Do you see your competition ranking their YouTube videos at the top of Google for the search terms you want to rank for?
Like This?…
This is a screenshot of a popular motivated house seller search where our InvestorCarrot customers control the top 3 positions in Google. The #1 position is a YouTube video. Learn how to boost your YouTube video marketing below!
In this post we’ll show you some YouTube SEO optimization tips that you can implement in your real estate investing or agent companies.
In our 90 Day Inbound Online Marketing Action Plan call we did recently we teach real estate investors and agents to have a short-term online lead generation plan and a long-term online lead generation plan.
The short-term things are actions you can take to get visitors to your website (cash buyers, motivated house sellers, tenants, private lenders, note sellers, etc.) within the first 30-60 days while your long-term SEO campaigns build.
One of the marketing tools we love the most for both our short-term and long-term lead generation for ourselves and our high achieving investor clients is YouTube marketing. We wrote a short post about it last year, this post is a more detailed followup on optimizing those YouTube videos.
Infographic: 7 YouTube SEO Optimization Tips To Implement On Your YouTube Videos This Week
The Biggest YouTube Video Marketing Mistakes Real Estate Agents And Investors Are Making Every Day
The reason YouTube videos can rank so darn fast is because of the “Domain Authority” of YouTube.com.
In Google’s eyes, YouTube has the highest possible authority and trust that a website can get.
This makes it so any video uploaded to YouTube automatically has a better chance of ranking quickly for search phrases that it may take you months and months to rank well for with your own website with SEO.
The ROI of YouTube marketing as a house flipper, investor, or agent can be pretty huge for the time you’ll invest. An average wholesale deal could net you approx $5k on the low end right? Would 3-4 hours of video work and “seo boosting” be worth it for that profit potential? The same for agents… what is your average listing worth?
But you only have a better chance if you implement what the graphic above shows and avoid these common mistakes we see investors making.
Avoid…
Not using your main keyword phrase in the video title: Most investors will throw a video on YouTube and not really think much about the title. If you want to rank well for “sell my house fast Madera CA“… your video should have those words in it toward the start of the title.
Not uploading enough videos to your channel: Every day we see people asking how to improve their YouTube video rankings… then we look at their YouTube channel and see only 1 or 2 videos in there. Google wants to see that a channel is active. So get at least 4-6 videos in there! Use this training video to help optimize your YouTube channel.
Not typing up a good long description in the description box: People forget that Google can only read what we give it to read. So use that description area to really talk about the content in the video. Include your keyword phrase and variations of it… and ideally get your keyword phrase toward the start of your description. Treat the description box like you’d treat the content on a page on your lead generation website. Get good quality content on there and optimize the content for the phrase you’re wanting to rank for.
Not linking to your website from your description with the full “http://www.yoursitehere.com”: A solid way to drive people to your website and get a link back to your website is to include a clickable link in your video description! It’s a no brainer and should be one of the first things you put on your description.
Thinking your work is over after you upload your video: If you’re in a competitive market where lots of other real estate investors, wholesalers, flippers, agents… etc. are competing for the same search phrases… you may need to add some SEO “boosters” to get your videos to rank higher. Get people to comment on your videos, share it on social media, link to the video, and post the video on your own website too. You’d be surprised how easy ranking a YouTube video can be with a few of the right steps.
If you’re an InvestorCarrot member, our 3 Lead Per Day Training (only available to active Carrot members) dives into YouTube video marketing really deeply and shows you how to make your videos step by step, upload them, optimize them, and “boost” them after they’re on YouTube.
Just check our marketplace to pick up that training course if you’re an InvestorCarrot member.
Or, if you’re not yet an InvestorCarrot member, what are you waiting for? :-)
Carrot Members Control More Page 1 And Top 5 Rankings In Google For Motivated Sellers and Cash Buyers (rent to own tenants too!)…
… than any other real estate investor website platform.
Our prices aren’t the lowest (and never will be)… but our members say the return on investment they get with their InvestorCarrot accounts is one of the best possible investments they could make with those marketing dollars vs. the alternative real estate investor website solutions.
Our members are currently pulling in well over 10,000 opt in leads per month at the time this article is published… plus thousands more phone call leads each month.
And a huge reason is because we focus on making your life easier as an investor or agent when it comes to online inbound marketing.
It’s a mix of…
Great software that launches websites that give you a head start with SEO (and are completely ready to convert leads for you on PPC or Craigslist from day 1)
Epic support when you need help (email, live chat, weekly live Carrot Coaching webinars with our team members on advanced lead gen topics and Q&A)
Industry best online marketing training
These combined have turned into pretty darn amazing results for our clients who trust the system, put it to action, and use the resources you have at your fingertips with Carrot.
If you’re curious about InvestorCarrot and how it can help you grow your real estate investing, house flipping, wholesaling, note buying, or real estate agency…head on over here to take the demo.
So much in fact that during any given week we’re setting up multiple tests on our Carrot customers’ websites based on our “data dives” that our team does into the data we’re tracking to help improve the effectiveness of our system each and every week.
We’ve have had our heads down the last couple months getting some big projects pushed through, and frankly, have a backlog of test data that we haven’t made blog posts on yet.
And, thanks to all of you who answered our Customer Survey a few weeks back and who said, “I want to see more test data on the blog!”… we’re going to start rolling out some results of our conversion tests here on the blog on a more consistent basis.
One Of The Most Important Parts Of A High Converting Real Estate Investor Website Is…
… the Call to Action area.
The Call to Action area is the part on your website that guides the reader of your website (a motivated house seller, cash buyer, note seller, agent, etc) to take a certain action that you want them to take.
This could be joining your Discount Property List… getting an offer on their house… or even just a free market report.
But there are 3 core elements to a great Call to Action form…
1. The “ask” headline:
This is the spot that grabs their attention and hopefully spells out in a few short words the benefit they’re going to get OR simply asks them a question to get them to mentally say, “Yes, that’s me. What do I do next?”.
2. The opt-in form:
This is the actual form that people put their information into. We’ve tested variations of forms, numbers of form fields, size of form fields, type of information we collect on form fields… and have found a pretty darn good structure that has increased the conversion rate on our members’ websites dramatically.
3. The action button (or “submit” button):
This is often overlooked by people. Lots of people just assume that a person on your website is either going to click that button or not if they’re a motivated seller.
But, that’s just not the case. We’ve tested variation after variation of different sizes, colors, positions, and words on the “submit” buttons and in many cases found dramatic differences in conversion rate.
The Submit Button Change That Boosted Conversions 49.5%
This isn’t the first time we’ve run this exact test… and won’t be the last.
But this latest round of tests on the submit button on the main opt-in form on a motivated seller website had some really interesting results.
The Hypothesis in this test:
Will changing the words on the submit button from a “descriptor” (“Click to Continue” or “Submit”) to a “mental commitment” increase conversions?
Every single time we’ve run this test on a real estate investor website we’ve seen an improvement in the conversion rate when we got rid of the “Submit” or “Click to Continue” buttons in place of something that said something like… “See Available Properties” or “Get My Fair Offer Today!”
Below are a few shots of the actual tests and heat maps showing the results.
Test #1: Motivated Seller Website – Making Button Copy More Relevant
We Added Value To The Button Copy… and made it more relevant with giving them what they want, a “fair cash offer today”… not to “continue”
This test is actually still an active test but is currently at a 95% statistical chance to produce a winner (which is pretty darn good. We shoot for at least 97% to call it 100% conclusive.)
But as you can see in the heat map image above, all we changed was the words inside that red button. All of the “hot spots” on the pictures are the places visitors to that website during the test were clicking on and interacting on.
The Control is the button that said “Click here to Continue <<<<“… which is what we call a descriptor. It just tells you want to do.
The Variation 1 button says “Get My Fair Cash Offer <<“… which is what we call a mental commitment. It meets the web visitor in the same mental mode that they’re in when they’re on that site… and mentally guides them toward the benefit they want (a fair cash offer on their house, today).
The Results: Out of 569 total sellers who landed on this InvestorCarrot motivated seller website, 59 converted as a lead (a 10.37% average).
