It's all about SEO - Google 1st Page after 3 days
Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes
It's all about SEO - Google 1st Page after 3 days
Most Popular Reply
Investor · Baltimore, MD · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 13k+ votes
14yShane,
What is the site URL and what is the exact search term you are using to come up on the 1st page? Nothing comes up for me with the search "We buy houses Granbury" that looks like it could be your page.
One problem with Google today is they will often show search results customized for your location. This means your site might show up higher for you than it does for someone searching from another part of the country.
62 Replies
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes14y
Hey Dave Meyer, thanks for chiming in :)
I have a blog here on BP that I've been working on. Here's the link:
http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/2845-really-going-to-do-it
I'm not really blogging to generate backlinks, but I am making sure I include a link to my site in every blog post to help my ranking. I write for two reasons: 1, to keep myself on track and motivated, and 2, to give back to this community that's helped me so much over the last year. Hopefully someone reading my blog will be motivated, inspired, or at least entertained by my experiences starting out.
Back to SEO...The one thing I'm learning, is there are LOTS of easy ways to SEO a website:meta title keywords, description keywords, keywords in your text, keywords in the html....and so many other little things. What's hard, is doing it in a way that's worthwhile to the reader, and not spammy. It's an art, and it's fun. I've learned so much just in the last couple weeks about what helps you get ranked. Incorporating all that into copy that's easy to read and creating that warm and fuzzy feeling so they'll sell to me, is a totally different game.
- Investor · Baltimore, MD · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 13k+ votes14y
Originally posted by Shane Woods:
UPDATE, finally cracked the top 20 pages for Fort WorthShane Woods,
I just did another quick check of your site. There are two recommendations I would make.
Your header image apparently does not have a name or title. Name it something like "Real estate in Fort Worth, Weatherford or Granbury."
This image does have an alt [alt="Second Chance Properties"], My understanding is that is the text used when the image can't be found. You might want to change that also.
Some of your other images simply are named "2nd Chance." Another name like "2nd Chance buys fort worth houses. . . " could help your rankings.
The other suggestion is you first headline;
"Need to Sell House in Fort Worth, Weatherford or Granbury?"
is an H4 heading.Change that to H2 (or possibly H1. There should only be one H1 per page). H1, H2, H3, H4 etc tells the browser what size and font to use to display the text. This is important! Google assumes anything in H1 is more important than H2, and H2 is more important than H3 etc. It helps Google understand what you site is about. You certainly want Google to know it is about Fort Worth and Weatherford.
All of these changes should only take a few minutes. Good Luck - Ned
- Rental Property Investor · Orcutt, CA · Member since 2012 · 19 posts · 12 votes14y
Shane,
I'm new to BP but wanted to share your site fosters engagement.
In addition to you having your own blog for educating people and driving traffic....
One of the fastest and first ways you can use to drive traffic to your site is to build relationships with other real estate investor blog owners and offer to contribute good educational content for their audience to - "guest post" on their blogs.
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes14y
Hey Roberta Aguilar, welcome to BP and thanks for your input!
I appreciate your thoughts on my site. That's EXACTLY what I'm trying to convey. Some think it's too wordy, but it's me. If I'm fostering engagement, then it "reads" the way I want it to.
I've been thinking about the guest blogging quite a bit over last few days. I don't want to go crazy in the blogosphere until I feel like I really have enough educational material to share. Besides my limited experience so far...anything else I write would just be regurgitated from other stuff I've read from others. But believe me, I already love writing about it ALMOST as much as I love reading about it...more to come as I move along in this endeavor :)
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes14y
Hey Joshua Dorkin, this is for you :)
This thread comes before my site on Google when searching for "we buy houses weatherford" tonight lol too funny. Go BP go!
edit: Granbury too :)
- Rental Property Investor · Orcutt, CA · Member since 2012 · 19 posts · 12 votes14y
Shane,
I appreciate your welcome
and certainly dont want to get off on the wrong foot with you (just kidding with the wrong foot comment)
But I still have to respectfully disagree with your statement
What you write will never be "just be regurgitated", as it will always have your perspective added...making it uniquely "You." :))
Good Luck with Your Site, Business & Most Important - Your Passion For REI
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes14y
Roberta Aguilar, I know you're not from Texas, but we have lots of sayings around here used to describe things and traits....
So in true Texas spirit, I believe you could "sell ice to an eskimo". You've sold me. I'll think about how I can contribute to other blogs :)
Thanks again.
