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A lot of people put their goals out there but to actually document it and show the ups and the downs the bad months, the bad days. If you follow my Instgram you’ll see the bad days where I’m like I hate this, I hate this. Max Maxwell
One of our Carrot core values is “Be a Beacon of Positivity and Possibility”. I love to align with people who are beacons for other and Max Maxwell is one of them.
My view of entrepreneurship is broken down into three levels:
The Dreamer. Someone is hustling to make it happen but isn’t there yet.
The Doer. Is settled and established.
The Inspirer. This person is set on being an inspiration for others to do better and achieve more.
On this episode of the CarrotCast Max shares some of the cool things he’s doing every day on Instagram and YouTube to inspire 1000’s of people.
We also dive into these three big takeaways:
Max’s story and exactly what he did to land his first two deals.
Using a stacking method to target hot leads.
Leverage online marketing with Carrot and how he closes 1 in 4 leads from PPC.
Listen in and Get Inspired. Learn to Leverage Online Marketing to Inspire Others to Pursue Their Goals.
1:45 – Who is Max Maxwell? 3:30 – Why he shares his daily “ups and downs” of real estate investing on Instagram. 5:15 – What his team looks like after he started consistently generating $20-$25,000 per month. 7:05 – Why he doesn’t like the term VA and instead uses “remote employees.” 9:25 – His path to real estate investing. 11:30 – Stumbling onto probate leads and his fascinating story about closing his first deal. 16:15 – Reverse engineering to build his business. 18:10 – Max’s business model. Stages: lists, bandit signs, paid traffic, and cold calling. 19:50 – How he would approach taking on a new market that he doesn’t know a thing about. 23:30 – Leverage online marketing. What’s working for him on the online side of his marketing? 28:30 – Why Max chose to join Carrot? 29:45 – What are some of his favorite real estate stories that he has shared on Instagram. 32:15 – What is his vision past reaching the goal of $100k per month. Also, his reality T.V. idea to travel anywhere in the United States to help someone close their first deal. 35:35 – Follow Max on Instagram and YouTube. 39:25 – What motivates him beyond revenue. What is his “why” at this point in his life? 44:15 – Max’s closing inspiring words.
Hey, guys and gals. This is Trevor with Carrot, coming at you with another series of Carrot strategy sketches. Today, we’re gonna be talking about small market versus big market.
But, before I do, I want to throw a shout-out to one of our long-time clients and good friends of mine, Doug Faith, representing the Legacy Capital shirt you sent me a little bit ago. Man, I really appreciate you … Me, as a client, and you, as a client as ours, here at Carrot. Thanks, man. I’m gonna represent Legacy Capital. If you’re in Pennsylvania and you guys need capital to flip houses, go to Doug at legacycapitalpa.com.
Does SEO Work for Small Real Estate Markets?
Are you in a small market and you’re kind of wondering, hey, does Search Engine Optimization actually work for my market? Now, we get that question all the time here at Carrot. Is, shoot, can I, should I invest in Search Engine Optimization if I’m in a market of 30,000 people, 100,000 people, of a quarter million people, versus a large market, like Dallas or some other large market like that?
Well, my short answer is 100% yes. Do not get discouraged because you’re in a small market. Now, the dynamics are gonna be a little bit different. I’m gonna walk you through what you should do and kind of how to set your mindset there.
Then, we have other resources here at Carrot, other strategy sketches, coaching calls that we do for our clients, content pro members are above every single week. We have our three lead per day training, as well, that dives in deep on the specific strategies of SEO.
Large Real Estate Market Versus Small Real Estate Market SEO
The large market versus the small market. Here we go. The first thing is what qualifies as a large market or a small market? Well, there are lots of different definitions that we can kind of follow here, but I’m gonna follow this right there.
Are you less than 100,000 people?
Are you between 100,000 and 500,000 people population in your market area?
Or, are you 500,000 and above?
That’s population in your primary market area, okay? As an example, I live in a town called Roseburg, Oregon, where we’re here right now in our studio at the loft in Roseburg. It’s a small town. It’s a town of between 20 and 30,000 people, so would we be able to flip five, ten houses a month in Roseburg just using SEO? 100% no.
So, one of the first things we need to do is we need to set our expectations, first of all.
You need to set those expectations for what your market is going to be able to handle. If you have these dreams of flipping 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 houses a year in Roseburg with SEO, you probably better reset those expectations and, then, implement what I’m about to teach you, okay?
If you’re in a large market and you’re looking to flip two, four, five, ten houses a month, a market like a Houston or a Dallas or many other markets, is that realistic? 100% yes. But you’ve got to go after and implement the strategy I’m gonna lay out, okay?
The first thing right here, if you’re in a smaller market like we are here in Roseburg or you’re in a town, like Medford, Oregon, which is around 80 to 100,000 people.
What we’re gonna do here is we’re going to expand our strategy. Because we can’t just go after the main keyword phrases for house-sellers like we buy houses or sell my house fast or cash home buyers, in that one city and think that we’re gonna get enough leads to fuel a two, four, five, ten deal a month business.
So what we want to do is we want to expand our keywords and we want to expand our markets. By expanding our keywords, what I mean is, you can’t just go after the one or two primary keywords in that market for sellers or for buyers or whatever you’re going after.
Go after those ones because that’s probably gonna be 60 to 80% of your overall traffic for sellers in that market.
But then expand them out. Go after more niche down phrases, like your probate phrases, like I’m selling a house in divorce or lots of different phrases and reasons why someone would sell their house.
If you’re going after cash buyers, go after phrases, like handyman properties or fixer-upper properties in insert city. Discount properties, cheap properties, cheap real estate, investment real estate, buying investment properties. Expand your keywords out in that market.
Targeting Different Markets
The next thing we’re gonna do is target other markets around ours, okay? We have a client here in Oregon and he mainly operates in rural parts of Oregon.
He really doesn’t operate in the main part where the main population is in Northern Oregon where Portland is. Now, he does have great rankings there, but his main thing is rural.
If he were to focus just on Roseburg or just on Medford or Grants Pass or any one of those cities, he wouldn’t be getting the deal volume he is right now.
But he has a massive band assigned strategy and his SEO and PPC is all based around expanding the markets. He’s in about 10 to 20 different markets right now, doing between 5 and 15 deals a month.
Expand your keywords and expand your markets if you’re in a smaller area, that’s gonna take care of your lead volume. You cannot stay just focusing on that one market with one or two keywords and have the deal volume that’s gonna sustain you.
Very similar strategy for 100,000 – 500,000. The thing is, you’re just gonna be getting more leads when you get those rankings, get the traffic coming in. So you might need to expand it into fewer markets or to fewer keywords because the population’s larger, but you are still going to need to expand.
Once again, going back to an example that is type of that city, like a Eugene, Oregon. Now, I’m using Oregon because I’m familiar with the area … Or Bend, which is around 100,000 plus mark.
You’re probably not gonna fuel a 5 to 10 deal a month business in just one of those cities, but if you tackle both of them and maybe six or seven other cities around that … Redmond and Prineville, and go down into Klamath Falls and come over to Roseburg. Then, tool up your business to be able to serve those markets.
Then, you’re gonna be able to really build a really, really consistent and stable platform in your house flipping business. Or if you’re doing another type of business, I always use the plumbing example.
If you’re in a tiny, tiny market and you want to grow a bigger business, expand it out to other service areas, and make sure you’ve set up your business to do so.
Expanding Into a Large Real Estate Market
Last, if you’re in a larger market. 500,000 isn’t that large of a market. A lot of the larger metro areas are a million plus, a million, 1.5 million, whatever it is. You can completely go deep in that market. If you’re in a Dallas and a Houston, in a large city in Florida, you can keep on going on down that list.
You can completely sustain your business in that large market. Portland, Oregon, as an example. One of our clients, Joe Taylor, which we’re gonna be doing a CarrotCast with him, is the largest home buyer in that area. Buys tons of homes and he’s just in that area. He has a very, very big business because he’s going deep.
He’s going deep on his direct mail net market, he’s going deep on his other marketing strategies, and he’s going really deep on his SEO, targeting multiple websites in that same market. Also, doing some PPC, I believe, don’t quote me on that. But, then, go deep in that market even further to capture it.
Go deep there, get the top two to three keywords, focus on those in that market first, and, then, expand out to more niche down, longer tail keyword phrases, like selling a house without a real estate agent in Portland, as an example. Then, from there, you start to hit the suburbs around that. You’ve got your Sherwood’s, you’ve got your Tigard, Tualatin, and Gresham, that kind of thing. So, that’s how you expand there.
