We’ve taken our proven design with what we call the “Lead Hero” that we have by default on all of our websites (but you can turn the Lead Hero on or off with the click of a mouse if you want) and built that into the land seller websites as well.  We’ve found that when we have a Lead Hero on our customer’s homepages… the homepage conversion rate increased across the board. Plus… we’ve built in the Conversion Boosters that are baked into all of our Carrot real estate investor websites that improve opt-ins, engagement with website visitors, and credibility. Designed For Results When most people start building their first website, they care about one thing and one thing only: how pretty does the website look? Over the years, though, we found that results matter more than looks. In fact, that’s all that should matter in the design of your website. Our Carrot real estate websites are built from the ground up based on research and test data to produce great results. PLUS, we’re continually testing elements on our websites to find out what works the best and how website visitors interact on your website (buyers, sellers, private lenders, tenants, etc.). Then, once we find things that work, our design team takes the baton, creating elegant and clean formats while at the same time retaining the current conversions (or ideally increasing website conversions even more!). The Content Like all of our website content packs, the content is professionally written by people who know SEO, website conversion, and real estate strategy inside and out. The mistake most people make when building their real estate website is that they underestimate the power of content. Words on pages can make or break the results of your website in search engines and how well your website performs once a visitor arrives. Every page on this new land seller website in our system is written with four factors in mind: Search Engine Optimization – We’ve done extensive research to find out what motivated land sellers are searching on Google to find the land buyers. Then we’ve built those keywords into this content strategically and we customize it with YOUR CITY automatically when you create your website in our system. This and our other SEO elements help your website have a better chance of ranking higher in search engines to attract more motivated land sellers. Lead Conversions – If you’re able to get land sellers to your website but they aren’t giving you their information, your website isn’t doing its job.  Content and pages are made to convert. That way we position our opt-in boxes, the words on our calls to action, the “eye direction” elements that make the visitor’s eye go to the parts of your website that matter — it’s all built into our land websites. Customized and Customizable – While your website … Continued

7 Real Estate Agent Website Design Must-have Features

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A great real estate agent website design can help you form a good impression on prospective clients. It can also help you nurture your leads and get more deals. Studies show that 90% of homebuyers use the internet during their journey to buy a home. Therefore, it is essential to provide a good user experience and help your website visitors easy access and navigate your website. Currently, there are 1,576,668 NAR members, so we all know there are millions of agents packed into the clutter. As The Balance points out, “20% of agents do 80% of the business.” Of course, that isn’t surprising. When someone uses an agent once, they aren’t very likely to change. 70% of house sellers, for instance, said that they’d use the same real estate agent again in the future. This means real estate agents that get the business first keep the business. But how do you ensure you get to the client before the competition? Two words: the Internet. Why Do You Need a Real Estate Agent Website? It’s easy to think that you don’t need a website. You might have been in business for years and have had some success. Offline real estate marketing is as powerful today as many years ago. Door hangers, open house fliers, and community events are worthy offline real estate lead generation ideas. But that doesn’t mean you should limit your marketing strategies to offline exclusively. In particular, every real estate agent needs a website for some reasons. Online marketing will save you time and money during the lead-generation process. SEO leads (Search Engine Optimization) tend to be higher quality because they’re inbound leads – when your prospects come looking for you rather than looking for them. Online and offline marketing strategies work best together. Our highest-performing members at Carrot use both in harmony rather than one in exclusion. Build your authority and credibility. Your market has dozens of other agents, so you must stand out from the clutter. Having a high-performance, personally optimized website can get you there. So, you know that you need a website for your real estate agent business, but you might be new to online marketing with a website. There are so many options and low-end platforms that you’re not exactly sure what you need for your real estate agent website. So let’s dive in! Real Estate Agent Website Design As mentioned above, 90% of homebuyers use the internet during their buying journey. And that makes sense. MLS browsing options, virtual tours, and housing photography make the web the perfect place to browse for homes and even choose which agent to work with. The best real estate agent websites build authority, load fast, are SEO optimized, and communicate with visitors. Those are just a few things you must consider when designing your website or using a real estate agent website template. But before diving into the nitty-gritty, let’s review a few real estate agent websites: non-Carrot and Carrot. First, Sheerin Feizi. Besides being a beautiful website, a few noteworthy things about Sheerin Feizi make it stand out. The “Quick Search” option is most noteworthy at the top of the page. When people visit your real estate agent website, they only want to do one of two things. Browse listings. Get to know you as an agent to determine whether they want to work with you. Ideally, you want to let them do both of those things easily. And in the case of Sheerin Feizi, the “Quick Search” bar allows visitors to dive right into browsing through listings. So too, does Sheerin Feizi’s “Featured Properties” section closer to the bottom of the page. Scroll down a little bit further, and, as you’ll notice, Sheerin Feizi then aims to support … Continued