- Real Estate Investor · OR · Member since 2012 · 390 posts · 133 votes14y
Shane, congratulations!! What an exciting learning adventure---my heart was racing, I was on the edge of my chair . . . wanted to see what the next episode would bring!
No seriously I was smiling and my pulse did quicken because your excitement of discovery was contagious.
I've had some experience with seo and blogs and writing etc. I was a ghostwriter for a few blogs for a couple years. It can be fun; and it can be frustrating at times.
Everyone that contributed to this thread made it such an amazing read and lesson. I learned a couple things. I totally agree with Roberta about the guest blogging. It has true seo value and helps build your presence in the arena.
Even if you are just sharing what it's been like in your shoes up to now. There are lots of people out there that could benefit from it. You could share a story about working with a seller and the outcome---packed with the true emotions felt on both sides of the table.
Once a mentor of mine (that I wrote for) told me that my stuff had value even if I didn't feel I was an "Expert" in my field and that I would be selfish to NOT share it.
Those words have rung thru my mind many times. There is always someone out there that is a few steps behind that your article will help.
It's so exciting to see you succeed. It pushes us all forward!
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes14y
Howdy! Just wanted to update this about a month in. I missed it by a few days, but here's where we rank on the different search engines for different key words. Keep in mind, our site has been up since about July 3. And these searches were done in Weatherford NOT logged into msn, yahoo, or Google.
Google:
Sell House Weatherford - p2 #5
Sell House Granbury - not ranked (this search was dominated by realtor.com, zillow.com, & lakehouse.com entries for individual properties. Didn't see any other investor sites either, so I didn't feel so bad.
Sell House Fort Worth - p3 #5 (This one moves around, it was p1 #2 a couple days ago when I searched from a Starbucks in Ft. Worth)
We Buy Houses Weatherford - p1 #2
We Buy Houses Granbury - p1 #1
We Buy Houses Fort Worth - p5 #10 (It's funny that our CL ad that I run periodically to point to our website, ranks HIGHER p5 #5 than our website )Bing:
Sell House Weatherford - p1 #2
Sell House Granbury - p1 #6
Sell House Fort Worth - not ranked
We Buy Houses Weatherford - p1 #6
We Buy Houses Granbury - p1 #1
We Buy Houses Fort Worth - not rankedYahoo:
Sell House Weatherford - p1 #2
Sell House Granbury - p1 #6
Sell House Fort Worth - p1 #5
We Buy Houses Weatherford - p1 #6
We Buy Houses Granbury - p1 #1
We Buy Houses Fort Worth - not ranked - Real Estate Broker · Canton, GA · Member since 2010 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes14y
Great job Shane !
Being organic on the fist page of a known niche search term is huge.
About 85% do not click past the first page of search results.The top 4 on the first page are the best.
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes14y
Hey Jon K., only one lead has come from my site, but I have received several leads from the CL ad that points to my site; kind of funny. The 1 lead that was through my site, came from the CL ad...which reminds me I guess I should probably finish that story in the blog. Short version is just the moral of the story: "don't chase marginal deals as a wholesaler, even if it's your first one"
The 2nd lead I got from CL was a REAL one...and a GREAT one. It was a big 4BR with about $140-150 ARV that we could pick up for around $80 cash. Needed some stuff, but not much, and would have been a great rental at $1600/month, and decent as a flip. However, we lost the deal when the seemingly innocent seller tried to get us in a bidding war with another investor. Moral to this story is a good one: "DO NOT go over your max offer". We didn't and lost the house by $2000, and that's ok because when you play that silly game (I've learned), only the seller wins.
The 3rd lead I have came also from my CL ad. Guy who has around 30% equity and tired landlord. Following up with him tomorrow.
Joel Owens
Thanks for popping in :) Getting in the top 5 for the Fort Worth keywords is the tough part, but I'd say we've done well in 2 months. I'm impressed everyday at how it works. - Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes13y
Jerry Puckett
Time for an update. My website continues to climb on Google. Currently working a lead from my website, going to view the property today.
Here are today's rankings, not logged in, and not in my town:
G = Google B= Bing Y = Yahoo
1.1 Means Page 1 #1 etc
- means stopped looking at p10We Buy Houses Weatherford G 1.3 B 1.5 Y 1.6
We Buy Houses Granbury G 1.1 B 1.1 Y 1.1
We Buy Houses Fort Worth G 3.7 B - Y -
Sell House Weatherford G 1.8 B 1.1 Y 1.1
Sell House Granbury G 4.4 B 1.1 Y 1.1
Sell House Fort Worth G 1.10 B 1.1 Y 1.1Here's what else I found, which is HUGE...On the Google searches where I'm on page 1 but not #1, I'm the 1st investor site. The ones before me are all Trulia, Zillow, homes.com etc. So if someone is looking for something other than a realtor, my site is the first one they see.