Long-Term SEO Thinking
A couple other tips here really quick. Think long-term. Anything with SEO, we’ve talked about so many times, anything with SEO, you’ve got to be a long-term thinker in there. If you’re not, you should probably hang up your gloves right now and go try something else because long term is exactly what SEO is, and if you don’t think long-term, you might as well burn your money, all right?
Next is small markets are great, so don’t get discouraged because you’re in a small market. We have a lot of clients in small markets that are doing very, very well. We just have to go back up to tip number one with setting expectations and, then, making sure that you know your expectations in that market.
If you’re in a market, like Roseburg, of 30,000 people, you’re probably only gonna get, if you rank number one in Google for the main keyword phrases, you’re probably only gonna get between 2 and 10 leads per month from that.
Then, you add on some PPC and, then, you add on some other keywords. You’re probably not gonna get more than 10 to 15 motivated house sellers coming in, in that market. Max. That’s if you’re going after that.
So, you hit up the five or ten other cities around you, expand deeper there, then, that’s how you start to get your 20, 30, 40, 50 plus leads a month.
Are you going after a small market strategy? Sweet. Stack ’em up and expand. If you’re going after a big market strategy, dive deep.
Go After It!
Go after it, hit us up with your progress on that. Email us at support@oncarrot.com and let us know if you need any help. If you’re a Carrot client, we have our weekly coaching calls every single week where you can ask those questions. We can dive in and help you craft a plan for SEO or PPC or getting your website conversion up.
If you’re not a customer, go try us out. Go to oncarrot.com/plans, join. You have a 30-day trial to give us a try and see if it’s a fit for you. I think you’ll really, really like it, but know you’ve got to work your butt out, you’ve got to either invest your time or money, but also know we’re here for you. We are the best. We’re gonna help you get that result.
All right. Take it easy. Check out the other whiteboard strategy sketches on our YouTube channel and subscribe here in this video, so you can get first updates to all of them that come out.
One question a lot of people have when they’re starting or thinking about doing SEO as a way to generate leads for your business is they think, “Well, how long is this going to take?”
Once I launch my website and I start performing the tasks or someone starts doing it for me, is this a week? Is it four weeks? Is it a year? What’s the timeline?”
In this quick post, we’re gonna walk you through, with real-world examples, what you can expect as far as the timeline for search engine optimization to take hold when you’re implementing things that we teach in this training.
How Long Does It Take to See SEO Results?
SEO for real estate investors can be a long-term play, and I’m not gonna lie. If you’re in a more competitive market, as we’ll show, you’re not gonna get ranked in the top three in Google for a very competitive phrase like, “well my house fast” or, “we buy houses,” or, “investment properties in … ” you get the idea. It won’t happen within a matter of days or weeks.
You really have to have a short-term traffic plan to be able to drive traffic to your websites with AdWords, Facebook, or Craigslist marketing using our Craigslist training, in the short-term.
If You’re Already a Carrot Member, Check Out These Premium Training Courses:
Over the long-term, especially if you’re in a larger city, you’ll want to really focus on building that SEO because when SEO takes hold, it is insanely worth it. So how long it’ll take to rank well on Google, and by ranking well, what I’m talking about is the top three positions for the right keywords? A lot of people say, “Hey, what will get me ranked on page one on Google?”
And really, page one doesn’t really matter a whole lot. It’s really the top five positions, in particular, the top three positions are where you’re really gonna get consistent traffic and leads. That’s what we’re aiming for is the top three positions, one of the first three spots in the organic search result for sellers, buyers, tenants, whatever you’re looking for.
But it depends on things like the competition in your market. So the more investors or the more agents that have websites that are going for the same keywords, obviously the harder it’s gonna be to rank there.
But I want to put your mind at ease that every single market in the country can be overtaken by someone setting up their website today. We’ve had people in every single, and many of the biggest markets in the country.
The Future of SEO for Real Estate and 5 Signs you’re Under-prepared
Either they went and set up a fresh website or have had one there for years and years, but they implemented the things in this training. They leveraged our system and they were able to outrank their competition over a period of time.
It depends on how well your on-page is optimized, how well that content is optimized for those exact keywords. If you’re wanting to rank well for investment properties in Las Vegas but you don’t have the keyword phrase optimized on your page using our SEO tool for that, then it’s gonna be really hard to rank for that.
Also, how well your off-page optimization is done. Are you building some backlinks? Are you doing some social media stuff where you’re getting people to Facebook like or Google Business your page? It doesn’t have to be a lot. You don’t need many backlinks and you don’t need a lot of social media activity in many markets to rank very, very well.
If you just bought your domain recently and just launched a website, you’re definitely gonna have to build Google’s trust in your website, over the next several weeks, next several months.
Then Google will start to notice that you’re going to be around here for a while. So we’re hoping that as you implement the things we’re teaching you, your ranking will continue to increase and then once you lock-in the top three positions for search phrases that matter, your leads should start to go up.
Here are some real-life examples. Here’s one in the Houston market.
Fastcashoffers.com ranks number one for “we buy houses Houston”
This is arguably one of the most, if not the most competitive market in the entire country for motivated sellers online. This particular Carrot customer retained a search engine optimization vendor in our marketplace to do the SEO for them because they didn’t have the time to do the SEO.
It took about 10 months. It took 10 months to go from page 3 or page 4 where they started for, “We buy houses Houston and Sell house fast Houston.” Now, they’re at the number one position. So if you were to go to Google and type up, “We buy houses Houston,” they’re in the number one position. Google does kinda change their mood, so every now and then it’ll bump back down, it’ll bump back up, but it’s been holding there for quite a while.
[cta offer=”seobible”]
They stayed at the number seven and number five position, they bounced between those positions for literally, probably, three to five months. This screenshot here is a timeline over about six or seven months of what it took to get them ranked high.
As you can see, it stayed there steady, steady, steady, really wasn’t moving. It actually took a dip down when Google made an update. Google was kind of readjusting things, and it jumped back up and it’s been settling in at number one ever since then. For them, it took 10 to 12 months to really, in one of the most competitive markets in the country, hiring an SEO team to do it, and they’re crushing it.
So how they got there, they had a domain that they brought to Carrot. They had already been aged a bit. So they had already bought that domain.
They’d owned it for years before they ever came to Carrot and they had already had a website on that domain before. So they had already done some things that kinda gave them a jump start.
They had a few backlinks and they had their citations or their business directories already on there. And then just bringing that over to Carrot really put on the afterburners. That’s what took it from page three, page four on Google to rising up in the rankings pretty darn high in the most competitive market in the country.
I thought it was gonna take longer than the 10 to 12 months that it took. It took 10 months. Honestly, I thought it was gonna take well over a year but because they already had the domain purchased and they had some other backlinks and some citations already built, it made it happen quicker.
Here’s another one in the Baltimore market.
Sellmybalitimorehousefast.com ranks number one for “we buy houses Baltimore”
Again, very, very competitive market. It took them four to five months to rank on page one for phrases like, “We buy houses Baltimore and Sell house fast Baltimore.” Then it took them another four to five months of working this training, building some backlinks, getting some citation going, some social media action, to get to the number one result. The person who had held the number one result before was literally there for three or four years.
Learn how David Brown leveraged the Carrot real estate investor websites to generate his motivated house seller leads and get more traffic.
This Carrot member came into a market with a fresh website, brand new domain name, and within eight to nine months, they overtook that number one position, started to get really, really consistent leads and deals and ended up closing over 20 deals within the next 12 months after that. 100% from SEO, netted almost $100,000. They were very, very low-profit margin deals but they closed a lot of them.
Here’s how they did it. This customer-focused on the on-page. They really focused on making sure that the content on the page that we provided was unique to them. They used our SEO tool and then quickly shifted gears to building quality backlinks and social media boosts through our training. You can see, it took a while. It bumped up, it bumped back down, then all of a sudden, bam. It bumped up and it’s stayed there ever since.
The Birmingham, Alabamamarket is a pretty decently competitive market. This person hired the SEO firm to do it as well, through our marketplace. It’s a really competitive seller search phrases like, “Sell my house fast and we buy houses Birmingham.” It took about four months to get to the number two to number three position in Google with a fresh domain name. Then another couple of months, they hit the number one for several of the top search phrases.
So how did they do it? They hired our team to do the SEO, and all we’re doing is implementing exactly what we teach. We started off with just further tweaking the on-page factors. We tweaked up their content a little bit more so it was more different than any of the other Carrot members in their market.
You want to make sure your content does stand out.
We added some more high-quality content, some blog posts and changed some of our pages a little bit, and then added some specific information for Birmingham.
We also built a few backlinks and citations and that’s it. Literally, there are less than 5 or 10 backlinks pointing to this website. We did build the citations, which, if you don’t have the time to do that following our training, we can do it for you and that’s all that we did. So very minimal stuff.