The Variation with the mental commitment phrase… “Get My Fair Cash Offer <<” showed an improvement in 49.5% at a 12.55% conversion rate on SEO and PPC traffic… which is pretty darn solid for the home page of a website.
What Does That Mean? Out of every 100 visitors who land on your website, you’d get 12.5 leads rather than 8.3. Doesn’t sound like a huge deal.
But when those numbers add up it gets exciting. At 1,000 visitors to your website (assuming these numbers hold true) that would be 40 extra motivated seller leads.
If you close 1 out of every 20 leads into a deal (which is a low percentage for many of our customers) and you net on average $7.5k (which is much lower than many of our customers net per deal)… that’s $15,000 in extra revenue without having to generate any more traffic to your website. Free money assuming your close ratio per lead stays true.
Test #2: Rent to Own Website – Making Button Copy More Relevant
We Added Value To The Button Copy… and made it more relevant. It helps the person visualize what’s on the other side of the button.
This test was a very similar change to test #1. On this InvestorCarrot members rent to own website we simply changed the button copy from a basic descriptor, “Submit Here >” (which the customer changed the button to that text away from our default text of “Let Me See Available Homes >”… so we wanted to test it again just to prove why it was there in the first place ;-).
A rent to own real estate investing website is going to get a much higher conversion rate than a motivated seller website is just because of the nature of the type of lead.
But the concept still held up in this instance with a completely different type of website and type of lead.
Why? It’s baked into us as humans to want to take the easiest path… the one with the least amount of resistance. If I landed on this website because I did a Google search to find local rent to own homes… and this button reinforces exactly what I want… to see “available homes” right now, I can’t help but follow that path and make my brain happy.
This conversion psychology is built into all of our InvestorCarrot websites and we’re continually testing and improving every single month.
The Results: The variation that had the button copy that was more relevant to what the website visitor was thinking performed higher by 9.63%.
What Does This Mean? Out of every 100 visitors to your website you’d get 3 more “free” leads. Over 1,000 visitors to your website you’d get an extra 30 leads. If you were able to put just 1 out of every 30 qualified leads into a deal that made you $10k… that’s an extra $10,000 in profits per 1,000 visitors without adding any more traffic to your website. Free money.
We’ve run this exact same test on a number of other websites (both InvestorCarrot sites and non-Carrot sites) and results have been similar.
So make sure to update the call to action text on your submit buttons to add more value to your website visitor.
How To Change The Submit Button Text On Carrot Websites In Under 10 Seconds
If you’re an InvestorCarrot member reading this and have set up your website within the last 5 months, this change is already the default setting on all of your websites. Yay! As we find things that perform better, we automatically build them into the system… and in some cases make those changes across the board for our members.
But here’s how you can change your submit button text quickly if yours says “Continue” or “Submit”.
1. Go to the “Forms” tab and click the “Settings” button on the form you want to change.
2. Go to the “Form Button” section and update the “Button Text” box. Done!
Done!
3 Other Call To Action Button Conversion Boosting Ideas
This article is only walking through this one hypothesis… that changing from basic “descriptor” submit button copy to submit button copy that adds more value to the visitor and talks about the benefit they want to get, increases conversion rates and leads.
But, we’ve tested (and are currently testing) many many other elements of the opt-in box.
But here’s some things you may test if you want to get all geeky like us and work on improving the conversion rate of your websites (if you don’t want to fiddle with it and would rather have us do it, we include our conversion testing assistance for any InvestorCarrot customer who is generating at least 100 visitors to their website a month. Why? Simply because we’re dedicated to continually improving the effectiveness of our Inbound Online Marketing System and websites for real estate investors. We don’t just try to make pretty websites. Our members are pulling in over 13,000 leads a month because of the combination between our innovative websites and SEO benefits, our conversion optimization focus, our training, and our hands-on high-level strategy help. )
Change the “possessive” noun from 2nd person to 1st person: “Get Your Fair Cash Offer!” to “Get My Fair Cash Offer!” . We’ve shown this to improve conversions in many cases and has been shown to do the same in test after test in other industries.
Button Size And Position: I see too many real estate investors websites have their call to action button too small… or it blends in to the rest of the page. We’ve found choosing a button color that stands out on the page (contrasts ideally) and is as large as the form fields have improved conversion rates by a measurable amount. We’re running a button size test right now on the website of one of the largest investors in California… and it’s showing a 200%+ improvement so far (it’s early). And it’s no accident that the call to action button on InvestorCarrot websites is wide, large, and the same width as the form fields (we’ve tested it many many times).
Form Fields: Form fields can make one of the biggest differences in your call to action area. We’ve tested it and settled on about 3-4 form fields on your front end form (the form your visitors see first) is ideal for conversions. Then, feed them to an effective “step 2” to further qualify them (it works like gangbusters on InvestorCarrot websites). But don’t take our word for it, here, here, here, and here also tested the same thing and found the same results. It’s human psychology in action.
ImageCredit: Hubspot
So if you are making any of those mistakes or just want to test them on your own website, put that in your action plan this week and get to work!
We Think About Conversion So You Don’t Have To
60,000 Leads Per Month (2020) And Climbing – Gotta Love That
Here at Carrot we get emails and live chat messages every week from members who say that their Carrot website performs better than their old website.
Not just in the search rankings (which Carrot sites hold more page 1 rankings for search phrases that matter than any other website platform for investors) but also on the conversion rate.
Now, let us get real here for a second.
Do we have a magic potion that makes our websites convert more visitors into leads? Nope.
You can learn to do your own conversion testing just like we have over the past 7 years… testing millions of visitors to our pages and well over 1,000 individual tests over the years.
Over time you get good at figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
And when a customer emails us saying “I didn’t tweak hardly anything and my Carrot website converts 4x more visitors into leads than my other website”… that makes us giddy like a rabbit in a… well… carrot patch ;-)
So if you just want to focus on doing more of what makes your heart sing (the stuff you love to do in your business) and less of the techie and marketing stuff you don’t like or just flat out don’t have the time for… that’s why some of the top investors around the country work with us.
We’re not the cheapest monthly rate on the block… but like we showed in this post… we’re dedicated to making your real estate investing websites more effective to generate more real estate investing leads for motivated sellers, cash buyers, private lenders, rent to own tenant buyers, note sellers, and more.
And if you close only 1 extra deal because of our commitment to results over all else over the lifetime of your account with us… that alone will pay for 10-15 years of InvestorCarrot service in that extra “found” revenue.
And heck, if you liked this post, hit the Facebook “Share” button and Linkedin button on this page. I’d appreciate it a ton. It keeps us motivated to keep putting out great content like this you can’t get anywhere else in the real estate investment industry.
Heck in the past 4 months alone we’ve launched hundreds of improvements to make it even easier and faster to launch effective online lead generation websites as a real estate investor, beef up the level of support members get even further than it already is, get your leads faster (sms alerts), make your websites rank better in Google, and convert leads at an even higher rate.
But all of that pales in comparison to what we have in store for InvestorCarrot members over the next 4 months :-)
Today we’re happy as heck to roll out the first version of our Carrot Marketplace to the InvestorCarrot community.
What Is The InvestorCarrot Marketplace And How Does It Help Make Your Life Easier?
As a real estate investor, when getting real estate investing leads online… launching an effective website is just the first step.
But if you’re wanting to drive a lot of traffic to your websites (motivated sellers, cash buyers, private lenders, rent to own tenants, note sellers, etc.) you or someone has to roll up their sleeves to get to work.
InvestorCarrot gives you a huge jumpstart with our real estate investing websites to rank better in Google and convert your leads much higher than the industry average… and our support is what we’ve been told time and time again is the best in the industry by far.
So now with our new Carrot Marketplace, we’re making it as easy as buying milk (or carrots :-) at the grocery store to find the vendors, services, and help so you can ramp up your results even faster.
What Will You As An InvestorCarrot Customer Find In The NEW Carrot Marketplace?
But here’s a quick snapshot of what you’ll find in there right now… and what we have in store for the marketplace in 2015.
