All Forum Posts by: Mark Shaver

Teaser: The last 3 days the websites from Carrot.com were unavailable, for 2.5-3 hours each day. If your VA publish an article on your carrot website and suddenly everything disappears, don't panic!

Image source via Pixabay.com

VA instructions

Did you edit the carrot website and it disappeared? Good news. You didn't crash the Internet. You didn't crash Carrot.com. You didn't even crash your website. Everything is OK. It's just that sometimes websites are unavailable for technical reasons.

Step 1. First, you need to find out which side has the problem, yours or Carrot.com's. Try opening other websites, such as Google.com. If it works, the problem does not seem to be on your side.

Step 2. Next, you need to make sure that the problem is on the Carrot.com side. Go to the status page of carrot websites:
https://status.carrot.com/

Find the "Uptime" section. There may be periods where the graph drops from 100% to 0% as it did in the last few days:

If so, then everything is fine. The problem is on the Carrot.com side. You don't need to do anything, Carrot.com developers are already working on fix

Step 3. But if in the last hours and days the status of carrot websites is ok, then maybe the problem is only with your website. If the problem hasn't gone away within 5-10 minutes, you should report it to the Carrot Help Center:
https://help.carrot.com

Click on Start Chat and make a request:

• Include the address of your website
• What's not working
• The time of the problem
• Your time zone.

Step 4. If you have an RSS reader, sign up for status updates of carrot websites:

• Atom Feed: https://status.carrot.com/history.atom
• RSS Feed: https://status.carrot.com/history.rss

Information about carrot crashes will help you not to start large-scale work on the website during a crash - publishing articles, sending Emails to the subscription list, buying PPC ads,...

Disclosure

I am not an official Carrot.com representative or user of the Carrot website. Take "VA Instructions" as it is.

Teaser: "How to increase the flow of visitors from the Internet in 5-6 times." ==

@Alex Craig wrote: "I want to say 70% of our leads came from internet and the other 30% was referrals and yard signs. We do a lot of SEO for rental leads."

Alex, these are good results from your SEO. In addition, you have an excellent potential to increase the return of the website by another 5-6 times. Let's ask Google PageSpeed to test your website:

The test shows that only 12% of visitors wait until the end of loading your website, because it lasts a long half a minute.

Tip. Speed up the loading speed of the website to the recommended Google 3 seconds. Then 90+% of visitors will wait until the end of the loading of the website and will explore it. This will increase the return on the Internet in 5-6 times. You might even stop putting a sign in your yard.

Teaser: "Website builders like KW, Wix,... lose 82-92% of visitors in the first seconds of loading." ==

@Michael K Gallagher replied to @Allan Smith: "And I would have to agree with your points. As long as you are prepared to spend the money and are willing to track the results carefully it’s going to happen. But the most important thing, to your point, is to take the action."

Michael, the action without the control can be damaging to the business. For example:

1) You made your agency website using the Keller Williams website builder. But most likely you have not controlled the loading speed of your website. Google PageSpeed test shows about it:

Your agent website only has 130 words, but they load slowly, 21 seconds. Because of this, only 18% of your visitors have the patience to wait until it's finished loading and start exploring your website. The other 82% of visitors leave your website before it even loads.

2) Your other website is made by Wix website builder. The Google PageSpeed test shows about it:

Your Wix website loads even slower, half a minute. Only 8% of your visitors have the patience to wait until it's finished loading and start exploring your website. The other 92% of visitors leave your website before it has even finished loading.

Website load controlling

Website builders (KW, Wix, SquareSpace, Carrot,...) are very slow. Long website loading time discourages most visitors. But website builders are popular among users who have no control over the performance and loading speed of their websites. These are mostly website owners who are making their first website. They are charmed by the ease of creating their first website with a website builder.

When it comes to websites, I would recommend that you don't consider control as an afterthought. You have to control the process of loading the website from the first day you create it.

Teaser: "A simple advice that increases the effectiveness of digital marketing by 5 times." ==

@Jeff Tumbarello wrote: "Organic SEO is the king. It pays long-term. Put out a lot of quality content and then pay the platforms to show it to users."

Jeff, your advice is great. I would add one more point to it.