It was mainly just focusing on making sure the content was tweaked to them. They had testimonials on there, built some blog posts in there, and then we built a few backlinks and citation, and it crushes it.
Here’s another one in California.
Quickhomeoffers.com ranks number one for “sell my house Bakersfield”
They focus on medium-sized cities within California, Fresno, Bakersfield, things like that. They also tweaked their own content so it was unique from any other Carrot member in California.
It took them a few hours to do, so it was all a very good investment of their time. They added in specific information for their city. So they created city-specific landing pages, which we teach in our training, and we also teach in our Carrot Coaching Calls.
He built a few backlinks and about three months later they’re sitting on page one. Then after another two to three months, they’re in the top three, and a month or two after that to level-off in the number one position for their main keywords in several cities around the state of California.
Riding the SEO Roller Coaster
You might see your website slowly, slowly rise, bumped up, bumped down a little bit, and kinda steady stayed up. Or, you might see a slight decrease in your rankings at a period of time, just hold tight. Don’t worry about it. Sit there for two or three weeks and see what happens. Often times, it’ll bump back up.
Here’s another real-life example on the flip side of this.
Metrodetroithomebuyer.co ranks number two for “we buy houses Detroit”
Those ones I mentioned before were all in pretty competitive markets. The most competitive ones took 10 to 12 months of good SEO work, actively having someone do the work for them. The kind of medium cities took four to six months to do some good work, then they did the implementation or had someone do it for them.
See here, this is in Detroit, another competitive market, but he focused on different keywords. He focused on keywords that weren’t the main keywords, and he literally had his web pages ranked on page one and in the top of page one within two weeks of launching his website. Here’s an email that Dennis sent. He said,
“Trevor, holy crap. Got my first lead from my metro Detroit home buyer site and I haven’t done much, if any, customization yet. A person on the West Coast with several properties here to sell. Very cool.” – Dennis Fassett
So it can happen very quickly.
Here’s my general guideline: if you’re in a small market or you’re going after a small market, and I’m talking a population under 100,000 people, you can legitimately get your web pages ranked on page one within 2 to 12 weeks and often times in the top five in Google, on cities with populations under 100,000, within 2 to 12 weeks.
As an example, we’re working with a client here in Oregon right now and we literally just launched their website last month, did the customizations that we teach here, we added some city-specific pages, used the SEO tool to make sure that they are optimized for that phrase.
Within three weeks, they were on page one.
Now, he’s ranking number one or number two for a couple of the phrases in some of the cities and the top five for others. I expect those ranking to climb. The reason that it happened so fast is that it was smaller cities, and the content on each one of those individual city-specific pages was tweaked and customized a little bit.
This isn’t just launching a website and sitting there. This is someone working the SEO, doing the things in the Carrot training and allowing two to six months to get onto page one in the top five or so.
In large markets, a population of a million-plus, we’re talking six-plus months to get onto page one. Sometimes, you might have a miracle and have it happen quicker.
If you have already brought some domain juice with you, if you’ve owned the domain for a while, if you already have some backlinks pointing toward it, if you already have some social media activity pointing toward it, that’s gonna help you accelerate the process.
But if you bought a domain brand new and you’re in a large market and someone’s actively doing the SEO for you that we teach in here, it’s going to take six or more months to get onto page one in the top five.
It can really vary, so even if you’re in a very large city, even if you’re in Houston or if you’re in New York or LA, it can really vary in how long it takes. So if you’re going to go after a broad term like, “Investment properties in Chicago,” that’s a pretty broad term where that’s more competitive.
There’s a lot of people going after that, it’s gonna take longer to rank for that than what’s called a long-tail keyword phrase that has four or more full words in it. “Fixer-upper investment properties in North Chicago,” that phrase, even though it’s still in Chicago, it’s a longer phrase, it’s more targeted. There’s gonna be less competition. It’s gonna be easier to rank for that, a lot easier.
SEO in Different Market Sizes
Here’s a general guideline. Smaller markets under 100,000, if you’re going after strong keywords, 2 to 12 weeks to get onto page one if you’re doing the right actions.
Medium markets, population 250,000 to 1 million, 2 to 6 months if you’re doing the actions to get those rankings.
Larger markets, six-plus months to get onto page one if you’re doing those rankings. And then from there, it can take several months longer potentially, depending on your market, to get into that top two or three positions if you’re doing the right actions in here.
SEO for Real Estate Investors: ROI
The ROI on SEO is huge if you do it right. So even if you’re in a competitive market and you’re going, “You know what? I don’t have six or seven or eight months to get the leads coming in,” what you do is you go to our other trainings and you get some paperclipping going.
You get some YouTube video marketing going, which is going to rank very quickly if you do them right, within weeks, even in competitive markets potentially. You get some Craigslist marketing going. Get that stuff going in the short-term.
In the long-term, if you’re in a competitive market, you or have someone work on the SEO for you. This is that first example that I showed you where it took about 10 to 12 months. I emailed him … This was several months ago at that time and they did four deals that month alone. Got bid out on a few, sat down, started building up some more city-specific pages, so they’re working it by splitting out city-specific pages and getting articles written up. They closed four deals and netted well over $30,000 that one month. The next month, they closed deals again.
So the long-term ROI, being patient, especially if you’re in a competitive market and the implementing or hiring someone to implement for you, is gonna be a big, big deal. Be patient and you’ll get the results.
Did you launch your website within the last 6 weeks and your website isn’t showing up anywhere on the first few pages of Google yet? Are you not quite sure how Google really works? Then this post is for you.
We get this question all of the time… “I have had my website up and I can’t find it in Google yet”… in this video we’ll walk through how search engine’s like Google work, how search engines find websites, and how they rank your website in the search results.
Understanding how search engines like Google work is essential for real estate professionals who want their websites to rank higher in search results and generate consistent leads through organic traffic.
Key Takeaways
Google finds websites by “crawling” through links on the internet, which is why getting links to your site from other sources is critical for being discovered and indexed.
Being indexed by Google (appearing in their database) is just the first step; ranking high for specific keywords requires ongoing optimization and quality content relevant to those search terms.
SEO isn’t a quick marketing solution like PPC, but it offers superior long-term ROI if you’re willing to invest the time in building quality backlinks, creating relevant content, and following best practices.
By understanding the basics of how search engines crawl, index, and rank websites, real estate professionals can develop effective strategies to climb the search rankings over time, generating increasingly valuable organic leads for their business.
Did You Launch Your Site Within The Last 6 Weeks and It’s Not Showing Up In Google?
If so, this video below is for you. The video is from Module 1 of 6 in our premium 3 Lead Per Day Training where we’re diving into the basics of SEO for those new to SEO. So we decided to yank this video from the course (just $99 for 40+ amazing training videos on PPC, SEO, and YouTube marketing) so it can be a resource for anyone.
Basically, go through the steps I show in the video to check and see if your website is being indexed by Google first… if it is, then your work to climb the SEO rankings has begun! If it isn’t, follow the steps in the video to let Google know your website exists by doing a quick Google + posting that tells people about your new site and links to it and find some other ways to get a link to your new website online so Google can find the link and spider your website.
Give it a few days or a week and do the test above, again, on your real estate website and if it still isn’t showing up on the first few pages of Google for your company name and location, then it may not be indexed yet. But odds are, unless you have some penalties on your domain name from building spammy backlinks, you just need to give it a bit more time.
Not Ranked On The First Few Pages Of Google For Your Ideal Keywords?
Now, being indexed in Google (i.e. – Google has your site saved in their database) and ranking high for the specific keywords you want to go after are two completely different things. If you show up using the test above but not for the keywords you’re looking to rank for… now it’s time to “optimize” your website for the specific keywords you want to rank for.
You can use some of the FREE resources we’ve already created to help you get your website ranked higher in Google. Or, if you’re an Carrot member you can dive into the advanced 3LPD training program ($99 and only available for Carrot members) and it’ll walk you through step by step how to increase your ranking and beat out your competition.
Some free SEO resources for real estate investors and agents to get you started on your climb to the top of the rankings:
Those will get you rolling and always feel free to hit us with questions over here on the blog! Or if you’re a Carrot member, reach out to us on our next weekly Carrot Mastermind call.
If you plan on getting your website ranked high in Google to ramp up your leads over time with SEO you should also really understand the basics of how search engines like Google work.
That way as you’re working through the steps, you better understand it.
How Search Engines Work
So, if you’re wanting to dig in and learn a bit more about how Google navigates sites by crawling the web… this section is going to be perfect for you. Overall, ranking results are calculated using over 200 factors which sounds intimidating… but if you understand how Google works and how to play by its rules… it makes ranking your real estate investing website in Google a heck of a lot easier and more fun.