In this first rollout of the marketplace we’re making it easier for you to get access to the services we’ve already been helping you with and offering for months and months… this just streamlines the process and puts the powerfully into your hands.
Online Marketing & Lead Generation Strategy Help And Services
Certified Carrot Preferred Partners: If you want to rank your website better in the search engines, better optimize your SEO, turn on some PPC… we’ve got you covered. Our certified partners have a minimum of over a year experience with our software and our customers before they can be a “Certified Carrot Partner”. Our current partners have pulled top rankings and hundreds of leads for our clients.
Everyday InvestorCarrot customers reach out to us looking for help with their real estate investing PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to help ramp up the traffic and leads. If you’re in a more competitive market (a town over… say 50,000 people)… you’ll likely have to focus some time implementing our 3 Lead Per Day Training to move up the rankings in Google.
Carrot gives you a head start, implementing the steps in the 3 Lead Per Day Training give it a boost.
So you’ll now be able to connect directly with vetted and Certified Carrot Partners who can do the SEO and PPC work for you if you’d rather just have someone else do it.
These same vendors have been working with InvestorCarrot members for over a year and pulled some pretty amazing results in the process (top Google rankings in markets all across the country and consistent leads each and every day)
Help Customizing And Optimizing Your Websites
Want To Be Hands Off? Our team can handle all of your customizations and branding for you if you want. There’s no excuses for not getting results now ;-)
We’re always focusing on making InvestorCarrot even easier to get highly effective websites up for your real estate investing business quickly… whether you’re a techie or not.
But, if you’d rather have us do the branding for you… and build out your city-specific pages for you… and help build your personal credibility into your websites for you so you don’t have to lift a finger, that’s where this section comes in.
Access our QuickStart service where we ask you 13 simple questions, and our team gets to work customizing your websites to fit your business, branding, and goals.
Plus have our team help you capture more traffic with city-specific / local pages and more!
These are all things you can easily do for yourself inside your InvestorCarrot account… but if you’d rather focus on what you do best and have us do it for you, we’ve got you covered.
Premium Training
The Fire That Fuels Your Growth: Our 2 flagship trainings (only available to InvestorCarrot members currently) are now in the Marketplace. But be on the lookout for more advanced training and tools to help you get an edge in your market.
Our members are generating well over 10,000 opt-in leads per month right now (that doesn’t count phone call leads)… and a huge part of it is the combination of the effectiveness of our website platform and the training you can access as an InvestorCarrot member.
Right now you’ll find our Posts 2 Profits Craigslist training and our 3 Lead Per Day (SEO, PPC, Youtube marketing course) in the Carrot Marketplace.
But we plan on launching more Premium Trainings in 2015 (in addition to our weekly LIVE Carrot Coaching Calls FREE to Content Pro members) to help you market effectively on Facebook, use Retargeting to “fetch back” more leads, and more! So keep an eye out for new Premium Trainings.
Get InvestorCarrot Swag
Why have a company name like Carrot if you’re not going to have fun with it and be loud and proud about it? Right? :-)
Well, now you can get Carrot Swag right in the marketplace.
Want a t-shirt (American Apparel – Made in the USA)? Grab one.
How about some awesome note pads with our Core Values on them… grab those in our “Carrot Swag Bag” which includes a t-shirt, a NEW Carrot Bud doll, Carrot stickers, and our awesome Carrot Idea Pads.
What’s In Store For 2015 With The Carrot Marketplace?
We’re working furiously on developing new features into the software to solidify our place as the leading Inbound Online Marketing platform for Real Estate Investors… which we’ll release to members as we finish them up.
But, we’ve realized that some features don’t make sense to build into every website that is launched. Things like an advanced BirdDog Referral Program system to help you generate bird dogs to find you more deals. Or “built for you” Podio apps to help you better manage your lead flow. Or marketing campaigns that are crushing it for people. Or 1 on 1 strategy consulting with me and our top performing Carrot members to help you bust past your roadblocks and excel… you get the idea.
So be on the lookout for other resources, tools, and website add-ons so you can further leverage InvestorCarrot to reach your goals.
And heck, if you have ideas for great resources, tools, and new functionality for your InvestorCarrot websites please shoot them our way!
Be on the lookout for more announcements about new features and enhancements over the next several months. We’ve got some in store that we know you’re going to LOVE.
Sound Off Below About The New Marketplace!
Hit me w/ comments and questions below… or if you’re not an InvestorCarrot member yet but are considering it, throw your questions my way! We’re here for you and would love for you to be a part of the success that our members are having (10k+ leads per month and growing!).
At least a half dozen times a week I get emails from our customers and Carrot newsletter subscribers asking a question like…
“I see my bounce rate is 72% and that seems high. Is it? And does the bounce rate on your website really matter?”
First off… you may be wondering what a “bounce rate” for a real estate investor website is… why your bounce rate matters (and why it may not matter much at all)… and whether yours is even high in the first place (because it may not be).
A few things to think about before I dive in… so you know whether this post is for you.
Do you value ranking high in Google for phrases your motivated seller, buyers, tenants, private lenders, etc. are searching?
Do you want to increase the number of leads you’re getting online?
If so, you’ll want to read this post :-)
First…
Does The Bounce Rate On Your Website Really Matter?
What Is A Bounce Rate Anyway?
(in simple terms)
As far as Google is concerned, in their own words, a bounce rate on a website is… “The percentage of single-page sessions on your website”. In simpler terms… the number of visitors to your website who land on your site… then don’t click anything else and visit any other pages on your site.
Now, that’s the technical term.
But keep in mind… since your real estate investor websites should focus on generating leads… and a certain % of your visitors will just pick up the phone and call you (especially motivated sellers with our InvestorCarrot websites) without clicking on other pages on your website, those visitors will be considered a “bounced” visitor as far as Google is concerned.
So for a lead generation focused website that has a clear call to action for the visitor to pick up the phone and call you, your actual bounce rate may be a tad lower than your Google Analytics bounce report is showing you.
In addition, I’ve been asked hundreds of times… “What is a good bounce rate?”.
Really that’s a tough question.
It really depends on where your traffic is coming from and what the purpose of your website is.
If you run a news website and you have a bounce rate of 75%… that may not be a bad thing because people tend to read 1 article and then leave.
If you run an online store selling cool gadgets… and your have a 75% bounce rate… that means people aren’t engaging on your site, checking out other items, or placing things in the shopping cart. In that case 75% isn’t a good thing at all.
Last, if your website is geared primarily as a lead generation tool (especially for motivated real estate sellers)… you shouldn’t really expect a bounce rate below 40%. Heck, you likely shouldn’t expect a bounce rate much below 60% on a page specifically geared to get a motivated seller to sell you their house (unless you use one strategy that we’re testing right now that is yielding lower bounce rates but sellers that aren’t as highly motivated in general… but the jury is still out).
As a great basis of comparison… below is a screenshot of the traffic stats from our Carrot customers for this past 7 days.
Actual Traffic Stats From Our Members Websites In The Past 7 Days
Thousands Of Leads… have been generated by Carrot members and top search engine rankings for tons of competitive phrases have been grabbed or held in this past week. The AVERAGE bounce rate is 66.54%… is that good? See below…
Why Can Your Bounce Rate Sometimes Be A Big Deal (and when you should not pay much attention to it)?
Before you check your Google Analytics account and freak out because your bounce rate is 75%… just know that your bounce rate isn’t anything to really sweat over unless you’re really focusing hard on SEO and the conversation rate of your website and are in a place where you’re starting to ramp up your traffic to your website.
If you’re just now getting rolling with your website… or haven’t really started to focus on generating SEO traffic much… skip the rest of this post and go out there and focus on generating traffic to your website first.
NOTE: If you’re an InvestorCarrot member, you can have access to our 3 Lead Per Day training for just $99 that walks through in simple steps how to generate traffic to your websites, rank better, and cut the learning curve. If you’re not generating more than 100 visitors a month to your site yet… don’t worry about your bounce rate! Worry about getting more people to your website first, bounce rate later.