One interesting thing is, today is the first day in awhile that my Craigslist ads pointing to my site haven't shown up higher than my actual site. I'm not sure what to think about that, but I'll take the high rankings either way :)
Happy investing.
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes13y
I want to make one more point here. The backlinks to my site helping my rankings are NOT made by spinning fluff articles all over the internet.
My backlinks come from REAL content, from relevant places on the interwebnet:
We have a company Facebook Page with links to our site
I'm active on Bigger Pockets forums, member blogs, & BP blog posts, and each time I post/comment my gravatar or signature contains links to our site
I comment on J Scott's blog page, gravatar has links to my site
I comment on Danny Johnson's blog page, gravatar has links to my site
I post Craigslist Ads (NOT spammy) with my G Voice number & links to our website
I post & comment on LinkedIn every once in awhile, which doesn't have a direct link to our site, but if they click to see my profile, that page has a link to our website.It's not as hard & convoluted as some people seem to think to get yourself ranked on Google & get quality backlinks.
- 13yChris ClothierBusiness MemberRental Property Investor · memphis, TN · Member since 2009 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
Shane Woods - I found this thread today because you updated it and I read it from the beginning. I love that so many people have gotten into the comments and the thread has gotten a ton of views. I also think that Sean H. and Joshua Dorkin gave two outstanding web resources out to the readers when they mentioned Hubspot and SEOMoz. Both of these services are second to none and they excel at EDUCATION MARKETING. EM is a great way to grow your online presence and if your articles, blog comments and posts, videos, press releases and other online marketing tools are properly formatted for SEO, then you can rank not only #1 in searches, regardless of the location of the searcher, but you can own multiple positions on page 1 of all the sites. Eventually you can set your sites on very powerful search terms that are not so localized and begin to grab additional eyes to your site - including the ones doing general searches and not just the specific searches that you rank highly for.
That was not my point I wanted to make though! I think this is a great example of an entrepreneur who has learned to celebrate every win. If Shane is fired up by watching the progress of his site and his exposure grow online, that energy can absolutely carry him through times when the phone is not ringing enough or he may not win a house he really wanted. Granted, where you rank on Google does not put food on the table, but the souls of entrepreneurs are often fed by little fires that grow and propel us to bigger and bigger fires.
I'm fired up for you Shane and want to keep reading about how the little things like page rank keep leading to bigger things like profitable investments! Keep it up.
Chris
- Rental Property Investor · Atlanta, GA · Member since 2012 · 256 posts · 64 votes13y
I LOVE posts like this. Most of the time you only hear posts asking advice on comp or evaluating the deal after it's already in place. It's nice to see how someone is getting leads/deals through strong effort, live as it happens through letters, SEO, CL, etc. Keep it up dude, we're rooting for you, this is turning into a reality TV show, lol.
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes13y
Hey Chris Clothier! Thanks for your thoughts. You're right about celebrating the small things. One thing I've learned over the years, is everything in life is about process & building blocks. Is it a huge deal that my site is ranking higher and higher slowly? No. Is it a huge deal that I'm learning SEO and how it works, in order to successfully implement it in any business I'm in, ABSOLUTELY.
I don't get many calls from my site yet, but the ones I get all called me when they had other investor options. My site & mindset makes people comfortable & want to do business with me. In business and life, if you know how to make people comfortable, you'll do well, IF you celebrate the small victories, learn all the little baby steps first & build on it.
You can't build a skyscraper if you don't understand basic principles of construction. Same with anything else.
I'm kinda digressing, back to the topic...
SEO is the foundation, not the final answer. Quality content is the key to rankings, which leads to Chris's Education Marketing comments. videos, articles, everything education related to your business. More building blocks.
With the foundation built to last, your "building" will last as long as you maintain it.
- Real Estate Professional · Salt Lake City, UT · Member since 2010 · 608 posts · 163 votes13y
This is a great thread and I am learning so much about this subject. I started with direct mail a little over a year ago and market to different groups of people. One group I market to I dont get a great response rate; however, I get enough listings to pay for my marketing and one good deal came of it for a 12 month period. I am in my 2nd 12 month period marketing to this group and am close to another deal. I do market to other groups that are more successful. My point is that even if a web site ultimately brings 2 - 4 deals a year that is a success in my book. I think the key is multiple streams of marketing and perfecting each one. I am excited to venture into using a web site in 2013.