Carrot helps you focus on a few factors that have the most power to help you rank where sellers, buyers, tenants, private lenders, etc. are searching online. This short video is one of the “Module 1” videos in our 3 Lead Per Day training. So if you’re newer to SEO and ranking websites in Google, this will be a great bit of foundational knowledge to soak up. If you’re experienced in SEO… then go ahead and skip this video.
A Brief “How Google Works” Run Through…
The text below is from the video above, so if you learn better by reading, dive into the content below to learn how Google works. If you already watched the video, great! You can skip this section and get to work on your real estate website and get it climbing in the SEO rankings.
So how do search engines actually work? In this module, it is going to walk you through the basics of how search engines work…from the time you put in the search in there to what they are doing in the background to determine how to rank them.
So, first of all just to reiterate the basics here, if you’re newer to SEO what we are talking about here is the things in the Google search or Yahoo or Bing search that show up in the main section of the search results. At the top of the section that’s ads, you can see the ads are indicated with those little orange ad tags. And on the right side, those are ads as well.
So how does Google determine what shows up in that main section which is called the organic search results section?
First of all, let’s understand search. Here’s a graph that we pulled directly from Google. Kinda talks about how Google goes out there and crawls different websites. So, Google navigates the web by crawling from website to website. That means that they follow links from page to page.
So, if you have a website up there and you have a link on one page that leads to another, Google’s robots are crawling through all of those links trying to visit every page they can possibly make it to on the web. And, they have these big huge massive servers that are continually, around the clock, crawling the web. And, the cool thing, is the website, owners can choose whether your website is crawled or not. If your website is not crawled, if we do not allow Google to see your website, then it doesn’t show up in the search results.
Of course, by default Carrot members websites are not set to be hidden from Google. They are set to be crawled and we make it to where it makes it easier to be crawled by Google. Which is a good thing.
So one way that Google finds your website and the pages on your website is by going through links on other web pages that link to your site.
As an example, if you made a post on your Google + account that links to a page on your site, Google will find that and go through that link and land on your site… and magically now Google knows about that page and it’s in their index. Pretty cool, eh?
And then Google begins sorting the pages along the way by the page content and hundreds of other factors.
As Google spiders the web, they’re saving all of this data. They know what this page is about, what links that point to the page, and what it feels is the authority and relevance of that page to what you just searched.
This is why so SEOs spend so much time building, earning and winning backlinks. If you want to get started on this, check out our guide on how to use HARO to get backlinks.
Then they rank those results so someone goes online and they type in a phrase, it could be… “sell my house fast in Baltimore” or it could even be “local plumbers”. Google then determines that based on all of the web pages that they’ve crawled and saved in their database according to 200+ factors where your web page should fall in the rankings.
How Relevant is Your Website?
And they’re really looking at relevance. They’re looking at how relevant is your web page or your website to that exact search that person just made.
And, the way that they determine the relevance, is the website quality of the content, or how relevant it is to that search phrase. We also want to make sure we have those keywords that we’re going after in the content. We also want to make that our website has fresh and unique content so Google sees it as relevant.
Basically, the Google bots are continually scouring the internet and “spidering” through links on pages to find other pages and other websites, then it determines what the page is about, it’s authority, and where it should fall in the rankings compared to the millions of other websites all in a matter of nanoseconds.
Pretty amazing stuff.
With that said, don’t let any of that scare you. It’s very easy to get on page 2 in Google just by following basic things we teach here on this blog.
Then to climb onto page 1 and the top of page 1… you’ll want to focus on building some quality backlinks, having robust solid content on your website that is relevant to the keyword phrases you want to rank for… and you need time. SEO isn’t a fast marketing solution like PPC.
Need More Online Leads For Your Wholesaling / House Flipping Business?
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There are lots of agents that love working with first-time home buyers. And, there are tons of agents that never want to work with first-time home buyers. You can go out and create that experience. You can go out and be intentional about attracting those people. Those perfect, right clients. Josh Schoenly
In this episode of The CarrotCast, I have a special guest for you, Josh Schoenly. I have known Josh for years in different businesses that he’s owned. First of all, he’s one of the best dudes around. He’s ethical, honest, and knows what he’s doing. He’s a big, big, big sharer.
But I wanted to bring him on because Facebook marketing became a topic, of course, over the past year that keeps on coming up more and more from our clients.
On this episode, Josh walks through every single step of how to dial in your Facebook ads for real estate. From targeting to your ads and your landing pages. If you want to learn more about Josh or more from him, then go check out his website, clientalchemist.com. I’m excited to welcome Josh to the podcast and you guys to his world because he’s an amazing dude. I think you’re just going to love him.
Also, we did a great podcast with Kylie Newbold, which I feel is the number Podcast episode on Facebook ads for real estate investors specifically. Go check out that episode here.
Enjoy and check out more CarrotCast episodes at carrotcast.com.
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Listen to this CarrotCast episode and start to embrace marketing for your business.
2:30 – Introduction to Josh Schoenly. 6:30 – Does that always need to be a grind phase when building up a business or can it be built with flexibility and leverage? 9:25 –What marketing resources Josh has used during his marketing journey? 12:50 – One of the best ways to understand marketing is to take notes of what catches your eye. Start creating your own marketing swipe file. 15:00 – Josh’s 4 step philosophy to Facebook ads for Real Estate Agents.
Identify
Attract
Connect
Converse
23:00 – Putting your clients first. The importance of building relationships rather than chasing dollars. 26:15 – Facebook marketing for long-term growth. Quick wins but also creating a foundation.
Breaking down the 4 steps to Facebook ads for Real Estate:
30:30 – #1 Identify – How to identify your Facebook audience and niche. 37:15 – How Facebook “interests” targeting work. 38:30 – #2 Attract – What types of ads are working for Agents, and how much are they spending.
Do you need help calculating your marketing budget?
45:25 – #3 Connect – What is your marketing objective, and where to send that traffic? 49:15 – #4 Converse – How to nurture leads and create an ongoing follow-up system. 53:30 – Telling simple stories within your marketing can go a long way for success.
Are you operating in a really competitive market like a Houston or a Dallas or just a large market where there’s a lot of competition? Well, a lot of our clients are and every single week we do coaching calls on every Tuesday at 11 o’clock Pacific time for our care customers who are in content pro membership or above.
And one of the main questions we get on a really consistent basis is, “Man, I’m in a crazy, competitive market. There’s a lot of other investors, investing there, and there’s a lot of other care clients there. Can I crack through it and how do I do it?
The first answer is, “100% yes, you can.” That sounds like a political stump that I just did there, yes you can, yes you can do it, we have clients every single day who are going out there implementing the plan we lay out on these whiteboard strategy sketches, on our coaching calls in our training’s and in, through support and they follow these methods I’m going to show you to get that result. So I want you to know that it can be done, but you gotta follow this to a T and don’t come complaining to me if it doesn’t work if you don’t do these.
Online Real Estate Marketing in Competitive Markets
OK, so here we go. So if you’re in a competitive market I’m gonna be kind of walking you through, how do you get in that search result for search engine optimization but also just in search in general, to get those consistent stream of leads coming in to fuel your business because when you’re in a large market like that you really can go deep in that market like we’ve talked about in other whiteboard strategy sketches you can go deep, and you can focus just in that market for the first year and get 30-40-50-60 leads a month if you really hit it hard, okay? And that can fuel your entire business 2-4-5-6-10 deals a month if you do it right.
OK? So we want to get you here first of all, and we want to get you there through paid and through SEO in the competitive market. It’s going to be really hard to get really consistent, and a lot of momentum with just SEO okay? PPC is great, but you can stack on SEO to really add momentum over that year and this is kind of what we want to do.
We’ve done a whiteboard Strategy Sketch on this exact topic before go check out youtube, go to YouTube.com and then go look up InvestorCarrot, find our channel, the first thing you need to do is subscribe to our channel the second thing you need to do is go search our channel for a video I think it’s called the 90-day marketing plan or something like that where we layout in a lot more detail what you should do in the first 90 days in any market to have leads coming in and to set yourself in a really, really solid foundation, okay? But we’re gonna give an abbreviated version of that today.
So you’ve got here, and you’ve got twelve months out there and if you’re in a large market the first thing you need to do is we need to know that it’s going to take time, and we need to have a lot of patience, okay? Because with SEO, search engine optimization large market, it’s probably going to take you between 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 plus months to really get that momentum to get that ranking that’s going to get those leads to start trickling in and then start coming in more.