Bounce rate is something we’ve focused on with the way we’ve built our InvestorCarrot websites… so you don’t have to worry about that stuff if you’re a Carrot member.
If you have a website you’ve built yourself, on another system, or had a web guy build one for you who isn’t an expert in real estate investing lead generation… and you’re ready to ramp your leads up… your bounce rate is something you should have an eye on.
Here are a couple of the main reasons you should keep an eye on your bounce rate as a real estate investor.
Bounce Rate Can Affect Your SEO Rankings
It’s been long known that Google looks at hundreds of factors when deciding where your website should rank.
Several of those factors are what are called “user signals”… which are things that the actual website visitor does based on the quality of your website.
According to a recent report put out by SearchMetrics, both Time on Site and Bounce Rate show a positive correlation… that websites that rank in the top 10 in Google tend to have good bounce rates and a longer than average time on site.
There is a slight positive correlation... to having a low bounce rate and longer than average “time on site” by the visitor… as seen by Search Metrics in this recent report. This picture above is just one part of the full report of all SEO ranking correlations.
Your bounce rate isn’t one of the first things I’d tell an investor to focus on to increase your rankings… but if you’re struggling to crack into page 1 or rise up page 1 for a search term like “sell house fast DC” or something… take a look and see if your bounce rate is 70% +… or your time on site is less than about 100 seconds.
If it is — you should do something about it for sure.
With InvestorCarrot, to give you a basis of comparison on the “time on site” metric, below are 2 snapshots from our own Google Analytics account.
Avg. Time On Site For The Past 12 Months Across Hundreds Of Investor Websites
Avg. Time On Site… for InvestorCarrot websites the past 12 months. This takes into consideration the seasonally slower and less responsive winter months for buyers and sellers.
Avg. Time On Site For The Busy Warm Months In 2014 Across Hundreds Of Investor Websites
As a comparison… the average time on site and bounce rate in the “busy” warm months for seller leads
If you see your bounce rate more than what you see above or your time on site less than what you see above (especially if your average visitor stays less than 100 seconds on site)… check out InvestorCarrot.
Those rates are the average rates across our platform… so some members websites are doing MUCH better because they’re driving more highly targeted and quality traffic… while others are driving lower quality traffic that may “bounce” much more quickly.
In the end, your bounce rate and time on site are factors that can affect your search engine rankings… but don’t spend a lot of time on them if you haven’t even focused on the higher leverage activities you can do to rank better first.
Bounce Rate Is An Indicator On Whether Your Site Is Converting Well Or Not
Another thing that the bounce rate is a leading indicator for… is how well your website is performing.
If your website is geared to convert visitors to leads and you have a bounce rate over 80% lets say, you can bet that the website likely isn’t performing very well on the conversion side of things.
But, does a bounce rate of 70% mean that your website isn’t converting well?
Not necessarily.
In some markets with PPC marketing, a 9-14% conversion rate is a solid conversion rate for motivated sellers. You could conceivably have a website with a 70% bounce rate and still have a respectable conversion rate of a lead.
What To Do About Your Website Bounce Rate And Let’s Eliminate The Bounce Rate Fear Today…
If you’re not generating much traffic or leads yet… you shouldn’t even be worrying about bounce rate at all. You should be focusing on the higher leverage things to get traffic to your site. Bounce rate is priority number 1,004 on your list of things to worry about at this point.
As an InvestorCarrot member, go through our SEO tools and training… our Craigslist Marketing Course, etc. And heck, our system already has a very good bounce rate and among the best time on site stats in the industry.
If you’re not a Carrot member, no sweat. There are lots of things you can do to start ranking better in Google and getting more leads. In fact, we have free resources here on this website that’ll help you do that.
If you are on page 1 or close… and are having a tough time getting that #1 ranking and you have a bounce rate over 70%… you may want to see what you can do to improve your bounce rate and time on site… it could help give you an edge in Google’s eyes.
Ways To Reduce Your Bounce Rate
Join InvestorCarrot so your website loads faster, is mobile optimized, has better and more engaging content that keeps people on your website longer, and has the conversion elements built into the website to convert higher than the average real estate investing website.
If you’re not on InvestorCarrot, if you’re using just a squeeze page… stop! Use a full lead generation website to ramp up your time on site and lower your bounce rate (and increase your leads).
Write better and more powerful content that engages the person on your site.
Stop using videos that auto play when someone lands on your site (that’s a bounce rate killer).
Make the first impression of your website be a good one. It should feel credible, inviting, and make a connection with the visitor.
In the end, don’t fret about bounce rate if you haven’t started to generate more than 100 visitors a month through your SEO or PPC so far.
And if you have a bounce rate over 70% but are still getting great leads… don’t sweat it! Focus on the big things that will help you drive more traffic and improve conversions… and if you keep doing the right things and keep building your website to provide value to your web visitors your bounce rate may just take care of itself.
I’m sure you’re thinking the same thing… but it’s been insane how darn fast 2014 flew by. It seems like just last week I was sitting at a local coffee shop I like to hang out at on “non office days” writing up my 2014 goals… and getting with our team and jotting down how we’d rule the world in 2014.
And the funny / scary thing is… the years only get faster.
Before we know it we’ll be looking back on 2015 reviewing how the year went… and asking ourselves if we did what we wanted to do the previous 12 months.
That to me is a huge motivator. Knowing that time is going to pass whether I get focused, excited, and make stuff happen or not. So we might as well give it all we’ve got… ignore the naysayers… and crush it in life and business.
So… with the end of our first full year in business here at InvestorCarrot… providing what high achieving real estate investors all over the country are calling “the best real estate investor websites I’ve seen” again and again (we’re attracting more top notch investors in each market than any other website system for real estate investors)… I want to dive into some of the things the InvestorCarrot community was able to achieve in 2014… some of our biggest wins and failures as a young company… and what you’re in store for in 2015 as an InvestorCarrot community member (whether you’re an active customer of ours or not… you’ll benefit BIG TIME in 2015).
7 Things We’re Insanely Proud Of For 2014
2014 was a great year for us as a company and for our customers… here’s 7 things we’re proud as heck of for 2014.
1. Tons Of Customer Love And RESULTS (Leads and Deals) In Our Thread Of Awesomeness
Around the start of 2014 we started something we call the “Thread of Awesomeness” here at InvestorCarrot as an internal team tool to help us all keep our eye on why we do what we do. Each week… when any member of our team interacts with a customer who has an AWESOME result or experience… we throw it into this chat thread that we use internally as a team… called The Thread of Awesomeness.
I wish I could show you all of the hundreds of awesome comments customers sent us in 2014 (we averaged 7 per week!)… but this snapshot below from just 1 week in December is a pretty good representation of the types of “AWESOMENESS” happening for our Carrot members using our system.
That stuff keeps us motivated to do what we do… and our team
Our Thread Of Awesomeness: A snapshot of just a few things our customers sent to us in 1 week of December on the results they’re getting with their InvestorCarrot websites! That’s AWESOME right there!
2. Nearly 500% Increase In Traffic and Leads For Our Customers!
This kind of speaks for itself. Almost a 500% increase in traffic to our customers websites.
A few cool stats for the year…
2,052,930 page views
656,736 visitors
Nearly 1 million visits
An average visit time of almost 2 and a half minutes(average… our most successful members are seeing a time on site of over 3 minutes!)
And this winter our customers generated nearly 10,000 leads per month to their websites (and growing)
3. Spreading Carrot Delight To Our Customers With Crazy Great Support!
One thing I said I wouldn’t compromise going into launching InvestorCarrot was on support. In fact… “delivering wow” to our customers is one of our Carrot Core Values (which we both live by and work by). To us here at InvestorCarrot great customer experiences is a heck of a lot more fun than crappy customer experiences. It makes it fun coming into work when the customers you work with really like ya.
Customers can rate their experience with us when they connect with us through support and over this past 12 months 90% of our customers rated us as having GREAT service, 8% rated our support Okay and 2% poor (can’t make everyone happy eh :-)… that’s on 3,233 tickets we resolved for our customers in 2014!
