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You want to rank your real estate website on the first page of Google.

And you’re no SEO rookie — you understand that ranking on the first page for your target keyword phrase is going to take some time, it’s going to take some work, and it’s going to take some content creation.

But just how long is it going to take you to rank on Google? When can you expect rankings and passive traffic to pay you back for all your hard work?

That’s the question I intend to answer for you in this article.

But first… just how powerful is the first page of Google anyways?

The Power Of Google’s First Page…

What is the primary reason that anyone — real estate investors and agents included — want to rank their website in Google?

The answer is simple. Passive traffic. High-quality leads. And less money spent on advertising. With that, you can build a bigger business and establish yourself as the go-to real estate expert in your market. Financial predictability and businesses growth — that’s what high rankings promise your business.

But here’s the thing… ranking in Google isn’t enough.

Most online tools will consider your website as ranking if it’s within the first 100 results for your given keyword phrase. Answer me this, though: when has anyone ever clicked through 100 results after searching for something in Google?

Yeah… never.

Which is exactly why the first page of Google is the only place with significant click-through rates (1st position takes 35% of the clicks).

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If your result gets to page 2, 3, 4, or 5, the click-through rate is negligible. In other words, if you want to live the passive-traffic and high lead-gen dream that SEO promises, you must be on the first page. Nothing else will get you the results you’re looking for.

Once you pull off getting your website on the first page of Google’s rankings, though, click-through rate isn’t the only benefit — the lead quality is typically much higher than those from paid advertising, meaning a high close-rate for pennies on the dollar.

Here’s what Tyler Ford (a real estate agent and investor) has to say about this.

Get Your Carrot Website Today and Start Generating Leads in No Time!

How Long Will It Take You To Get To The First Page?

Okay — so you know how valuable the first page of Google is. You understand that the lead quality is typically much higher, the leads are much cheaper, and they take much less work to generate (over the long term, of course).

Note: This isn’t to say that you should ignore paid advertising altogether. Many Carrot members use PPC and direct mail to get leads immediately but then invest in SEO for their long-term business sustainability and financial predictability.

But how long is it going to take you to rank on the first page of Google?

Unfortunately, I can’t answer that question with a simple number of months. Generally speaking, though, you should expect to see some type of positive movement with your rankings within 3-12 months, depending on a few different factors.

Here are the 4 biggest factors I’m referring to. Taking these into consideration, your website should take between 3-12 months to get near the first page of Google for your target keyword phrase, moving up and down that spectrum depending on…

The 4 Biggest Ranking Considerations

1. Keyword Competition

The more real estate investors or agents that you have to compete with for page one of your target keyword phrase, the longer it’ll take to see the results you’re looking for.

Of course, different keyword phrases will have different levels of competition. You can use Ubersuggest to check the competitiveness of various keyword phrases. While less competitive phrases usually also mean less monthly search volume (meaning less passive traffic), it is often easier to get your website ranking on the first page for those phrases.

So, if you want a few first-page rankings under your belt faster, then try targeting some longtail keyword phrases with lower search volume and minimal competition. Over time, you should still focus attention on highly competitive phrases (such as “sell my house fast “) since those generally have a high payoff once you’ve reached the first page, but don’t be afraid to start with the lower-hanging fruit.

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Learn More: How To Find High-Intent Real Estate Keywords and Dominate Your Market’s SEO Rankings

2. Content Creation Consistency

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With more content comes more opportunities to rank in Google. Think of it this way: every page on your website get crawled by Google’s bot and has a chance to rank in search results. It logically follows, then, that with more content optimized for search engines on your website come more opportunity to rank for a variety of high-intent keywords.

Often times, the real estate agents and investors who claim the first page of Google are the same ones who consistently publish new content… on their website, blog, and social media channels.

The more stuff you create and put out there, the more that Google likes your website. And so long as the content you create is optimized for search engines, every single page is another chance for you to beat your competitors. The more content you create and the more consistently you create it, the faster you’ll reach the first page.

Learn More: 4 Real Estate Content Marketing Strategies You Can Actually Use to Grow Your Business

3. Backlinks

What’s a backlink?

A backlink is simply when another website links to a page of your website as shown in the diagram below.

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So long as the website that provided you with the backlink (Website A) is trustworthy in the eyes of Google (see the dangers of black-hat link building over here), that link will lend your rankings some additional gusto. The more quality backlinks your website has, the faster your pages will crawl their way to the top of Google’s rankings.