I was talking to one of our clients yesterday, Martin, out of Phoenix, Arizona and he’s flipping a lot of houses, okay? Ten plus houses a month and when we were talking, you know a year ago he joined Carrot a little over a year ago he was in a very competitive market, he wanted to get some more organic traffic coming in, he was turning on PPC as well, but we’re like, you know what? I think that there’s going to be a great chance for you to crack into this market from a website that had never ranked in the top three pages of the main seller search phrases to what it is today getting really consistent leads, and he’s in top one-two-three rankings in google for the most competitive search phrases in Phoenix, how did he do that? The first thing, like I said, locked, and then it’s gonna take time, and he knew it, and he knew that he was going to have to be patient okay?
Choosing Your Top Keywords
The second thing, is we need to go out there and choose the top keywords, so what are those top keywords that are likely going to give us 70% or more of that traffic? For house sellers it’s likely your cash for homes, sell my house fast, insert city, we buy houses, insert city, there are a few others, just go to carrot.com/seo-bible, and you can check it out, we have a full report there that goes through all of the top motivated house seller keyword phrases for SEO, and you can check it out. If you’re doing pay per click go to carrot.com/ppc-keywords and oncarrot.com/seo-bible, and you can find both those reports where we give you all of the keywords based on our research, so we solved that one for you.
Alright but the first thing that we always like to do in a market, in a really competitive market is we’ve got to get leads coming in right now okay? If we don’t have leads coming in right now and it’s gonna take us 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 months to start to get the real traffic to get traction and get deals in that market it becomes really, really discouraging, you know none of us want to be discouraged on our journey to grow our business or start our business so get pay per click going right away, okay?
PPC Marketing
In that first month to two months and it you don’t know how to do PPC we have a lot of resources on our blog you can check it out at oncarrot.com forward slash blog, or we have guides and resources and checklists on how to do it and we also talk about it all the time in our coaching calls if you are a carrot customer, and our three lead per day training okay also during that same time period during the first month to three months, in a competitive market the biggest thing we need to focus on is, how do you stand out from your competitors, how is it that your clients are going to chose you versus the 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 25, 30 other investors that are also vying for their business?
The people that sent them that direct-mail piece, the people that have the bandit signs up in their neighborhood the people that are in the same rankings, the same paid search results that you’re competing for. Even if you get there, even if you get right here, and you don’t take care of the credibility piece then you’re not gonna win the game, the other people are going to win the game okay? So focus on that as a core strategy, what is your credibility score?
Building Credibility
We have a CarrotCast episode, which is our weekly podcast, just go to CarrotCast.com, and you can go directly to the CarrotCast to find our episode on credibility score. You can even go to Google and Google Investor Carrot credibility score or CarrotCast credibility score, you’re going to find that episode where we walk you through everything you need to do to ramp up your credibility whether you’re an experienced investor or brand new and set yourself apart. Also, we did a CarrotCast episode on USP, unique selling proposition, which in a competitive market that is a requirement, you’ve gotta have a unique selling proposition why people should choose to work with you versus someone else. Tackle those in the first three months.
Get your PPC up and going, get leads coming in in the first several weeks get your first deal in the first month or two, and then during that time you’re setting up your SEO foundation the first one, two, three, four, five, six, seven months in a competitive market you’re likely going to get no leads so prepare for that mentally, okay?
Consistency Wins the Game
But after you start implementing that plan consistently over those months you’re gonna see a bump, and you’re gonna see another bump, and you’re gonna see another bump and around that 10 to 12,10 to 14 month time period if you’re implementing SEO well you’re gonna start to see those results coming possibly even quicker, okay? We have some clients in our concierge traffic service, which is a high-end service that we do internally for clients that are closing a lot of deals that are in really competitive markets that we were able to crack through the top five in the first five to six months and now we’re working on getting through that top three, but they’re already getting SEO leads in the first five to six months, that doesn’t always happen, but it can happen okay?
So, make sure you’ve got that locked down in your mindset now if we’re going to go through on the SEO side of things in a competitive market here’s what we need to do, we need to go after the top keywords that are going to give you 70% of the traffic, go to those resources I mentioned before to find those keywords on PPC and SEO, okay then what we’re going to do next is expand locations immediately in that first one to three months at location-specific landing pages, We’ve done other whiteboard videos on this topic, and we teach in detail in our training if you’re a carrot customer in our blog we have a lot of free resources as well.
So launch about ten location-specific landing pages and what those are, if you’re in Dallas, but there’s Ft. Worth and there’s a lot of other cities around Dallas that are suburbs or surrounding cities that you would also buy house in, launch pages on your Carrot site or another site that are specific to that location for your primary keywords, okay? For your primary keywords. And get at least ten of those up because those are going to be easier to rank for thank that primary large market of Dallas or Portland that big market and those rankings are going to happen faster so as you’re working on your SEO those are going to climb faster, your primary markets gonna climb a little bit slower, and they’re gonna rise together.
Build Citations
Next, do your citations, okay? Go to our blog, carrot.com/blog we talk about citations. If you’re a Carrot customer we can do your citations for you in our marketplace so check out our marketplace but this sets the foundation for credibility for your website in that local market right here, optimize for your company name plus the word reviews ‘cuz if you’re doing pay per click, or you’re getting traffic, or you’re doing direct mail we need to make sure that you rank well for your company name when people are trying to research you to see if you’re legit, and you never want to lose any deals because someone googles that and then don’t find any good things about you okay?
So optimize your about page for company, company plus your reviews then go get a Better Business Bureau Profile pay that three – four-hundred bucks, whatever it is, and then drive your clients over there to do reviews and optimize it as well for this and that going to help you close more deals.
Social Signals
Next are social signals. Get five, ten, fifteen people to google plus your homepage and Facebook like it over the first two months, backlinks if you’re going to do your own SEO just grab for three to five backlinks a month it’s not a big deal, and we teach how to do this in blog posts, we teach how to do this in our coaching calls, and our three lead per day training, if you’re a member, has it very, very detailed okay?
If you’re not a client we don’t sell that to the open public yet but we will if you’re watching this video after I publish this video just go to carrot.com/3lpd, don’t do it right now because nothing exists but if you’re doing this for several months, go to carrot.com/3lpd, you can check it out.
PPC to Guide SEO
Last, use PPC, use your pay per click data to guide you on your SEO that’s one of the biggest mistakes people make in competitive markets, is they use their pay per click and their SEO in silos, what we always like to do is launch your PPC campaigns, find out the ones that are converting into leads and turning into deals the most and then go after those keywords in your SEO so use PPC to guide you.
I’m gonna wrap this up, fast follow-up is huge in that market, if you’re in a competitive market you need to be calling your leads back within minutes or answer them live. We’ve talked to many clients that as soon as they switch to answering their calls live from pay per click and SEO they started closing more deals okay? It’s a big deal.
Answer them live and if you’re a Carrot customer turn on your text message notifications where you get a text message notification within seconds of a lead coming in, you’ll have a phone number there you can tap the phone number, call them up fast follow-up’s gonna help you cut through in that market. And then last, have an abundance mindset okay? One thing we always love to do is, there’s enough for everyone. There’s enough to go around for everyone; leads, deals, success, abundance, share that with people in your market, don’t try to hold all of your secrets in, the more you share, honestly the more comes back to you. So have that abundance mindset.
Real Estate Marketing in Competitive Markets
Alright, you’re in the competitive market, use that as a blessing, it’s a great thing for you, don’t say, “oh my gosh I’m in this crazy competitive market it’s going to be hard.” It will be work, but there are amazing, amazing things for you on the other side of it. When you have the patience and time locked in your brain you have the plan and you’re working with the right team. Alright? Go after it, tackle it, check out our other episodes of Carrotcast go to carrotcast.com and our other carrot whiteboard strategies sketches on our youtube channel just subscribe right here, here wherever the heck it is. Subscribe to our channel and you get updates as soon as they come out.
Learn more on the Carrot YouTube channel and start growing your business by leveraging the web as a real estate professional!
It sounds crazy at first, but when you consider that Apple reported the average iPhone user unlocks their phone over 80 times a day, maybe it’s not that surprising. We love our mobile devices, and we definitely love Facebook.
So we spend a lot of time on Facebook, but does that matter for Real Estate? Can all those hours spent on Facebook really translate into leads and deals?
I’ve spent countless hours working with investors from all across the country and have assembled five of the most common misconceptions about Facebook marketing for Real Estate Investors.
Here’s what they are and why they’re misguided.
Objection #1: “Facebook Marketing for Real Estate Investors Is Too Expensive.”
Imagine you found a vending machine, and every time you put 100 dollars in that vending machine, it gave you $500 back. How many times would you put in $100? Forever, right? You’d do it forever (or hire someone to do it for you) because you know there is a positive return.