How Our Customers Rated Our Customer Service In 2014: 90% rated us as “GREAT”, 8% rated us Good… the other 2%… can’t make everyone happy :-)
Another cool metric we’re proud as heck of… that 98% of InvestorCarrot member support requests were replied to within 24 hours… 89% in under 6 hours… and most in under 1 hour during work hours! Try us and see :-)
98% Of Your Support Requests were replied to within less than 24 hours during work hours… 89% in under 6 hours. Most under 1 hour!!! That’s fast and the best in the industry.
4. Our Carrot Team Grew Stronger
The Core Of InvestorCarrot: Here’s a pic of part of our team here at InvestorCarrot in a recent “in-office” day when the team was working from our headquarters in Roseburg, Oregon. Not all of our team lives in Roseburg… so we have bi-weekly “in-office” days so we can work in person!
Going into 2014 we had a full-time team of 5. With a couple team adjustments and shifts over 2014… we re-focused on the core of what we’re great at… and brought aboard a kick butt new team member in November… and strengthened our relationships with a few key partners to help in areas where we’re not ready to build in-house teams quite yet.
5. Releasing Dozens And Dozens Of Software Updates, Trainings, And Complete New Features
(like sms alerts and more!)
During 2014 we held 50+ LIVE weekly Carrot Coaching Calls (which are included in all Content Pro plans at no additional cost), simplified the software over the way it was to end 2013, added additional features like sms / text message lead alerts, more integrations like Zapier, simplified YouTube video embeds, Content Pro content marketing system, and more!
We’re releasing updates to the software on an almost daily basis… and plan to ramp that effort up in 2015 to really focus on a few big game changers for our customers to help you generate more traffic and leads. Keep an eye out :-)
6. Restarting Our Carrot Blog With Great, Useful Content To Help You Grow
In November we launched the new design of this blog and renewed our commitment to bringing you behind the scenes content that will help you move the needle in your business each week to generate more leads, rank your websites better, increase your website conversion, and improve your happiness as an entreprenuer.
Keep an eye out for our weekly posts in your inbox and join in the conversation each week!
In fact, what do you want us to write about more in 2015? Let me know in the comments below :-)
7. Growing A Profitable, Fun, And Effective Business Starting With Just Our Sweat, Focus, And Hard Work
Too many companies try to hide the “sensitive” parts of their business from their customers… like revenues and profits… but really there’s no need to hide your successes or failures from your clients.
In fact, by growing a profitable company it’s actually a great thing for customers. That means more cash for innovation, more cash for building an even stronger support team (which we’re looking to hire another Customer Success Hero in early 2015!), more cash to move faster to keep YOU… our customers ahead of the curve from your competition.
So we’re proud as heck that we’ve grown a company this past year and a half that is very profitable, without outside funding, with a small team 100% based here in Oregon, that is doing great things for (and with) our customers. Without this big win… the other “wins” above honestly wouldn’t matter… and we’ll continue to grow and manage this company to ensure stability and innovation for our customers and our own families in 2015 and beyond.
3 Biggest “Failures” And How We’ll Improve Them In 2015
With the great year we had… also came some bumps and bruises that we survived. Most of them were self inflicted and totally avoidable… but lessons we had to learn in order to grow stronger to the point we are today.
1. Losing Focus Of Who Our Core Customer Is
This is a biggie. At times during the year we lost our way and created things in our software and marketing efforts that focused on the wrong customer. Our ideal customer is a high achieving investor. Someone who is motivated, who isn’t using real estate as a new business “opportunity”… but rather a serious career, and who is ready and willing to invest time, money, or both to accelerate their results online.
You’ll see a tighter focus on this type of person in 2015 which will dramatically improve your results.
2. Not Building The Business WE Wanted To Build
It’s really easy to listen to outsiders and let their opinions influence the way you live life and grow your real estate investing business. We did that a bit too much at times this past year as well… growing InvestorCarrot at times in directions that really didn’t resonate with me at my core on the reason we created this company in the first place.
Now with a renewed focus on our vision, why we exist as a company, our ideal customer that we can help the most, and the life we want to live… we’re already on an exciting and more focused track to crushing it in 2015… the way WE WANT TO DO IT.
3. Lack Of Organization And Focus At Times Led Us In Wrong Directions
This one is honestly directed mainly at me as the CEO of the company.
This has always been a weakness of mine and something I’m continually working to improve. me personally… not being as organized as the leader of the company as I need to be. Which led to things like announcing releases in the software and training and not hitting many of the dates I put out there, etc.
So the last 2 months I’ve personally had to make a renewed commitment to being more organized. My team has helped with this a lot and we’re now relying better on systems to track our projects, communicate better as a team, and be more focused and clear on our goals and objectives each month and week.
I’ll write a post in 2015 walking through what we’ve done to really start the transformation to working more focused, organized, and be less busy on a daily basis.
Some Things To Expect From InvestorCarrot In 2015
As great of a year it was in 2014… it won’t compare to the year we have planned out for 2015.
Yes, we’ll be continuing to build out the best inbound online marketing platform for real estate investors with additions to help you rank your websites better and easier, track your rankings instantly, increase the conversions on your websites even further, get more leads, manage those leads more easily with systems (like Podio, coming soon), and more!
But what we’re going to really focus on in 2015 is not just features… but finding better ways to help you get personalized guidance to get you the results you want in your business and your life.
This includes…
Our New Marketplace – Soon you’ll be able more easily find the tools, resources, training, and help to get you even better results. Look out for this in January 2015
More Industry Best TrainingOpportunities– Our Carrot members have come to know and love our weekly LIVE Coaching Calls with me and our other team members… but we want to spread the love in 2015. Starting in January everyone in our Carrot community can come to a new monthly training call open to all subscribers to our email list.
More Personal Guidance – Our customers have asked, and we’re making it easier for you to get more personalized help as you need it as a Carrot member. This means more ways to connect with people who can help you implement your SEO, PPC, and lead gen strategy… more ways to get tailored action plans to what you need to do to get results in your market.
Honing Our Inbound Lead Generation Tools Within Carrot – We’re proud of what InvestorCarrot has grown to become. But we have a greater vision for how we can make your life easier and more profitable in 2015 with better tools to help you rank your website, generate more leads more easily, and spend less time customizing things on your websites… and more time doing what you love to do.
We’re really excited about 2015 and are thankful for a great community of investors who are really supporting what we’re doing here at InvestorCarrot to help transform the way high achieving real estate investors use the internet to grow their real estate business.
How Was Your 2014 And Where Do You Want To Improve In 2015?
Let’s continue the convo in the comments below!
In the “good ol’ days” you could log in to your Google Analytics account and actually see what keywords your website visitors typed into search engines to land on your website.
Knowing how a motivated real estate seller, tenant for a rental property, cash buyer, etc landed on your website is a big deal.
It shows you what is working on your real estate investing website to get people to your site, what to keep focusing on, what to stop doing… you get the idea.
But… today… your Google Analytics account may look a bit like this picture below. I took this screenshot today on the traffic from some of the recent organic search engine results from our InvestorCarrot platform. NEW! Check out Carrot’s refreshed robust analytics for Carrot members.
84.17% Of Our Investor Keywords Data Is Being Hidden From Us By Google… What’s The Deal?
Is Your Google Analytics Like This Too? (sure is): A recent screenshot from inside of our Google Analytics account for some of our InvestorCarrot traffic… 84%+ of the organic keyword data is purposefully hidden from us. Why? (see more below…)
Now, before we dive in deep here… I just want to let you know this isn’t a new development.
It actually has been since 2011 but many of our InvestorCarrot customers have been asking us how to find out what search terms their leads are typing in… and this is the largest thing in your way right now to getting that data.
In fact, according to one website… up to 88% of organic search keyword data is hidden purposefully by Google (to force you to “pay to play”).
Why Is Google Analytics Not Showing Me My Organic Search Keyword Data?
A while back Google implemented SSL encryption on all Google accounts. That means if you are logged into Gmail, Google+, YouTube or any other Google service, your web searches are secure and won’t end up in analytics.
