Too Many Carrot Websites
Real Estate Consultant · Fayetteville, AR · Member since 2015 · 29 posts · 17 votes
Too Many Carrot Websites
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Specialist · Purcellville, VA · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 841 votes
6y@Account Closed is the superhero of SEO and he (like I) loves Carrot.
I am also a internet software developer and could easily do all of that without paying for a Carrot site. In fact, I did start down that road. I created a starter site just to have something online as quickly as possible. Well... it's there. I'll give it that. After a while, as I was working in other areas of my business, I realized (largely from following Jerryll and reading his blog) that I really needed to step up my SEO. I now have a Carrot site in the works. It's a lot of work to personalize it, and from what they say, 60% of the people out there don't do that. So right there, you can stand out just by taking the time to personalize it.
So how do you stand out in such a field? It's largely where you focus. When I started, I picked 14 local counties. Some are huge, and some are not. (Hint: I'm working on narrowing my focus.) Within those counties, there are quite a few towns. I know a guy who's quite successful in his real estate business. He wholesales, flips, and rents. He also runs a local REI meetup. At a recent meeting, he said how important his Carrot site is. I had already started building mine, so I went to see how a successful person had set theirs up. Yes, he branded and personalized it, but not very much. He doesn't work on SEO at all. He just set it up and let it sit there. The thing is, in his market, if you do a Google search, he's right there at the top.
If you want your Carrot site to work for you, then prepare to spend quite a bit of time on it. Then also decide what your target market is, both geographically and situationally. For example, would you like everyone in three local towns who are trying to avoid foreclosure to come to you? If so, use your site to target them. Don't try to target everyone in your state. When you pinpoint your focus, you're much more likely to dominate that market.
Finally, this is a personal lesson I'm still learning. I've been a very successful software developer for a long, long time. I could totally do everything that Carrot, D4D apps, CRM apps, etc. can do, and I can likely do it better. (Yes, maybe I have a big ego in that area, but I really have been doing this forever. I also get angry when someone else's solution doesn't work the way I think it should.) The question is, do I want to do all of that? If I want to compete in those areas, providing software to RE investors, then maybe I do want to do all of that, and my real estate is a side gig or hobby. If I want to do it all of myself just to save a few hundred dollars a month, is that really where I want to put my effort? What business am I in here? Where is my time best spent to be successful at it?
And another Finally... You have to decide how to differentiate yourself. Your website is a tool. It's not going to do it for you. What is your message? What is your mission? What makes you special? Are you a NASA Robotics Engineer? If you are, then use that! In fact, I only know one of those, and he's quite successful in his RE business.
39 Replies
- Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 871 votes6y
If you don't plan on personalizing your carrot site, or Lead Propeller site, then no, don't buy it - especially in a crowded MSA. But then neither will your custom site.It will probably work fine in East Nowhere South Dakota (maybe) but and get you some organic leads right out of the box but otherwise, you are going to have to put some work in. They give you the coloring book and the crayons. You still got sit down and color in the lines.
- Property Manager · Riverside, CA · Member since 2020 · 107 posts · 65 votes6y
On your SEO Real Estate business, I am glad it's working for you, and I have a lot of respect that it's working for you!
If you can get lots of page time for your clients, that is Gold for Google signalling.
Disclaimer - I don't know your area of SEO, what software you use, what your customers value, how you attract customers, I am behind on the latest Google Updates, etc. I have more of an outsider prospective to SEO and Marketing in the Real Estate Area.
Yes, I have used Crazy Egg. It's nice they added A/B Testing. I was big in VWO.
On SEO Techniques, I am very burned out on them. I had an eCommerce B2C businesses that is in a VERY cut throat area for getting traffic for almost 20 years, grew to 6 employees, and it was a huge learning experience. - Flipper/Rehabber · Wilton, CT · Member since 2015 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes6y
Originally posted by @Ray R.:
On your SEO Real Estate business, I am glad it's working for you, and I have a lot of respect that it's working for you!
If you can get lots of page time for your clients, that is Gold for Google signalling.
Disclaimer - I don't know your area of SEO, what software you use, what your customers value, how you attract customers, I am behind on the latest Google Updates, etc. I have more of an outsider prospective to SEO and Marketing in the Real Estate Area.
Yes, I have used Crazy Egg. It's nice they added A/B Testing. I was big in VWO.