What if the vending machine started charging $300 in return for $500? Would you still keep feeding it money? Probably. If the price kept increasing, at some point, you might stop — at the very latest, you’d stop at $500 because now you are breaking even.
Marketing is your vending machine. The deals produced from marketing are the output, just like the example above.
Do you know, for your business, the maximum you can pay per lead and still remain profitable? If you don’t, figure that out today! Investor Carrot has a fantastic calculator you can use.
“Expensive” is a relative term. You need to know your business in order to set appropriate expectations. If your ideal cost per lead is $200 and it takes 10 leads to close a deal, you might have to spend $2,000+ on marketing to get a deal. Too many people start a campaign and give up too early because they did not know their numbers and fail to clearly define success metrics.
Truth: Expense is relative to return. Know your numbers so you can make smart decisions based on data.
Objection #2: “I Didn’t See Leads Right Away. I Guess It Doesn’t Work.”
In a perfect world, every marketing channel would provide immediate results. That’s the dream, but unfortunately, not the reality. Most campaigns take a time to build momentum. This is certainly true for Facebook. Several factors contribute to success such as budget, market size, existing traffic on your site (retargeting), market timing, and quality of ad content.
Your first month will be your slowest month. If you have a few extra marketing dollars and want to give Facebook a try, make sure you really assess how committed you are. It’s possible, those few extra dollars are better spent on an existing channel such as PPC or direct mail. I suggest a commitment of at least 90 days – even better is 4 – 6 months – to fully realize the benefits of Facebook.
Truth: Be committed. You need at least 90 days to build good momentum.
Objection #3: “I Am Going To Clog My Friends’ Newsfeed With Ads.”
Some people want to clearly differentiate their personal and professional social media lives.
I’ve seen several incredibly successful investors openly sharing on their personal page, but if you fall into the “let’s keep it separate” category, there is good news – with Facebook Business Pages and powerful targeting options, you can run successful ad campaigns while keeping your personal feed clear for cat memes and cute pics of your friends’ kids.
Truth: Your personal and business Facebook presence can be as connected or separate as you want.
Objection #4: “I Need A Bunch Of Likes On My Facebook Page.”
At one point, this was true.
Several years ago, Facebook provided powerful organic (non-paid) reach to the fans of your Business Page. When The Color Run had over 4 million Facebook fans, we could post and get tens, even hundreds of thousands of people engaging on the post. It was thrilling to refresh the page and see the comment count jump exponentially. Then, almost overnight, Facebook announced they were changing their algorithm.
The era of pay to play on Facebook began. The same type of post at The Color Run now created only a couple hundred engagements. We had spent thousands of dollars (and hours) creatively building our fan base, and now we could barely even reach a fraction of our potential. It was a hard pill to swallow, but in the digital world, the only constant is change.
We adapted, and continued to see incredible success from our Facebook campaigns.
Long story short, even if you had a bunch of likes on your page, you would still have to pay to reach them.
Truth: Facebook Page Fans are now just one of many audiences you can target. Do not let building a fan base stop you from getting started.
Objection #5: “It’s hard to find motivated sellers on Facebook.”
Okay, this one is sometimes true. It can be hard. But here’s the good news — it’s hard for your competitors too, which means they likely aren’t doing it. That equates to untapped opportunity.
Of course, not everyone on Facebook is a motivated seller, but it’s very likely that the motivated sellers in your area are on Facebook. You might be thinking, “yeah, but my typical deal is with someone in an older demographic.” They’re on Facebook too. In fact, 33% of all Facebook users are over the age of 45, and 17% are older than 55. That’s almost 1 in 5 people over the age of 55. And these people are clicking on ads. In some of my recent client campaigns, on average, 57% of leads came from people 55 and older.
Truth: Using strategic targeting, such as custom and lookalike audiences, you can carefully target your ideal demographic.
The Worst Myth Of All: “Facebook Isn’t Worth My Time.”.
Finding motivated sellers on Facebook is a highly specific targeting challenge to be sure, but it’s that very fact that makes Facebook such an exciting avenue for your REI business.
If it were incredibly simple, everyone would be doing it. Because it takes some finesse, Facebook remains a largely untapped resource to the most dedicated investors.
Listen to the CarrotCast Podcast and Subscribe Below!
It’s awesome because once you know the formula of how to do this, its just do it again and keep going and going and see how you can grow it.Brian Rockwell
I always get excited when I get to do these types of CarrotCasts when I bring on a client of ours who has a great, great story. And the client that I’m bringing on in this episode is Brian Rockwell. This CarrotCast is pretty compelling and hopefully, it’s going to speak to everyone about patience and swift and focused execution when you decide to make things happen.
He didn’t use the excuses of, “There’s way too much competition.” He didn’t use the excuses of, “I already see Carrot sites everywhere.” He didn’t use any excuses of “I’ve never done a deal.” He went out there, executed according to what we laid out, our plan for him. He executed it. He carved out time to study. He carved out time to implement, he carved out a budget, and he did $80,000 in wholesale fees in March.
You’re also going to be able to learn how he’s executed like mad as a newer investor, not having all the advantages that you do with experience and credibility and how he went after and executed with one marketing plan, on one way of getting clients now with building up momentum over the long term with another way of getting clients, and how he’s turning those into profits.
He eliminated emotion from his wholesaling real estate decisions by setting a solid marketing budget that is 100% based off of data and math. Magically that turned into amazing results for him.
You’re going to love his story, how he went from junior high teacher and baseball coach, and a 12-year journey on starting being a real estate investor from thinking about it to taking the action on it.
So listen to this episode of the CarrotCast and check out the other episodes at carrotcast.com.
Listen to the Podcast
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Listen in and hear how Brian took action and within three months he’s doing $80,000 a month in revenue from online marketing…
1:35 – Who is Brian Rockwell? 3:00 – What originally got Brian locked into real estate and his 12-year journey. 7:20 – Closing the first deal and what his business strategy looks like right now. 12:25 – Breaking down the online marketing mindset. 14:45 – Dissecting Brian’s formula for wholesaling real estate success. 18:05 – Why his About page on his Carrot site has been effective in building credibility.
Rockwell Homes LLC Our Company Page
20:55 – The importance of integrity and customer service — building a set of strong core values.
Rockwell Homes LLC Core Values
23:55 – Why it’s so darn important to utilize testimonials to build credibility. 27:00 – Going from an SEO mindset to PPC in one of the most competitive markets in the country. How long it took Brian to start closing PPC deals. 30:30 – Brian’s PPC budget and the formula he uses to expand upon that budget. 36:05 – How he found Carrot and why he decided to commit to the Carrot system. 38:25 – What is Brian’s “Why” and some of his big goals. 41:25 – “Having a greater impact on the world” – Entrepreneurship done right. 44:35 – Why sellers have chosen to work with him and how his website has factored. 45:45 – What hesitations he had with Carrot before joining. 48:30 – Brian’s final advice for someone searching for wholesaling real estate success – “Trust the Carrot System.”
What if you could read the mind of the motivated seller? Meaning, what if you could send the right message to the right person at the right time?
Unfortunately, the internet provides a threat to match its opportunity. While powerful, the internet’s power can easily be strangled by its formidable size. Quickly, it becomes a source of crowded destruction instead of open possibility.
The real estate market is increasingly competitive because it’s increasingly cluttered, making the dream of reading the house seller’s mind, at the least, difficult, and at the worst, debilitating.
But here at Carrot, we hate letting dreams die.
Every year, our clients pull in over 400,000 online leads, giving us a very special position to speak to what’s happening in the real estate market.
Even though the market is more crowded than ever before, by accepting this density and optimizing your customer experience for the motivated seller, that crowded room becomes a pleasant dinner party. And you’re the host.
So, how do you cater and attract a motivated house seller?
Well, you need to know what the motivated seller thinks, wants, and does. Lucky for you, we crunched some numbers, ran some tests, and stepped into their mind… using a significant and varying sample size, specific to all seller websites we host.
And we want to share what we learned.
So, before we finish wiping off brain matter, here’s how the motivated seller makes the decision on who they’re going to work with when selling their house… based on our years of research and understanding the “decision lifecyle” of the average motivated house seller.
Let’s Get Inside The Mind Of A Motivated House Seller On Their Path To Choosing A Company That Can Solve Their House Problem
Step 1: Problem Aware
The house seller knows they have a problem… but aren’t sure how to best solve it. This is where you come in…
At this stage the motivated house seller is thinking…
“I need to get this house sold, like soon.”
This is the birth of the motivated seller.