What this means in terms of SEO keywords… is you (as the searcher) are not showing up in analytics with the keywords you used in that search on the websites you land on.
Good for the privacy of the searcher…
… not good for us as online marketers.
Rather than showing the SEO keyword data on what your website visitors typed into Google to find your site… it lumps all of those searches together into the ” (not provided) ” group.
But, we have one simple trick for Carrot members to grab back some of this missing data so you can know where more of your website visitors are coming from.
Time to take back some data. Let’s dive in!
How To Take Back Some Of Your Organic Keyword Data In Google Analytics
(a 15 min trick that’s worth it for advanced real estate investor / online marketers)
Before we dive in… if you’re a newer real estate investor and you’re getting less than 100 visitors a month to your website… we suggest you stop here and don’t get overwhelmed by going through the process below.
Why?
Because in the end… we like to teach “just in time” learning and implementation… not “just in case” learning and implementation. Don’t waste the time trying to figure this out when right now you should focus on getting your website ranked higher in your market and driving more traffic to your site.
If you’re getting 100+ visitors from Google searches per month… this may be something you might want to tackle.
The basic process we’re going through here is to connect 2 separate FREE Google services to get the data we want to see.
Ya… a pain in the butt… but totally worth it.
1. Set Up FREE Google Analytics Tracking On Your Website If You Haven’t Already
First things first, we need to get Google Analytics tracking code on your Carrot site. Here’s a tutorial below on how to do this in your InvestorCarrot account.
If you’re not a Carrot member yet, no biggie. Find out how to put the tracking code on your website or ask your web guy to do so for you (or join Carrot and streamline the entire process :-). You will need a Google account in order to set up Google analytics. If you have this already in place. Great, skip to the next step.
Quick Tutorial For InvestorCarrot Members On Adding The Google Analytics Tracking Script To Your Websites
2. Create A FREE Google Webmaster Tools Account
Next, you are going to need to create a free Google Webmaster Tools account… link that account with our Google Analytics account… account… then find a report in Analytics called Search Engine Optimization.
Ready, set, let’s go.
Head over to Google Webmaster Tools and log in with your Google account if you haven’t already.
If you haven’t already added your real estate investing websites to your Google Webmaster Tools account… let’s do it. It’ll only take 3 minutes.
Add Your Website To Webmaster Tools – Click “Add a Site”
You will be asked to verify a piece of code on your site to prove you are the owner of it. There are a few ways you can verify that you own the website… but the easiest way is usually by choosing the “HTML Tag” option under “Alternate Methods” (seen below).
Verify You Own Your Website
Take the meta tag and copy/paste it into your Carrot site under the SEO tab in the Google Webmaster Tools field. See below
Verify Meta Tag on Carrot Site
Once you have verified the code correctly you will be able to see your site when you log in to Google Webmaster Tools.
3. Connect Google Webmaster Tools And Google Analytics (super easy)
Now we need to go back to our Google analytics and link up our Webmaster Tools account.
On the left sidebar go to Acquisition Tab > Search Engine Optimization and click Set Up Webmaster Tools Data Sharing.
Once you click you will be redirected to a page where you must scroll to the bottom, and find the edit link.
Choose your site and click Save
4. Access Your SEO Keyword Data!
You’ve basically done it!
Now when you go back to Acquisitions Tab > Search Engine Optimization> Queries you should see many of the keywords that people are typing into Google to find your website that was hidden from Google Analytics before.
What These Investor Keywords Can Tell You As A Real Estate Investor
Really, most real estate investors won’t really ever need this data on a regular basis.
For most investors just knowing how people landed on your website is enough… so you can make sure you’re investing your time and marketing dollars wisely.
For more advanced real estate investors who really focus on online lead generation a lot… if you’re curious not just how people found your website but about what specifically they typed into Google to find you… that’s where this data comes in handy.
Here’s how I use the SEO keyword data in Google Analytics to get more traffic (sellers, buyers, tenants, etc.).
If you know that people are starting to land on your website for… let’ssay… “sell my Chicago house fast” because you found it in the Search Engine Optimization Queries tab down the list a bit… you can Google that phrase and see where you come up in the search results. Then implement steps to improve that ranking.
Treat these keywords kind of like an “early alert” that you’re starting to get traffic from a keyword.
Then once you know people are landing on your site from a keyword… ramp that traffic up by ranking better… OR, if you’re doing Google PPC marketing you can add that keyword to your ad groups to target ads to.
We’ll save an even more advanced step which involves using a free Google Adwords account as well to get even better data on your SEO keyword search data that Google is trying their darndest to hide from you for another post soon.
Like this tip? Hit me with your questions or insights on what you’re learning from your newfound SEO keyword data!
Don’t make your real estate investor marketing tough on yourself! Just take it one step at a time. Today’s post will show you expected and unexpected strategies for real estate investor lead generation.
As the real estate market gets increasingly competitive, the search for quality inventory becomes tougher every day.
If you’re like most of our members, you’d prefer to have your phone ring… you don’t want to cold call people from a list, right? I’ve done quite a bit of cold calling over the years myself, and even though I’m pretty good at it, it’s way more work… it’s a whole lot easier to learn solid inbound marketing practices from others, then replicate them for yourself.
My goal here of this blog is to take the best practices from others who are some of the best at real estate investor lead generation and bring them to you. Like a butler carrying a silver tray…. I want to serve lead generation techniques to you with style. :)
We’ve shown you the not-so-secret formula for lead generation is simple: traffic & conversions.
One fun thing to remember: traffic can come from anywhere. If you have a creative, fun or clever way to generate leads: do it! Don’t get stuck in “paralysis by analysis” — trust yourself when you think “hey, this might work.”
Unique Strategies for Real Estate Investor Lead Generation
The Expected:
Google Search
Optimize Your Real Estate Investor Lead Generation Websites
Craigslist for Real Estate Investors
Bandit Signs and Bus Stops
Direct Mail
Bird Dogging
Develop Properties
The Unexpected:
Bing, Yahoo and “Off-Google” Search
Optimize Yelp, Facebook… Everything
Local Classifieds
Flyers at Laundromats and Non-Profits
Door Knocking with a “Down Payment”
Turn Your Vendors Into Business Partners
Develop Communities
Expected: Google Search
Carrot Members Ranking Organically on Google for We Buy Houses Los Angeles
Definitely one of our favorite places to generate leads!
A good chunk of our business comes from folks who search phrases like “real estate investor websites” online… then discover InvestorCarrot. They check us out, learn that we’ve got an awesome reputation… then start learning from us, launch a website, follow our training… and then get great results.
Lots of our members are beating their competitors on the top Google keywords in their markets using our sites. It’s super cool to see.
Carrot Members Ranking Organically on Bing for We Buy Houses Los Angeles
While Google gets about 66% of the traffic, they seem to get about 99% of the attention.
That leaves almost a third of the traffic out there without much competition. PPC costs are usually way lower on off-brand networks (although the conversion rates are often lower too, it still often ends up being cheaper than Google).
Expected: Optimize Your Real Estate Investor Lead Generation Websites
You know that you should be optimizing your website, right? Optimization is critical to getting found on search.
Did you know that investors are using pages on other platforms to crowd out their competition in search, too?
I’ve seen pages on Yelp, Facebook, YouTube, Zillow, blog sites, and other big platforms used to dominate top keywords in busy markets.
This is a really smart strategy because sites like Yelp and Facebook already have a ton of authority, so it’s way easier to rank your business’s page on their high-credibility site than on your brand new domain name.
I’d love to see more of our members dominating their local search by ranking different websites on the same keywords… and crowding out their competition.
Already a Carrot Member? Check Out Carrot’s Facebook Leads Masterclass
Unexpected: Geebo, Reachoo, and Other Local Classifieds
The same techniques that work so well on Craigslist also work for other local classified sites. I know one real estate investor who has had the same tiny little ad running for years in his local paper… I think he said it costs him about $80 per month to keep it there, and he makes about $25,000 per year off of the transactions that ad generates.