In fact, there’s a direct correlation between the number of backlinks and ranking position.

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That’s not to say, though, that you need 35,000 backlinks to see significant results from your SEO efforts — trying to rank for real estate keywords in your specific market is far less competitive than the demands of most online marketers.

Sure, backlinks will increase how fast you rank your website, but they aren’t totally necessary for a beginning SEO strategy (citations are more important, actually — learn more over here).

Learn More: How Many Backlinks Does it Take To Start Ranking Your Real Estate Website in Google

4. Time

At this point, this last consideration probably goes without saying… but I’m going to say it anyways: the longer that a page exists, the more authority it gains. Period. There’s a direct correlation between how old a page is and how high it ranks in Google. The average age, for instance, of a position 1 ranking is almost 950 days.

In other words, and if you take anything else away from this article, understand that SEO takes times — there’s simply no way to get around it. When you’re trying to get a page on the first page of Google, the reality is that Google has already chosen 10 results for that first page and you have to beat those results — that takes time.

Related Video Content. Watch: “SEO for Real Estate Investors | How Long Does It Take to See SEO Results?“

It can be done, to be certain, and you will do it if you stick with it, but it’s important to know really what you’re up against. And the 4 above considerations should help give you a better idea of how long you should expect your website to take to get to the first page of Google.

As always, though, if you have any additional questions, hit us in the comments!

What is real estate SEO? By definition, it is “creating relevant content with keyword focus to improve website visibility in the organic search results for real estate professionals. The process includes building landing pages, updating metadata, content modifications, and analyzing keywords.”

Whether you’re doing apartments, looking for motivated sellers, cash buyers, private lenders, or note sellers — even if you’re a real estate agent — the whole thing is you need to understand search engine optimization and how it can change your business for the better.

What is Real Estate SEO?

So, what is real estate SEO? To break it down simply, by giving Google and other search engines what they want, Google will reward you with higher rankings.

You see, each search engine — Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. — has an algorithm that crawls online web pages to determine which results to show people when they search for any given keyword phrase (i.e., the words they type into the search engine).

By “optimizing” your real estate web page(s) for a search engine’s algorithm (usually Google since it’s the biggest), you can rank for high-value phrases and drive passive traffic to your website.

Carrot members, for instance, often rank for market-specific phrases.

Here’s the best part: that algorithm determines where you and every other website ranks in Google — experts already know what factors that algorithm considers.

Partly, they know because of testing and experimentation. And partly, they know because Google consistently releases updates about how their algorithm interacts with websites and online content.

Note: I’ve transitioned from talking about search engines in general to talking about Google specifically. This is because Google accounts for about 93% of the search engine traffic online. It’s the heaviest-hitting player in the search engine world and the one whose algorithm you should most seriously consider when crafting your SEO strategy.

Which means you can too.

But it’s important to note the difference between working to please the search engines… and trying to trick them.

One will get you rankings. The other will get you banned.

Black Hat SEO VS. White Hat SEO

Black hat SEO and white hat SEO, are basically just search engine marketing jargon for a bad way to build rankings and a good way to build rankings.

Black hat is gaming the system. It’s trying to trick Google’s algorithm into giving you higher rankings. While this will sometimes work over the short run, it is likely to get your website into trouble when Google finds out what you’re doing.

You can learn more about black hat SEO no-nos over here.

White Hat SEO Strategy – Maintaining Your Integrity.

White hat SEO strategies, on the other hand, build rankings the way that Google wants you to.

That’s the way that we work at Carrot. That’s how we’re going to train you, is on white hat strategies.

With white hat SEO, there’s less risk and more opportunity.

As an example, if you go to Google and type up phrases like “Sell my house fast Pittsburgh,” “Sell my house fast Baltimore,” or “Sell my house fast Birmingham,” or “We buy houses Bakersfield,” or hundreds of other phrases.

Or, on the cash buyer side, “Investment properties in Baltimore, Baltimore wholesale properties.” Or maybe “real estate agent in Boston.”

You’ll see Carrot members popping up very high on the search rankings, leveraging their training and our search engine optimization tools, and getting more leads.

For SEO search engine optimization, we’re focusing on the section in the Google search results and Bing search results, and Yahoo search results. But mainly Google. We’re focusing on the area that’s above the orange box, you can see the parts where it says, “Ad.” Those are ads that people paid to be there.