Maybe they received a job in a new state, a family has fallen sick, foreclosure, inherited a house, going through a divorce, or just simply have a house that needs lots of repairs that they don’t want to deal with. Regardless of the reason, life circumstances spiked their curiosity in the selling process and they start exploring the possibility.
First and foremost, the seller wants to know how much they can likely sell their house for. They’ll likely visit Zillow, update their house information, and then check out their Zestimate.
But, while Zillow offers convenience, John Wake’s guess work, on Real Estate Decoded, estimates that Zestimate’s typical error is plus or minus 14,000 dollars.
And whether the motivated seller has run their own tests or not, their trust for this system is limited. It offers a curiosity-sating foundation, but not a real-time solution.
Which is good. Because you are the real-time solution they are looking for.
That takes us to the seller’s second dig: they contact someone who can answer their questions in greater depth.
Likely, this is someone the motivated seller’s acquainted with, whether it be a friend, a Facebook ad, or a Twitter feed. Whatever the case, they are looking to make phone calls and get answers.
It’s your job to (1) get them to call you, and (2) provide those answers.
Here’s how.
1. Get In Front Of Them Where They Search… Google
House sellers will hit Google to search things like “how to sell my house fast” or “selling a house in divorce in dallas” to find basic info about their options.
If you’re ranked high in Google with SEO or PPC and you deliver great content on your site that clearly shows them that you have a service that can solve their problem… you’ve just met them exactly where they are in the decision cycle.
2. Direct Mail
At this point, your prospect is also now receptive to marketing messages that look like they’ll solve their problem.
You dig through the mail. After tossing the credit card offers and ripping up the bills you’ll just pay online later, you come across a handwritten letter. Whoa! That’s unusual, you think. You quickly check your mental calendar to see if today is your birthday. Maybe your aunt has sent a card with $5 inside. Nope. What’s going on?
Maybe the letter is from the local movie theater, maybe it’s from a church, or maybe it’s from a local real estate investor.
Maybe it’s from you.
The point is that everyone gets a lot of mail, but if you make your letter stand out from the rest, people will feel that much more a part of your tribe.
Direct mail isn’t dead. In fact, since it is slower than nearly every other medium of communication, that snail-like pace has romanticized its effect. Like candlelight and bathtubs, the receiver feels like they’ve been transported back to better, more personal, times, and because of that, it has an intimate feel… if it’s done right.
12-point Direct Mail Checklist for Real Estate Investors and Agents
A checklist to ensure consistently remarkable mailers that generate leads, grow your business revenue and make your campaigns more sustainable.
3. Social Media Presence
Don’t break the bank for Facebook advertisements. But do maintain a social media presence — post on your account regularly — as a preemptive strike to the motivated seller’s subconscious.
When trying to decide who to contact with all of their questions, the seller thinks, “Hey, I remember seeing real estate investor, Joe the Pro’s [this is you], posts on Facebook. He seems like he knows what he’s doing. I’ll contact him!”
In fact, second, only to Direct traffic, Social Media wins when it comes to acquiring new sessions on your website.
Some ads that just let them know your service exists will be perfect for this phase. Like…
or…
Play with the endgame in mind. The more people who notice you on Social Media, the more people who’ll contact you when they decide to sell their house — which we all will at some point.
Marketing Tips For This Phase:
Do more broad marketing as targeted as possible
Focus on just letting them know you have a service that can solve their biggest needs (speed, convenience, no fees, no agents, etc.)
Bonus: Have your ads drag them to the next phase (Solution Aware and Vetting / Verifying) w/ testimonials in your ads
Step 2: Solution Aware
They know their basic options, agents vs. investors… they just need to research more to see what’s best for them.
At this phase the house seller is likely thinking…
Ok, cool… it looks like there’s options… but how are agents different vs. investors and which is best for me?
At this point, the motivated seller Google’s phrases such as, “Sell my house fast [insert their location],” “Agent vs. Investor,” or “Professional home buyers.” They’ve decided to sell their house, now they’re deciding the best way to go about it.
It’s critical that you get noticed.
Why?
Because our data shows that motivated sellers aren’t wasting any time. They make a decision on who to work with faster than you can paint a bedroom: 0-days fast.
You need to be prepared for this. When the motivated seller decides who to work with, if you’re not able to answer their questions, someone else is, and they’ll choose that someone else.
Here’s how to raise your hand first.
The One Mindset Difference Between Top-performing Real Estate Investors and Everyone Else
Learn the dead-simple difference between those who build thriving businesses and those who never fulfill their dreams or goals.
4. Content Structure That Pulls The Prospect To The Next Phase Effortlessly
Most websites and marketing don’t think through the order that their prospect thinks when making a decision. They don’t take into account what info the house seller needs to have before the next piece of info will be useful to them.
Take a look at this Carrot site as an example… from a client who has been a part of over 3,000 transactions.
This Content Flows The Way Sellers Make Decisions: Does Yours?
Notice the order of the navigation on the site. First we meet the seller at “problem aware” (hey, we can buy your house!), then educates them on the solution, then builds credibility and guides to the call to action. Bam.
Does your marketing skip phases and leave your prospect hanging with questions?
Or does your site only focus on making sure they know you can buy a house but not on pulling them through the next phases proactively?
5. Blogging
The sheer amount of blogs on the internet is debilitating. It seems like everyone and their pet blogs.
But, as you know, since everyone else is doing it, it’s hard to get noticed if you’re not.
The good news, though, is that even with the massive amount of online content, the motivated seller isn’t threatened. They still view blogs and spend an average duration of 1:05 looking.
Due to the increased visibility it creates, your blog is a great way to answer the motivated seller’s questions as they type them into Google, increasing traffic, forcing you to learn your stuff, and building relationships with the people who want to help you make money.
If you want to take up blogging — which you should — check out our post on how to do that, with actionable examples.
When the motivated seller searches, “Sell my house quick in Roseburg, Oregon,” you’ll be at the top. Because other real estate investors aren’t including “Roseburg, Oregon” in their content.
Unless, of course, they also work in Roseburg…
But it’s a whole lot easier to compete with a few local real estate investors than it is the whole nation. Since you’re not selling or buying properties in every state, don’t create content that competes nationwide. Create content that competes locally and you’ll be more visible to the people who matter.
7. Ads That Compare + Educate On The Options + Process
In this phase, you can’t keep on sending people ads and direct mail that just tells them that you can buy their house. They already know. So here’s where you need to retarget your prospects w/ ads that educate and compare… while at the same time adding credibility to pull them to the next phase.
Like…
… and one of our own (one of the highest performing ads we have, it drives to a blog post of ours)
Marketing Tips For This Phase:
Start to retarget your prospects on Facebook with a mix of ads that educate and compare. Comparing your USP to theirs is critical
Build your website and your marketing so it flows the way your prospects decide
Bonus: Again, if you can have a testimonial do the heavy work for you, educating your prospect for you… it automatically pulls the prospect past the next phase… building credibility for you in the process
Step 3: Vetting and Verifying
The seller recognizes their problem, they know the basics of the options… but who should they work with?
In this phase the seller knows they have a problem that they want to be solved fast, they basically know the options and how they work… but now their main question is…
Which company should I work with? Which is the most credible?
They’re asking if they want to work with you. Your job is to convince them that they do.
How?
The homepage is where the motivated seller often lands, and not just lands, but commits… or at least turns into a lead.
If they’re not ready to become a lead… they then explore the website to find answers to their questions or verify suspicions.
What Pages Do Most Most Leads Come From? [our data]
Notice that of the 16,000 seller leads in this data set over a period of time for Carrot clients, 5,000 of those leads weren’t ready to opt in on the home page. They searched for more info instead…
Since the homepage is playing such a significant role in determining your leads and, thus, your conversions, here’s a few things to think about when trying to attract motivated sellers.
Don’t just cater for those ready to opt in right now, include robust content that builds your expertise, credibility, and makes it easy for them to contact you
But how can you best build credibility and get an edge on your competition since your prospect already knows that you both can provide essentially the same service?
Let’s start here…
8. Easy Contact Options + Great About Page
The ease with which you create this page is not equal to the breadth of its importance.
Overall of the seller websites we host, the “contact us” page sports compelling numbers.
For an even faster transition from homepage to lead, provide the option to bypass the “Contact Us” page with a “Call Us: XXX-XXX-XXXX” CTA.
Notice The Interaction With The Easy Opt-In Form And Phone Number
As you can tell, a Christmas tree would have trouble competing with that red-hot dot. Consider putting your phone number on the homepage to reduce the number of clicks needed to go from viewer to lead. Fewer clicks mean more conversions.
During this beginning phase, the seller has a lot of questions. Your “Contact Us” page, or “Call Us” corner, gives them the opportunity to get in touch with you and inquire. You’ll be positioned like a pro and, more importantly, make a valuable connection.