If you’ve got a local newspaper that doesn’t charge a ton, it’s probably a good idea to run a tiny ad with your phone number, especially if your competitor *isn’t* doing it.
It’s also not a bad idea to post ads on a lot of the free online sites that imitate Craigslist. On some of those sites, you might even get some SEO benefit when you link back to your site from your profile.
Lots of investors have tried putting up signs or buying bus stop ads.
They work, although paid ads are expensive and bandit signs are illegal in many areas (that’s why they got called “bandit” signs… cause they’re breaking the law).
Unexpected: Flyers at Laundromats and Non-Profits
If someone can’t afford to fix their washer, they might need to sell their house, right?
Most laundromats have a bulletin board where you can hang a flyer. Better yet, buy the laundromat. People pump quarters into those things all day long. ;)
Seriously though, make some quality fliers (or if you don’t have graphic design skills, hire someone)… and find the places where people go when they’re down-and-out.
Talk to folks at non-profit agencies who help with foreclosure and probate assistance, and see if they need a partner who buys houses or helps with short sales (depending on your specialties). You may be able to give them a donation from every transaction, depending on referral laws in your state. Check with a good attorney to be sure.
If you can build trust with the right agencies, you’ll have an ongoing deal pipeline for a long time. There are some insanely smart community development organizations who build housing and are solid real estate professionals. Don’t underestimate them.
If you can provide a great service for the same population they serve, they’ll be a great business alliance.
Plus, the partnership that you establish with them is great for press and building future credibility.
Expected: Direct Mail
Direct mail is still a viable real estate investor lead generation option, and it’s easy to replicate. There are a lot of systems for sale out there. It’s pretty expensive, and everyone’s doing it… if you’re in a busy market and using a popular system, you’re probably sending the same stuff as your competitors.
It’s still better than doing nothing. Direct mail campaigns tend to have about a 2-3% success rate, on average… so you’re definitely playing a numbers game.
Unexpected: Door Knocking with a “Down Payment”
I know this real estate investor lead generation method sounds crazy! But I know investors who do really well just walking up to houses and knocking on the door.
Of course, they know who they are targeting… after signs of disrepair, utility notices, etc., they walk up to the door… and if the owner is home, they give that person a $5 bill along with a business card… and let the homeowner know that it’s just a “down payment” when that seller is ready to sell. It’s pretty easy to get their contact info – shoot, let ’em know you wanna send ’em another $5 on their birthday.
I love that strategy… it’s a powerful psychological trigger to take money from someone.
And if you’re thinking “whoa, that’s a fast way to lose $5” – then you’ve probably never run a pay-per-click campaign on Google. If you’re not planning to spend some time and/or money on lead acquisition, you’re not making a serious plan.
Developing a list of people who have taken your “$5 down payment” and actually staying in touch with those people is a great way to get access to properties before anyone else in your market. You don’t want to go around giving away money… but if you can set yourself up to buy houses before anyone else, you’re winning.
Expected: Bird Dogging
Lots of real estate investors team up with “bird dogs” to send them leads. These are folks who (hopefully) do the work of finding potential off-market property sellers and then send you the leads. Depending on the bird dog and the strength of the lead, this might average out to a cost of $50-$1,500 per transaction.
Unexpected: Turn Your Vendors Into Business Partners
Often the people you already know are your key to growing your business… you might just not see the opportunity.
If you know an ambitious person… might be a sibling or a cousin, could be a virtual assistant, a student or a partially retired friend… even your spouse.
If you find someone who isn’t afraid to knock on doors and talk to people, that person could be a great potential partner for your real estate business. Or maybe you’re the type of person who loves to talk but hates technical details — then you might want to find someone who can help you crush it with online marketing.
Depending on the laws in your state, it might even make sense for you to help that person buy property under his or her name – or even together under a new LLC.
There are a lot of creative ways to structure deals.
As many industry veterans will tell you, often the price doesn’t matter as much as the terms.
When you’re calculating your profit from a transaction, what’s important isn’t just the price you paid… it’s the money you made.
If your subcontractor, virtual assistant, and your family are all working to help your business grow – if they have incentives, motivation and a clear path – you’ll have a
So don’t be afraid to partner up with other people who can help you generate leads…. and don’t be afraid to publish in unexpected places!
Expected: Develop Properties
As a real estate investor, you should always be looking for easy ways to add value to properties. If you could spend $5,000 to improve the landscaping and increase your sale price by $50,000 – that would be a no-brainer of a decision, right?
I like to think of my investments on a timeline… where can I add value today that I can pull out for the highest return later?
In other words, if I can get my hands on a fully-rented apartment building with crummy apartments and slowly rehab each one for pennies on the dollar by keeping a few decent workers busy, I’ll make a lot more money by never having to lose my cash flow.
If I build a 30-unit building from scratch, I’d have to have the money to wait until the building is mostly finished before I even take in any money… that means I’d have to take out a lot of loans, which all cut into my profit.
So generally speaking, I look for properties that are already occupied, but not making the kind of cash flow they could be making if they were cleaned up, improved and well-managed.
But either way, it comes down to the money… I like to find properties that need mostly cosmetic improvements because those are the cheapest ways to develop.
Great investors know how to add value to the properties they own to get exponential rates of return.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with some truly great investors along the way, and I’m looking forward to sharing more of what I learned from them… and what I’m still learning today from our awesome Carrot members – we’re lucky to have some of the nation’s top investors as our members, and we’re growing every day.
Unexpected: Develop Communities
As some of you know, I spent a decade in Chicago real estate… actually more when you count the years I spent as a kid getting dragged around to open houses by my mother, who loved to keep tabs on all the neighborhood real estate activity.
I got involved with over $1 billion worth of real estate during my time in Chicago… most of it when I was the managing broker of a really busy real estate brokerage that helped to develop one of the coolest communities – the Wicker Park / Bucktown / Logan Square areas on the city’s Northwest side.
My boss then was a tiger, and I’m sure she still is today. She built an amazing business from the ground up out of sheer will and determination.
She represented some of the top developers on the Near Northside – guys who would buy millions of dollars worth of properties each week, as inventory became available. My boss sold the condos and buildings. I managed the office, training leasing and sales agents. We sold over $100M in sales volume and leased out hundreds of apartments each year. It was the glory days of a booming economy.
But together, we sold a story. It was a story about the neighborhood, about the community… about the histories and cultures of the people who lived there.
After years and years of working in those communities, we saw incredible growth. Now, that wasn’t just from our efforts, or those of our developers… there were huge economic forces in a city like Chicago much larger than anything we were doing.
As successful brokers, we knew how to own the story of the neighborhood.
We sold it to our clients: buyers, sellers, investors, developers, and tenants.
Everyone wanted to participate in something larger than themselves… that’s that feeling of community that feels so good. When you’re really helping others, it shows… and people want to be a part of it.
Your Real Estate Investor Lead Generation Efforts…
should be centered on your community.
We do the same with Carrot: we think of our members first. We want to help you do the best possible marketing for your real estate investment business.
What’s working for you? Any unexpected techniques or tricks we should try? What’s got you stuck? What can we help you improve or understand better?
Trying to decide if SEO is a good strategy for marketing your real estate business? This post will help you.
SEO for real estate marketing can be a great source for lead generation, but there are some situations where it’s a terrible waste of time and money.
5 Times When You Should NOT Use SEO for Real Estate Marketing
Here’s when NOT to use SEO for Real Estate Marketing…
1. When you’re starting a brand new business
There’s just too much high-priority work to be done, and you should NOT be focusing on search engine optimization.
When you’re new to the business or setting up a brand new website, you should focus on driving traffic to the site via methods like Craigslist, PPC, direct mail, bandit signs, flyers… anything that can reach folks right now to bring you a lead today.
2. When you need leads fast
It takes many months for a new site to rank high on Google, so don’t expect leads from local search to pay your bills anytime soon. If you’re trying to rank high for an ultra-competitive term, it can take lots of time, money and effort before you see a big pay off.
SEO is always a long-term investment. The return on investment can be huge, but it’s never a fast source of leads. The fastest and cheapest source of leads that we’ve found so far is Craigslist.