The part in the orange box is called the organic search listings. That’s where, with search engine optimization, tweaking some things, and following Carrot training, you’re going to be able to get there in your market when you follow our training and our system.

Inbound Marketing for Real Estate – Draw Clients to You.

One of the reasons that we love search engine optimization is inbound real estate marketing. Inbound marketing is essentially when people go online, go to Google, type up questions, or they type up problems. They’re typing up something that they want to be solved, and then they land on your website.

They land on a website that is ranked high on Google. There was a study done by HubSpot that found that 28% of searches for something nearby (local SEO) resulted in a purchase. Also, 78% of local mobile searches result in offline purchases. So, local SEO is very powerful.

Direct traffic is people who already know about your website. They already knew your website name. Maybe they got it through your business card; maybe they got it off of a billboard, direct mail, or something like that. Direct traffic also performs very well because they’re already familiar with you. They already know about you. Then down the line you’ve got paid search, Google Ads, they go through PPC, and it’s all still insanely effective.

The reason we love search engine optimization so much is that with this higher lead to customer close-ratio, you have a higher quality lead. You tend to close more leads per the leads you’re getting than outbound marketing or things like that.

For example, here are the lead volume numbers accumulated by Carrot members (not counting phone calls.) 31.71% of the leads that came into our Carrot member websites were from Google organic search traffic. This drives home the importance of good SEO.

Why SEO for Real Estate is So Important for Lead Generation

Why Real Estate SEO Matters

If you’re closing one out of every 40 leads into a deal or a listing, from your radio ads, with SEO, you might close one out of every 10, one out of every 15. You don’t have to get as many leads to close the same amount of deals, which is why we love SEO.

Every day people are raising their hands for help by going to Google and other search engines, and they’re searching for solutions to their problems.

What search engine optimization and inbound online marketing do is the equivalent of a seller or a buyer or a private lender or a note seller going and knocking on your door and they’re asking you for help. Rather than the other way around, rather than you going to their door and knocking on it and saying, “Hey, do you need to sell your house,” or, “Hey, are you looking for properties?” interrupting their thought process.

Inbound marketing joins them in their thought process. They’re coming to you.

They’re reaching out and asking you for help, putting you in a position of power. Inbound marketing, specifically with search engine optimization, is the most remarkable form of marketing ever created because the people are coming to you, and it puts the prospect in a whole different mindset when they are the ones who reached out to you rather than the other way around.

Does Real Estate SEO Work?

A common question is, “Does SEO work, can it close deals, what’s the ROI of search engine optimization?”

Of course, it does! We have so many Carrot members generating SEO leads and closing SEO deals.

Here’s one of those stories…

Currently, Carrot members are pulling in a little over 60,000 leads per month. That doesn’t include phone call leads, people, landing on your websites, and calling on their phones.

The system’s effective and exciting, seeing you jumping into SEO and learning what you can do to increase your rankings in any city you’re in.

Baltimore, DC, Birmingham, Bakersfield, Houston, Oahu, Salt Lake, and even smaller cities. In smaller cities, it’s easier to rank well with SEO. But in bigger cities, we have members all across the country ranking very well, very high for SEO, with their Carrot websites, using our SEO training you’re going through right now.

For example, for the search phrase “we buy houses in Los Angeles” Carrot members rank #1 and #3 in organic results.

If you find another member in your market who is already ranking on page one, don’t panic. We have markets where there are four or five Carrot members on page one, all getting better results than they would be without Carrot, and they’re sitting there battling it out, but they would never have even gotten those results without SEO training and our system.

This works in any market, no matter how large or small.

As we mentioned, Carrot members currently hold more page one rankings and top five rankings on search phrases that matter more than any other website platform for real estate.

That’s an empowering thing for you reading the post or watching the SEO training video because it shows you that you have a powerful tool at your fingertips, and we’re here to help you get there and get the same results as other people in those markets if you implement the system and work it. Let’s get you there, too.

We break it down and make it simple and achievable in the rest of the beginner SEO training series, the 3 Lead Per Day training for our members, and our SEO 101 course

Whether you’re someone who’s diving into SEO for the first time or even whether you’re advanced, we have you covered.

We’ll also give you the strategies that are making it work well for us.

We’ll give you specific action steps, so you don’t need to be an SEO expert or a techie to get great results with search engine optimization.

You just need to follow the steps, stick with the plan, leverage our process and reach out to us when you need help.