Also, as the seller does their research… they’ll hit your about page.
A Heat Map Of A Carrot Clients Site: Our Company Is Hot
This is very common… actually we see this on almost every test we’ve ran over the past 4 years… and that’s a lot of tests. The Our Company page is where your prospects go to see who you are.
A Heat Map Of Our Site (previous version) Shows The Same
Yep, we use data for our own business just like we do to help you get better results in your business as a Carrot client :-)
Get faces on your About Page like Carrot clients CR Homes of Maryland.
Show them ads that build your credibility… seller testimonials are great for this.
On this website, our heatmap shows that testimonials are playing a critical role.
Notice the red spot over the “testimonials” link. Time and time again we see heavy engagement on testimonials on sites across our system.
Like…
Notice how this investor filmed a video of their client and put up a well formatted testimonial on their site. Turn this into a Facebook ad and you’re golden.
And make sure to use credibility badges where you can to add that 3rd party validation to your credibility profile.
And last, make sure to control your brand conversation online when people are verifying and vetting your brand through Google searches. Like…
Your Sellers Are Actively Searching For Reviews + Your Reputation… What Do They See?
Hopefully you’re controlling the conversation around your brand so your sellers don’t bail at the last moment in this phase. Control it like this…
Notice How Their BBB Profile, Facebook, And Carrot Site Control The Brand Convo
The biggest missing factor in your ads, your direct mail, and your online marketing strategy is credibility. Credibility trumps any marketing tactic out there.
If you’re offering the same service as the next guy, it’s going to come down to credibility and your offer. That’s it.
10. Clarity
Stumbling upon a cluttered website is an immediate no-go for the motivated seller. Where clarity communicates professionalism and ease of use, clutter communicates a lack thereof.
But what is clutter?
Clutter might translate into the too-much-stuff-on-one-page category, but not necessarily. Consider the apparent “clutter” of a top online store, Amazon.
What Is Clutter? It’s Not Clutter If It Get’s You What You Need…
Amazon is the world’s most optimized ecommerce website. It’s also one of the most “cluttered” according to people. Clutter is only cluttered if it doesn’t help the prospect find what they want.
As you can tell, there’s a lot going on. And this goings-on could easily be classified as clutter.
And yet, they’re winning.
Don’t think of clutter as having too much on a single web page, think of clutter as having too much that distracts from your CTA. Amazon wants you to get lost in the shopping experience, and thus it shows you a plethora of items you may or may not be interested in, much like browsing at the mall.
But you’re not trying to sell products ranging from laundry detergent to Harry Potter collectibles.
Your product is an easy and fast process for the house seller.
To sell that, you don’t want a lot of action items.
As a bad example, consider this website… for whom the brand name has been blocked out.
This website is a disaster. Most importantly, It has painfully positioned CTA’s…
With this many Call’s To Action, you can be sure that none deliver. This is clutter. Clutter means that when someone visits your website, they’re not sure what you offer, or where you want them to click.
In contrast, clean and clear as a windexed window, check out this example.
Full Of The RIGHT Information But Not Devoid Of The Info
Your Prospect Needs To Advance To The Next Phase
This homepage immediately communicates what it offers, whether or not I — the motivated seller — am in the right place, and what I should do if I am (fill out the information).
A website this clean will perform better simply because it communicates better. Get harsh on your own website and, if needed, ask for an opinion from a friend — a friend who’ll be honest.
Because having a mobile-friendly website is as important for visitors as having toilet paper for house-guests. It’s just expected.
Marketing Tips For This Phase:
After someone opts into your site, retarget them on Facebook with testimonial ads
Build a physical credibility packet and mail that to your prospects overnight, email it to them, and take it to your in-person meetings
Add at least 5-10 great testimonials formatted correctly to your site
Build reviews on 3rd party sites like the BBB, your Facebook page, and Google local.
Step 4: Making The Decision
Here, they’re ready to decide. Are you making it easy?
At this phase the motivated house seller is likely thinking…
Ok, lets get them to give me an offer… then I’ll pick the best fit.
Are you making it easy and are you reinforcing their decision to work with you EVEN AFTER THEY CALL YOU OR OPT IN?
The motivated seller has taken the first step, but still, they could abandon.
However, it is too early for you to give up.
There are two primary tools in your arsenal to make them comfortable, and they both focus on transparency: honesty about what you offer, what the seller should expect, how a price is decided, and who you are.
The two tools are (1) the How It Works page and (2) the About Us page.
12. A “How It Works” Page
The “how it works” page is clicked wildly, so don’t hesitate to make this a priority.
See This Part Of A Recent Heat Map On A Carrot Site
The “How It Works” page is very active… your sellers in the “Solution Aware” and “Verifying” phases are really looking for clarity on your process. How you make your offers, what the process looks like, etc.
But, be careful that you don’t over explain. The seller has questions, but they aren’t in regard to the nitty gritty of your job. Their questions are in regard to how you will benefit them and what they need to do to make it happen.
It can be hard to anticipate all of these questions, so here’s a list of the ones you must answer.
How long until you contact me?
What happens when you contact me?
How is a price decided?
After we agree on a price, when do I get my money?
They make it easy to understand, quick to read, and, most importantly, only answer the questions that the motivated seller is asking.
13. A Strong Hero Section
Like every great story, someone needs to save the day… or rather, something. And that something should be your product.
Your hero should sit at the top of the homepage and quickly tell the visitor that (1) they’re in the right place and (2) you’re here to solve their problems.
As you can tell on the below heatmap, the hero is viewed as often as the bat-signal is flicked.
Don’t get creative at the cost of clarity. Your hero should be similar to the above. Something regarding selling fast, since you’re marketing to the motivated seller, and location, because the motivated seller is searching for someone in their area.
Once the seller is convinced that you’re the hero they’re looking for, it’s time to swoop in and actually save the day.
14. A Clear CTA (Call To Action)
Everyone loves this part of the story. This is where the motivated seller takes the first leap, which is usually providing you with contact information.
This is your first CTA, and arguably, the most important.
If the motivated seller doesn’t give you permission to contact them, they aren’t serious about working with you.
Since your business goes nowhere without this first step, it’s important to make it simple, directly after the hero, and, ultimately, the focus of your homepage.
Consider how your eyes flow first to the hero of this snapshot, and then seamlessly to the CTA.
Also, consider this example, differing in setup, but equally effective in conversion.
Whatever the hero to CTA transition on your website, make sure it’s obvious and smooth. Since the motivated seller is in a hurry, your homepage should be too.
Heck, even put clear calls to action in your Facebooks ads at this phase, like…
15. Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up
Often times they’re just not ready to make a decision yet.
So make sure you’re putting your leads into an email, text, and possibly direct mail followup system.
We see clients pulling deals out 6+ months later after the lead initially came in.
The One Mindset Difference Between Top-performing Real Estate Investors and Everyone Else
Learn the dead-simple difference between those who build thriving businesses and those who never fulfill their dreams or goals.
Schedule The “8 Word Email” To Go Out In 6 Months
Don’t over complicate your follow up with a big pitch. Just ask them if they still need to sell. Your only goal is to engage them in a conversation.
Marketing Tips For This Phase:
Create a simple email sequence that goes out 6+ months. At month 4-6 hit them w/ the “8-word email”
Have Facebook ads that ask… “Still need to sell your house?”… then drive them to a testimonial on your site
Make it easy for people to get in touch with you… phone, text, opt-in online
Step 5: Turn Clients Into Testimonials Then Repeat The Above
At this point, you’ve got a client and closed deal! But the work doesn’t stop…
Right here your client is happy with the service, and this is the best time for you to ask for a testimonial or referral.
Adjust Your Marketing + Messaging To Pull Clients Through The Decision Lifecycle
Whew! That was a lot.
But this is the difference between the A Players in real estate marketing and the B or C players.
Most investors make all of their marketing focus on just one or two of the phases… and leave it open for their competitors to better connect with the prospect when the prospect needs it most.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
So… go out and find where you can better cater your marketing toward the phase of the decision lifecyle your motivated house sellers are in.
Here’s a recap…
And what to do about it…
SEO and PPC for problem aware people looking for solutions
Canvas direct mail to those likely to be problem aware
Engage on social (broad ads)
Structure content to pull people to the next phase
Blog (show your expertise)
Local content
Ads that compare + educate
Great about page and clear contact info
Build your credibility
Clearly, relay the message of how you can help them
Focus on mobile
Great How It Works page
Strong hero section on your website
Clear call to action
Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up
Don’t hesitate. Don’t procrastinate.
Go crush it like the mind-reading real estate guru you are.
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