On SEO Techniques, I am very burned out on them. I had an eCommerce B2C businesses that is in a VERY cut throat area for getting traffic for almost 20 years, grew to 6 employees, and it was a huge learning experience.Dude, eCommerce sites are rough. It is definitely not easy ranking these sites as the competition is even crazier than with investors. If you can hold your own with eCommerce.. you definitely are someone to listen to when it comes to SEO for sure!
I used VWO but those people kept telling me my site was not getting enough traffic to do any significant tests.... but as far as I can tell my site is getting a ton of traffic... so I gave up....
We should connect some time.
I would love to hear/learn from what you have found doing AB tesitng.
- 6yTrevor MauchPro MemberInvestor · Roseburg, OR · Member since 2014 · 141 posts · 149 votes
I LOVE this thread! :-)
@Noah Brinker great question man.
Jerrylls advice was solid and at the end of the day, there's 3 things you need to look at when it comes to performance on your website.
1) Tech stack: Is it setup to load fast, clean code, ssl, etc. etc. We've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into building the best tech stack in out there. Here's a solid article on a study that was put out on website speed of the website builders out there
https://freshchalk.com/blog/150k-small-business-website-teardown-part-two
It dives into the different website builders (wix, squarespace, wordpress, etc.) and the page speed and time to first bite. Carrot out performed all of the big website builders out there except Google's own websites, which puts you at an advantage vs. most other websites in your market... and on the same level playing field as other Carrot members.
2) Conversion optimization: There are a ton of easy website builders out there to get a website up and online and plenty of people who can build a website for you. But the whole reason I created Carrot in 2014 was because they just weren't setup to focus on performance... and were really bad w/ conversion. Over the years I've done over 1k split tests and hundreds in the real estate market alone and we continually are improving the conversion of our sites. That's one of the reasons we have restrictions on some design elements that some members have requested... because there's a trade-off between design aesthetic vs. performance. So we focus on performance which means there are more limitations on design in order to retain that performance element. But many of the top investors move over to Carrot because of this one (from their expensive custom sites).
3) SEO: That's the part we've innovated on the most over the years and the results in Google show it. Jerryll has been crushing it and really helping tons of people do the same. Great work @Jerryll Noorden!
So focus on performance first, then build your credibility out on the platform to increase the performance from the strong Carrot foundation.
Reach out anytime if we can help w/ anything man! Good luck w/ your investing! - 6yTrevor MauchPro MemberInvestor · Roseburg, OR · Member since 2014 · 141 posts · 149 votes
@Rob Massopust Like @Jerryll Noorden said, just use the "stock content" as the start, but then personalize it from there.
On the buyer lead gen side of things... there's many different ways to find great buyers.
Yes, retail buyers are all "tire kickers" until they're ready to buy... so I wouldn't discount creating that pipeline of people who you can build trust, credibility, and Authority with now... you'll thank yourself in 8 months :-)
But, a few things you can do:
1) Build a cash buyers list (usually property investors or end buyers looking for cheap properties they can buy and fix up). Launch a cash buyer site and market it on Craigslist, in your email signature, Facebook marketplace, FB posts, etc.
2) For retail buyers... it's hard to find the ones that are for sure ready to buy now. But here are the things we're seeing work well...
- Market your property listings w/ Featured Property listings on your Carrot site on Facebook and boost it w/ a small budget ad. Always post those puppies up and ask people to fill out the form to join the list for other properties like it. We've been able to pull in a couple hundred "buyers" from FB w/ around $1 cost per lead w/ a certain type of ad (i'll post it below. it's very basic, ugly, and not fancy at all. I honesltly didn't think it would work but it does). Then after they fill out the form for more info we land them on another form that asks a bit more info ("when are you looking at buying?")... make sure that question is in the form and then followup w/ those that are less than 6 months w/ a text message and call.
- Location pages for certain niches and rank them on Google: We've found a solid formula to consistently outrank Zillow for niche buyer phrases in Google. It does take some work and skill but it can be hired out or you can follow our training video on it. But those people doing a search on Google for phrases like "north umpqua river homes for sale" or "best real estate agents in [city]" etc are searches that are further down the "purchase intent" line than "[city] homes for sale" (which Zillow will usually pick up those searches).
- Sellers are future buyers: So the best way to get buyers is to land the sellers. Listings attract serious buyers and sellers turn into buyers very soon. So hyper focus on landing listings, which the "hybrid agent / investor" model is key in this market. By you launching a motivated house seller website and doing marketing direct to motivated sellers, you'll find the majority of them won't be ready for a low cash offer but they are best served by listing it on the market at full retail. Turn those into listings and the buyers also follow.