Right now, our members are getting insanely great results from the Craigslist training that we recently launched… so if you’re already a Carrot Member wanting fast leads, access that Craigslist training here (and if you’re not already a member, sign up here).
3. When you don’t have the budget
Good SEO efforts require time from people who know their stuff. It’s complicated work.
If you’ve got the time and the passion to become an expert on SEO, we are happy to help you learn.
We’ve helped lots of folks learn how to generate leads from SEO with our real estate training, but you’ve gotta be willing to put in the time and energy to learn those new skills.
SEO services can be relatively cheap – starting at $5,000 per year – just one deal can pay for the whole year. We know lots of SEO companies out there charge way more than that, and they don’t deliver results.
But don’t hire an SEO service if you’re not financially ready yet…. do a few deals from other sources, and add SEO to your long-term marketing strategies when you’re ready.
4. When you can spend the money better elsewhere
Don’t do SEO because it seems cool, sexy or everyone else is doing it. Those aren’t good reasons.
SEO should be a key part of your business strategy, but it’s not critical to your success.
In fact, if your market is under 200,000 people, SEO might not be able to produce much ROI for you. If the search traffic isn’t there, you won’t get any leads.
Doing SEO for a term that’s not getting any searches is like fishing on a dry creek – if you’re having fun, great… just don’t expect to catch anything.
You know it already, but I’ll say it again: There are lots of ways to get traffic to your site.
Sometimes a few hundred dollars worth of cheap signs can get quite a few leads into your business.
Sometimes a few Craigslist ads are enough to bring in the next deal.
Sometimes a good AdWords account is enough to bring in a consistent flow of leads.
Sometimes all it takes is a flyer hanging up at the local laundromat. After all, if folks can’t afford to fix their washer and dryer, they might be thinking about selling their property.
5. When you’re just not ready
Don’t stress about SEO.
It’s not going anywhere. In fact, I’ve read that real estate related searches are increasing at 15X per year.
Chances are good that it will be a good strategy for you in the future, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for where you’re at today.
Carrot Members: Remember to join us for your weekly Coaching Calls… we’re looking forward to answering any questions you’ve got about real estate investing, lead generation, building traffic, inbound marketing, or any other topic that’s hurting you!
We’re getting ready to launch our Market Domination Plan, so in today’s post we want to share a few of the strategies already being used by top investors around the country to get the majority of Motivated Seller leads in their local markets to them (instead of their competitors).
Of course, these strategies can be used to get leads for Cash Buyers, Private Lenders, Rent-to-Own Tenants, or other target audiences, but Motivated Sellers are the hardest – at least right now.
As you probably know, inventory is a big challenge around the country. Most investors I talk to are having a pretty easy time growing their lists… as long as they have inventory. The ones who don’t have properties to sell are struggling to catch up.
Why is it so tough to get inventory?
In most markets, it’s not too hard to sell a property. There are tons of investors and retail buyers competing for a limited amount of homes.
Pure and simple: in lots of US markets, demand is high and supply is low.
But don’t get me wrong – there is still an incredible amount of opportunity out there. It’s just getting tougher every day to capture it in some of the biggest markets.
That’s why we came up with the Market Domination Plan – to help those investors who are already succeeding and are ready for growth.
Market domination starts with capturing organic search traffic.
Like it shows in the chart below, 91.5% of search traffic comes from page 1.
SEO for real estate investors is really important for your business! We can help you out. If you’re looking to move up in your rankings, we can help – just click the image above to find out more about our SEO service.
Now, keep in mind that the data is from thousands of websites, not just real estate ones… we’ve found there’s actually some great traffic that comes in off of positions 2 and 3, not just #1 – but really, when we’re taking on SEO clients our goal is to get within the top 5 positions for our targeted keywords.
We only start with 3 keywords, because it doesn’t make sense to over-optimize a site for too many keywords – plus it just takes too long to see results when you’re diluting your efforts all over the place.
“We have 2 new ones under contract probably 5 waiting in seller signatures. Doing ppc under our carrot site and your SEO do we should continue to get more and more leads.” Guillermo Coronado
Most investors don’t achieve any big share of the market because they’re diluting their efforts all over the place… great marketing really requires not only a strategic plan, but a great deal of focus and commitment to implement the plan.
Most folks give up on a method before it even has a chance to work… or they fail to do the right research before they start implementing. Either mistake can crush the ROI right out of a great campaign.
But let’s assume that you’ve already ranked your site high on all the major terms… is that enough to crush out the competition?
Nope, sorry…. you’ve got to occupy the prime real estate from more than just one site if you’re going to dominate that market – and shut out other investors from grabbing the leads.
Here’s what that looks like:
Cyndy is generating hundreds of leads with her Carrot sites… click that image to go see Trevor’s deep-dive Case Study to learn what she’s doing to dominate her market
As you can see from that image above, on one of Cyndy’s search terms in her market, she’s ranked in 4 out of the 5 top slots.
Two of those are YouTube videos she’s made and ranked, and another one is a Facebook page.
Plus she’s also operating 8 other websites that are ranking well in her market.
(Sidenote: Cyndy’s converting those over to InvestorCarrot now, because she tests everything… and she found out that her InvestorCarrot site was converting much better than all the other sites she’d spent a ton of time on…. if you don’t have an InvestorCarrot site yet, you can launch a new site in just a few minutes <– go see for yourself right now).
How did this successful real estate investor swarm her market?
Cyndy was smart and she implemented a ton of great strategies to capture online traffic from lots of sources, including Google, YouTube, Facebook and more.
We tell you all you need to know to get great results in our powerful real estate lead generation training program, and in our new Craigslist training program we’ve included great info (along with ads and much more) about the Market Swarm Strategy that Cyndy designed and has been using so well to get results in her market.
Cyndy also uses other methods, like direct mail and signs… as a smart investor, she’s working on nurturing her leads from a lot of different directions, and doing a lot of great marketing.
Great real estate marketing like this takes a lot of time, energy and commitment.
I really admire Cyndy for taking such a strategic approach – and her willingness to share with other investors to help them learn!
How Real Estate Investors Can Dominate Local Search in 3 Steps
Step 1:
Get signed up for InvestorCarrot, launch a Motivated Seller site, learn all about SEO, and rank high.
Step 2:
Drive traffic to your site by posting good content on YouTube, Facebook, Craigslist and other sites.
Step 3:
Create awesome stories and reports to get media attention along with great links.
(Sorry folks, I didn’t say it was gonna be easy… just that it was gonna be 3 steps to Market Domination).
In all seriousness, it’s a ton of work to implement a great content marketing strategy.
But the payoff is huge.
I’ve been doing a ton of research into the search traffic, competition, and PPC costs around the country on behalf of our clients… plus I’ve created a really cool report comparing the top 150+ metro regions around the country.
In fact, I created a unique way to measure each market called the CarrotScore… and I’ve also found the Top 20 Most Overlooked Markets (according to huge amounts of Google’s data that I extracted and crunched across 170 spreadsheets – this report took me weeks of hard work).
I can tell you firsthand that most of the major markets in the US are extremely competitive… people are investing loads of money to get the leads that are coming in from local search.
Some of our clients (like Cyndy) are totally into doing all the hard work to create this stuff from scratch, and we love it… being able to offer up her strategies and Craigslist program has already helped a bunch of our customers generate lots of leads:
“We put up 3 or 4 Craigslist ads right after we got the first part of the P2P program, and we’ve been slammed! We’ve gotten so many leads this week – 15 rent-to-own, 36 new buyers, and a bunch of motivated sellers too!” – Michael Mackay
But some of the best real estate coaches out there will tell you that you shouldn’t be doing so much of your own marketing work… that you need to be focusing on honing your negotiation and acquisition skills, not spending your time implementing your SEO.
We’d love to help you dominate your market… so get started with our SEO program now!
If you’re a Carrot member, join us for our weekly webinar – we’re gonna dive in deep to the Market Domination Strategy, and I’ll show you a special sneak peek at the in-depth research I’ve been doing.
You will be asked to 