Having a website does not mean that it's available to all visitors. If the website is slow to load, most visitors won't wait for it to finish loading and will leave. Statistically, the average REI website only retains 34% of visitors because it takes a long 12 seconds to load.

Jeff, you're probably more interested in the loading statistics of your website. Let's test it with Google PageSpeed:

Google places your website in the red performance zone during load time. Only 18% of your visitors have the patience to wait 14 seconds for your website to finish loading. The rest leavs your site before it's even fully loaded. Those who leave take 82% of your digital marketing budget - organic SEO, quality content, Pay Per Click,...

A simple advice. Speed up the loading speed of your website to at least 3 seconds or faster. The fast site will retain 90% of your visitors while it's loading. The return on your digital marketing budget will increase fivefold. You only have to make an effort to speed up the loading of your website once. Then you will enjoy years of effective use of your digital marketing budget.

Teaser: "How to increase the effectiveness of $1100/mo SEO by 9 times." ==

@Peter Tverdov wrote: "Even SEO is very hit or miss and I spend $1100 a month on that"

If $1100 is your monthly SEO budget, it's a good value. You have a right to expect a return from your website with the kind of motivated sellers.

But you have to take into account the loading speed of your website. The Google PageSpeed test showed:

This means that your website only retains 35% of visitors during the loading phase. The other 65% of visitors leave before your website has even finished loading. They don't want to wait the longest 12 seconds for the website to fully load. (Congratulations, you have a typical investor website. The average investor website retains 34% of visitors during a download that lasts 12 seconds).

Those 2/3 of your visitors come back to Google for other websites. They are very unhappy that Google showed your website in the search results. Google sees that your website isn't greeting visitors well and avoids showing your website on the first page of search results. It doesn't want to disappoint 2/3 of its visitors.

You have two ways:

First way. You can leave everything as is. You will continue to spend a big budget on SEO every month and complain that SEO is not working well.

Second way. You can raise the loading speed of your website up to 3 seconds. It will retain 90% of visitors during the loading time. They will be pleased to scroll through your pages, which load quickly. Then Google will be eager to show your website on the first page of search results at any occasion.

Benefits of the second way. Google shows your fast website on the first page of search results. This increases the flow of visitors by 3 times. A fast website retains almost all visitors while it loads. This increases the number of people viewing the website by another 3 times. The cumulative effect of speeding up the loading of a website can increase the flow of motivated sellers by a factor of 9. What's especially nice is that you only need to speed up the loading of your website once. From there, you have years to enjoy the benefits of a fast website.

Like Jerryll

@Jerryll Noorden often publishes the results of his excellent SEO. He wants to convince investors that good SEO is possible. I'd like to post my results, too. I have a website to demonstrate jet website loading technology. Let's check it through Google PageSpeed:

My jet website holds 100% of visitors while loading. It loads so fast that even the most impatient visitor doesn't have time to hit the back button in the browser.

(The jet website is performed by highly trained professionals. Please do not try to do this on your own or with the help of common WordPress webmaster).

Image via jsonline.com

Rhetorical question

Peter, imagine that one of your competitors makes a site similar to yours. But the competitor understands the importance of a fast-loading website. His website retains 100% of its visitors while it loads, and it loads 15 times faster than your website.

Which website would Google prefer to show on the first page of a search - yours or jet competitor's?

Teaser: "700 naming schemes for rental properties and why it is necessary". ==

Options for using property nickname

David, in addition to using real estate naming for LLCs, you can use a property nickname for many other purposes:

• Handymans will be eager to name properties not by their mailing address, but by using property nickname
• The help desk can list the property in the CRM by its property nickname. (This is especially handy when the property is a short-term rental and doesn't have a permanent tenant)
• Tenants may also prefer to contact the help desk under property nickname
• ...

Floral real estate naming scheme

One popular naming scheme uses flower names. In addition to the property nickname, the floral scheme provides a flower avatar:

Image via the article "300 Flower Names and Types with Pictures"

AI REI Naming

I programmed a small artificial intelligence. I fed the program information about thousands of flowers for the purpose of machine learning. The program learned to convert any name into a consonant flower name. Additionally, the program picks up a picture of the flower.

Examples of converting the names of the discussants on this page into flower names.