I know that is kind of high level above, I just wanted to post a few ideas here, but hit us up and we can help you anytime man! Good luck w/ everything and reach out anytime. - Real Estate Consultant · Fayetteville, AR · Member since 2015 · 29 posts · 17 votes6y
Originally posted by @Trevor Mauch:
I LOVE this thread! :-)
@Noah Brinker great question man.
Jerrylls advice was solid and at the end of the day, there's 3 things you need to look at when it comes to performance on your website.
1) Tech stack: Is it setup to load fast, clean code, ssl, etc. etc. We've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into building the best tech stack in out there. Here's a solid article on a study that was put out on website speed of the website builders out there
https://freshchalk.com/blog/150k-small-business-website-teardown-part-two
It dives into the different website builders (wix, squarespace, wordpress, etc.) and the page speed and time to first bite. Carrot out performed all of the big website builders out there except Google's own websites, which puts you at an advantage vs. most other websites in your market... and on the same level playing field as other Carrot members.
2) Conversion optimization: There are a ton of easy website builders out there to get a website up and online and plenty of people who can build a website for you. But the whole reason I created Carrot in 2014 was because they just weren't setup to focus on performance... and were really bad w/ conversion. Over the years I've done over 1k split tests and hundreds in the real estate market alone and we continually are improving the conversion of our sites. That's one of the reasons we have restrictions on some design elements that some members have requested... because there's a trade-off between design aesthetic vs. performance. So we focus on performance which means there are more limitations on design in order to retain that performance element. But many of the top investors move over to Carrot because of this one (from their expensive custom sites).
3) SEO: That's the part we've innovated on the most over the years and the results in Google show it. Jerryll has been crushing it and really helping tons of people do the same. Great work @Jerryll Noorden!
So focus on performance first, then build your credibility out on the platform to increase the performance from the strong Carrot foundation.
Reach out anytime if we can help w/ anything man! Good luck w/ your investing!Hey Trevor, thanks for the reply! I appreciate you chiming in here.
- 6yTrevor MauchPro MemberInvestor · Roseburg, OR · Member since 2014 · 141 posts · 149 votes
@Noah Brinker Of course man!
Your questions were awesome and spot on and if you weren't asking that question I think you wouldn't be doing your research before you invested into the right tool to grow your company.
At the end of the day, Carrot sites are built to perform. Which is why they dominate in this market. If we were trying to build sites that look pretty and are heavily customized... like wix... what would happen is you'd have people messing up the sites so they look pretty but don't rank high or convert visitors into leads at a high rate. So we've purposefully had to limit some of the things people can do design wise on their Carrot sites to prevent them from hurting themselves by making them convert lower.
Then we give you the ability to dial in the content, pick one of our designs (including 2 premium designs that less than 10% of our users are actively using at any given time)... add content... use our content marketing tools like our Video Post feature to help you build Authority, etc.
But you'd be surprised if you saw some sites... you wouldn't recognize them as a Carrot site.
DM me, happy to send you some examples of ones that really stand out but still leverage the high performing Carrot framework.
Good luck w/ everything man! - Flipper/Rehabber · Wilton, CT · Member since 2015 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes6y
Originally posted by @Trevor Mauch:
@Noah Brinker Of course man!
Your questions were awesome and spot on and if you weren't asking that question I think you wouldn't be doing your research before you invested into the right tool to grow your company.
At the end of the day, Carrot sites are built to perform. Which is why they dominate in this market. If we were trying to build sites that look pretty and are heavily customized... like wix... what would happen is you'd have people messing up the sites so they look pretty but don't rank high or convert visitors into leads at a high rate. So we've purposefully had to limit some of the things people can do design wise on their Carrot sites to prevent them from hurting themselves by making them convert lower.
Then we give you the ability to dial in the content, pick one of our designs (including 2 premium designs that less than 10% of our users are actively using at any given time)... add content... use our content marketing tools like our Video Post feature to help you build Authority, etc.
But you'd be surprised if you saw some sites... you wouldn't recognize them as a Carrot site.
DM me, happy to send you some examples of ones that really stand out but still leverage the high performing Carrot framework.
Good luck w/ everything man!Yo Orange dude!
Not sure if you can share this in the open, but what are your numbers when it comes to organic lead gen in the last 3 weeks?
