Carrot Website..Is it worth getting?

Question

Im looking into getting a website with "Carrot"  ,onCarrot dot com, which they claim majorly helps with lead generation. From what i see, it looks really good, but is a little pricey, starting at $50/mo..Does anyone out there have a Carrot website and have any personal reviews on it, whether it is a good investment or not? Thanks alot!

Alex Z. · Answer

Whoops, edited to add - I work at Carrot

Jake that is totally a legit question. I could talk for a long time on this subject but will try and be concise.

When a visitor lands on your website our testing has shown there are a couple critical things that need to happen.

• The website must load fast
• The website must build credibility in their eyes or answer a question they have
• The website must be easy to opt-in on (number of form fields, size of the form fields, compelling call to action, etc)
• The website must be easy to opt-in on mobile
• The website must get the right amount of information from them to qualify the lead

So Carrot handles most of that out of the box. More than likely you will need to bring the traffic to the table. If you create a page in a smaller market, it might be as simple as Google crawling your page and ranking you in the top 3 for a keyword.

But for most investors in bigger markets, they are going to actively drive traffic from places like Facebook, Google PPC, Craigslist, YouTube, etc to their website so they can convert visitors into leads.

So HOW Carrot generates leads is by performance. Taking 100 visitors to a non-performing site might generate 1-2 leads. Bringing 100 visitors to a site that is dialed in and converts well might bring in 6-7 leads. So same traffic, but different result.

Jake K. · Answer

Hi Alex,

Thank you for your transparency. I really like the sound of a carrot website and will probably move forward with it shortly.. Just one thing, can you explain HOW Carrot generates leads? and maybe im not understanding, but if Carrot generates leads, Why do I need a marketing, PPC etc, plan? thanks alot!

Alex Z. · Answer

Full Disclosure: I work at Carrot

I get the unique ability to see behind the scenes at Carrot. When you say "they claim to help with lead generation" this is true. Carrot members are able to generate seller, buyer, tenant, and a bunch of other leads through Carrot.

But you do have to do some work to get people to your website. This could be SEO, PPC, Craigslist, etc.

What Carrot really offers is a website that ranks well, gives you all the tools, resources, and capabilities to customize a site and drive traffic to it.

Some of my favorite features at Carrot are the campaign tracking links (for Facebook and PPC ads), the keyword tracking (to see where I am in the SERPS) and the weekly coaching calls to get help with strategy.

As for the $50/mo. I think it's all relative and the famous saying of "as compared to what". I know that a web developer would charge $2k+ to develop a personal website.

I actually just ran into a HUGE issue with a private blog I manage (not a Carrot website) where it was infected with Malware and my hosting provider gave me 3 warnings and shut down my account. I spent the better part of last weekend trying to save my account before ultimately bundling up my WordPress install and moving hosting providers because I couldn't figure out how the malware was being placed on my server. Carrot handles all that type of security and backups so you don't have to. That $50 a month gets you the infrastructure AND the amazing support we offer + plus a website that has proven itself to convert well.

Sorry if this comes off as a sales pitch (I just love Carrot).

To sum up my thoughts in a quick sentence. Carrot is great, but you must come with an online marketing strategy and either put in the work or pay someone to do it. But the benefits from online lead generation can have a 100x ROI.

Happy to answer any questions you may have.