- Bird-dogger · Phoenix, AZ · Member since 2011 · 17 posts · 9 votes13y
Shane,
If you want to find out what your real search rank is, try searching for a search rank checker like the one at mikes-marketing-tools. You plug in your url, and the term. It will return actual google, yahoo and bing rank.
As far as your search history "contaminating" your search results this is a simple fix. Simpley log into google, go into your account settings and turn off "web history". This tells google to stop "tailoring" search results to your previous click history.
Another tool, you can use is google's webmasters utility. Under queries, it lists the all of the search terms that google has listed your site. It also shows you the average position your site appears in search results for that term. This is a bit more crude, but it give you an idea of the what google thinks your site is relevant to right now.
- 13yChris ClothierBusiness MemberRental Property Investor · memphis, TN · Member since 2009 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
Barry Hammond a few great tips there. The webmasters utility may be a bit crude, but it is a very, very good way to see the real details that Google is showing for your site.
Gary Parker - great to hear that you are venturing into web marketing next year. You made a great point about 1 sale being able to pay for a marketing campaign and sometimes a year's worth of that campaign.
Shane Woods - people do business with you only after you have established that they like you and then that they trust you. Great content and consistently putting that content all over the web is a key component of that. That is why I love SEO. If you a good at creating content and understand that is the key to earning the like and trust factors, then the benefit it gives to being found on the internet becomes a HUGE bonus. IMO, many people seek to put out great content to help with SEO and they lose sight of the fact that the great content is often what builds trust and helps your clients attach a level of expertise to you. Not sure if all of that makes sense - don't want it to come across the wrong way. My point is that great content pays off in so many ways it is unbelievable.
Best of luck - Chris
- Real Estate Investor · OR · Member since 2012 · 390 posts · 133 votes13y
I'd love to know also Shane. I've been thinking about this thread this week because I MUST get my website completed and SEO'd.
I'm going to have to outsource this though. I'm making myself nuts trying to do it all and still work the 9-5.
Tell us how it's working :>
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes13y
Hey Jon Klaus and Melodee Lucido and everyone else,
sorry for the late response here. I've been so busy, blah blah blah. you don't want to hear it :)
Anyway, I haven't actually checked my rankings lately, but I can tell you all one thing...and there's several forums here to prove it (and some comments above), ranking means nothing if you're not driving traffic to your site. You can't just count on keywords. I've had a total of 2, yes 2 legit leads from the website. Only 1 of which was purely organic search. The other one was from my Craigslist Ad. As were all of the other leads I've received.
You'll recall my CL ad points to my website & also has the phone number to "call now". Most people just "call now". Another good pointer...
I'm not upset that I'm not getting the leads right now though. I've been crazy busy between my day job, working leads on the phone for my BP partners, and running all over Texas trying to line things up for a possible job change that didn't happen. :)
I haven't been as diligent lately renewing & reposting my CL ads, or posting here much, so my rankings have slowly dropped. Again, goes to show, like Chris Clothier and Joshua Dorkin have spoke to many times...this site is a HUGE backlink/"RELEVANT, QUALITY" content generator for Google Rankings
In conclusion, My website's SEO is still doing it's job. The parts and pieces are put into place for when I'm ready to start generating my own leads again. Melodee, I highly recommend Jerry Puckett for some SEO magic for your website. If you already have a great website, he often times can take what content you already have and make it a little more SEO friendly without sounding keyword spammy. For example...I wrote 75% of the copy on my website. After the SEO process, it still sounded like me, not one of those crazy SEO'd spammy things you see everywhere. Which is SUPER important, because Google's crawlers now HATE SEO just for the sake of SEO. So it has to be YOU, relevant, and quality content.
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes13y
Originally posted by Jon Klaus:
Shane, any updates on your web marketing?Jon Klaus, speaking of web marketing...how's your you tube video doing? Getting you anything?
- Real Estate Agent · Weatherford, TX · Member since 2011 · 726 posts · 284 votes13y
Apparently my posting on BP more lately has driven my rankings back up a bit. 1st page for all searches above on Thursday. Checked because I got 2 new leads from Granbury in the last week. One might make a nice sub 2, owes 50, ARV 60. 2nd would be decent sub 2 or lease option maybe. Owes 111, ARV 116.
Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.