All my data is corrupt and I get a ton of traffic because of all my facebook ads for SEO...
I know PPC is still going strong, but what do you see for organic leads? Is it still slow on your end? (I made drastic changes to my website just before the COVID-19 and now I just don't know if the results are screwed due to covid or is it my new design.
Thanks brother!
- Investor · Tampa, FL · Member since 2019 · 48 posts · 7 votes6y
@Jerryll Noorden How long have you used IC and how long before you began seeing leads come in?
- Flipper/Rehabber · Wilton, CT · Member since 2015 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes6y
Originally posted by @Robert Gunn:
@Jerryll Noorden How long have you used IC and how long before you began seeing leads come in?
I started exactly 4 years ago. I started getting leads within 3 to 4 months into it.
Worked really hard ranking my site #1. It wasn't that hard when everyone does it wrong to be honest. A lot of people are still clueless how SEO works.
Do it right and you will leave everyone behind.
And the best thing is, You can do it yourself. Absolutely no need to pay anyone for that!
- Member since 2022 · 1 post · 0 votes4y
I have been a Web developer and SEO for 27 years now. Carrot sites can be made to perform well however, I have found several errors such as 502 network errors and one of my clients Max Maxwell's site was down for about a week over a Credit card issue. I would think with a major affiliate and influencer that they wouldn't have let that happen..> So my opinion of Carrot sites or sites like them which are basically a cookie cutter WordPress site is a site that is not portable, you cannot take it with you and host elsewhere. It is not something you will EVER own. It is more like a timeshare that you will never own and if that company should go out of biz for any reason or google downplays their content then you will be in a world of trouble and have to quickly build your own site and host it. Also I have held Max Maxwell's cash homes triad site to number one on google with my SEO Agency which is listed at the bottom of his page, in his two main markets for the last 3 years.
So in my professional opinion, I would say that you are better off to A: either focus on your SEO on your Carrot site or B: Hire a pro who understands real estate investors and wholesalers that can actually relate to motivated sellers. or C: Build a site yourself and learn SEO and make this a very important part of your business strategy long term. Googles job is to solve problems, therefore when you can clearly demonstrate with your sites that you are addressing and solving problems you are most likely to be the go to person or business for answers on a Google search result.
I have found also that you must pinpoint your markets if you are new and don't try to dominate major markets where people with long term websites have been holding strong. You may instead target the suburbs of a major city and grow from there. I look at websites like trot lines.. those lines my grandfather and I would string from one branch to another in water to catch ore fish with lots of hooks and bait. It is that way with SEO as well as you have to set a few hooks to catch people when they are needing to solve their problem such as how to sell their house fast for cash!
You can also build sites to target searches that potential sellers or future sellers may be looking for as well. For example you may wish to build and promote a site like Local county Probate court and probate attorneys in the area. These are also ways you can network with probate Attorneys and do some back scratching for each other or simply sell leads. There are many ways to catch a potential seller before they ever show up on a list that you may be able to buy. These are people who haven't even filed or for that matter know how to file probate.. that is where your informative website comes in helping them solve that problem and getting YOUR BRAND IN FRONT OF THEM!
Note: Carrot really likes to get a form to show results on paper or onscreen but I prefer the main engagement be Phone or Chat! Screw stats.. make deals!
Personally I love SEO as I get 100 percent of my deals from my websites virtually! BOOM! If someone needs advice I would be happy to help. Thank you
- 4yJake BakerBusiness MemberFlipper/Rehabber · San Diego, CA · Member since 2020 · 1k+ posts · 695 votes
@Noah Brinker It is less about the website builder and more about the marketing you do to generate traffic to your site.
BookkeepingRE - Bookkeeping for Real Estate & Service-Based Businesses58 Reviews - Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 25 posts · 1 vote3y
Quote from @Account Closed:
You would have to ask @Jerryll Noorden he loves DM (direct marketing) but not SEO or is it the other way around. Anyway, I think he knows about Carrot.Originally posted by @Noah Brinker:
I’ve been taking a look around my market and see tons of lead websites built by the popular site builders. Typically these websites from carrot and propeller have a lot of good strategies for helping people find your website.
My question is this: is it worth it to use one of the popular site builders if the differentiators it helps provide are no longer a differentiator?
For context: I work in software and am able to build websites by myself pretty quickly. I can also create content if I were to build a website on my own.
There is another called leadpropeller that may have different templates. Or you could use a fiverr for investor websites
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