@Cody Lewis, Lewis => Lewisia:

@Eric Goldman, Goldman => Goniolimon:

@Nathan Gesner, Nathan => Nuphar:

@Scott M. , Scott => Schotia:

Mark Shaver, Shaver => Schefflera:

@Terrell Garren , Garren => Gardenia:

@Will Gaston , Gaston => Gasteria:

700 naming schemes

David, I sent you a link to my article "700 Naming Schemes for Rental Real Estate" in the DM.

Teaser: "1) The difference between Google PageSpeed Insights and Google Analytics. 2) Speeding up website loading kills half dozen birds with one stone".

@Chris Levarek wrote: "How on earth would you or any platform ever lump the data together for every website for lead conversions?"

The lead generation funnel includes many stages. Each has its own conversion. I should probably clarify again, what conversion we're talking about.

Marketers are interested in the conversion rate of visitors who come in and fill out a form on your website. Google Analytics produces similar information for marketers.

Google PageSpeed Insights is designed for professional website developers, so investors and marketers know almost nothing about it. It examines only the loading stage of a website. Google PageSpeed Insights does not show the conversion of incoming visitors to those who fill out a form on your website. It does not analyze the content of the website.

But Google PageSpeed Insights shows dozens of parameters of website load. Among them only 2 critical parameters are important for website owners:

• Percentage of visitors who have the patience to wait for the website to fully load. (Conversion from those who clicked on the link to the website for those who started to browse the website after it fully loaded.)
• Time to fully load the website.

Google PageSpeed Insights doesn't worry about what happens after a website is fully loaded. It ignores visitor dropouts caused by the website being uninteresting.

When Google PageSpeed Insights shows your website conversion rate (performance) of 14% load, this means that by the time the website is fully loaded, you have only 14% of visitors, because it lasts a long 15 seconds. The other 86% of visitors didn't wait until the end of the full download and left your website.

Chris Levarek wrote: "Where are you getting these numbers?"

Google calculates these numbers from actual visits to your website. The process looks like this.

Google periodically sends visitors to your website with the Chrome browser.

Each Chrome browser reports to Google how long it took for your page to fully load. Google averages these reports and finds out that it takes the "average" visitor 15 seconds to fully load a page on your site.

Those users who didn't like the long load time on your website, clicked the back button on their Chrome browser, and returned to Google for the next link within 15 seconds. Google sees that it is sending visitors to you, but 86% immediately went back to the results page for another link. The Chrome browsers of the other 14% visitors told Google that visitors started exploring your website after it had fully loaded. That's how Google knew your website had 14% performance (visitor retention) while the pages were loading.

How Google builds search results

When visitors are unhappy with the slow loading of your website and go back to Google, they are unhappy that Google took 15 seconds of their time.

Therefore, Google avoids showing on the first page of results websites which are slow to load. Google shows first on the first page websites which load fast.

I made demonstration pages that show investors what a really fast loading website is like. Google PageSpeed Insights rates my demo pages like this:

My really fast pages load in less than 1 second. At that time, even the most impatient visitors don't physically have time to hit the back button. Not surprisingly, 100% of my pages visitors start exploring the site in the first second.

But for practical use, Google considers 90% or higher visitor retention to be enough. To do this, the full loading speed of the website should be 3 seconds or faster. Such websites are considered by Google to be in the green zone and are shown on the first page at the smallest opportunity.

How to kill half dozen birds with one stone

Chris, you have done a great job. Your website is great. It works effectively with visitors - 125 pages, a blog, 2 e-books to collect E-mail,...

Let me repeat my advice. You need to speed up the loading of your website in 3 seconds. Then you will kill half a dozen birds with one stone:

• Visitor retention during website loading will rise to 90% and higher
• The number of visitors exploring your website will increase by 6 times
• Google will see that your website not only loads quickly, but also retains visitors very well and even generates repeat visits to the site a few days later.
• Google will raise your website even higher in the tops on your most key phrases
• An uncommonly quick website without additional words will inspire your visitors that you're different from your competitors
• Visitors will be pleased to stay longer on your website and explore your articles.

Continued discussion

The topic of fast loading websites is a very big one. If you want to chat about it, please contact me via direct message.

Teaser: "The Fiverr' and Upwork' experts reduce website traffic by 2-7 times."

@Robert Belz wrote: "I hired a freelance worker through www.fiverr.com. He created a shell of a website for only $80, and I simply typed in the content. Hosting a website through Squarespace is relatively straight forward and cheap. <skip> I'd appreciate hearing the good, bad, and ugly from the BP community!"

It's good that you create a website and you write your own articles.

It's not good that you're giving a small budget to the website. You get exactly what you pay for. For $80 you get the website, which is hostile to potential customers.

Google PageSpeed test showed:

Only half of the potential customers have the patience to wait the long 8 seconds for your website to fully load.

The other half of potential customers leaves the site before the long loading time is over. They do not even have time to read your texts and enjoy the design of the website.

The low-budget website halves any effort and money you put into the website - PPC, content marketing, SEO,...

@Chris Levarek wrote: "We like to find talent at Upwork and have had success in this manner. <skip> IF however you want to generate leads or traffic to the website, SEO(search engine optimization) becomes quite important."

Alas, Upwork's talents are not compatible with attracting potential clients to the site and SEO.

Example. Your site uses Squarespace. Google PageSpeed test showed:

There's a problem with potential customers. Only 14% of leads have the patience to wait 15 seconds for your website to fully load. The other 86% of potential customers leave the website without waiting for it to fully load.

There is a problem with SEO. Upwork's talents will take on SEO without further ado. But the search engine will show your website in the last place. Google doesn't see the point of sending their visitors to your website, which will drop 86% of visitors in the first 15 seconds.

Bottom line

1) Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy and other website builders are very slow. They are not designed for business. 

2) Fiverr and Upwork talents will take any job at any price. But they don't care about the end result. "Talents" will never tell you the client that website builders can't be used for business. Look for developers who understand the specifics of real estate investments.

3) The investor's desire to save once on website development will result in a very slow website. Then the investor will overpay every month 2-7 times to bring visitors to the website.

4) First, speed up the website full load to 3 seconds. This will raise visitor retention by 90%, according to the Google PageSpeed Test. Only after that do your marketing - PPC, blog articles, SEO,...

Teaser: "1) The right length of a good domain 2) Finding domain services."

@Aaron Lewis wrote: "Help me select which one of the below to purchase for a websites"

I'm sorry, but all the domains listed are not suitable. They are too long, they consist of 3-6 words, some of the domains are SEO-oriented and linguistically incorrectly. As a result, they are difficult to understand and almost impossible to remember.

Imagine your virtual assistant makes a cold call and names a company: sellmyhomeforinstantcash. He could repeat that name every minute of the call, but the seller still wouldn't remember it correctly. Six words and 24 characters are too much to remember. Also, the seller will not understand why the virtual assistant wants to sell the virtual assistant's house, quickly and for cash.

Good News

I was recently looking for domains for a seller website (type 1) and for a real estate buyer website (type 2). I'm happy to tell you the good news. The .com domain zone is still full of free two-word domains that are only 10 characters long. The virtual assistant pronounces it easily and happily. The interlocutor remembers the domain instantly.

"Peace and Plenty or Good News for John Bull!!!" painting:

Image via Picryl.com

Teaser: "Complex RE/REI software is uncontrollable and difficult to replace".

@Shawn Mcenteer wrote: "A website doesn't hurt ... you will probably be given a website depending on the brokerage you join."

The agent should make his own website from the beginning. Otherwise, the agent will have to change the website address every time he moves on to the next broker.

@Ridge Tullos wrote: "Either look for a brokerage that provides a CRM to you or pay for one (many come with a website and CRM in one package). ... Personally I choose to do Open Houses, FB Ads, and FSBO's as my lead generation then use perfectstormnow.com as my CRM."

Ridge, your website is based on perfectstormnow.com website engine. When visitors come to your website, it takes too long to load. Google' PageSpeed test shows for your website:

Only 35% of visitors are willing to wait for your website to fully load. It lasts long 8 seconds. You spend a lot of effort on lead generation. But 65% of leads leave without seeing your website.

Ask perfectstormnow.com service developers that they accelerate the loading speed of your website to at least 3 seconds. Then 90% of visitors will wait for the end of loading. I have strong doubts that they will comply with your request.

@Giovanni Cardenas, complex RE and REI software is easy to enter. The downside is that you can't change the complex software to suit your needs and the software will prevent you from changing it to another. I DM you the link to the article "Complex RE/REI Software Is Like a Prison".