Are you a real estate investor, house flipper, or wholesaler? If so, here’s a question for you, which digital marketing tactic should you choose to find motivated sellers and cash buyers: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising? In a previous article, we explored the power of PPC advertising; now let’s uncover why investors need SEO content and how it differs from PPC advertising.
Meet Brian Rudderow, a successful real estate investor who has flipped homes across Colorado. Brian says his achievements are down to savvy use of SEO in generating leads for his real estate investor website. Picture this, a motivated seller with an urgent property sale reaches out to Brian through his website, resulting in a profitable transaction. Brian purchased the property, invested in some renovations, and sold it, making an impressive net profit of $114,900.
Did you notice that this profitable lead from a motivated seller came from Brian’s SEO efforts and not a pay-per-click advertisement? Don’t get me wrong, PPC is a powerful tool for driving website traffic, but SEO offers some different benefits, including these two major advantages:
Long-term Visibility:
Have you ever wondered how to ensure ongoing organic traffic to your website, even when you’re not running PPC ads? That’s where SEO shines. By focusing on optimizing your site’s ranking on search engine results pages, SEO helps you secure long-term visibility. (Organic traffic refers to visitors who find your website through non-paid search engine results.)
Increased Credibility:
Think about it, when your website ranks high in organic search results, it communicates to potential customers that you are a trusted authority in your field. This extra visibility not only boosts your credibility but also strengthens your relationship with your target audience.
Now, let’s see what SEO involves and understand better how it can boost your real estate investing business.
Understanding SEO
SEO might seem like a complex science involving collaboration with search engine algorithms and all that techno-babble. But fear not! You don’t have to be intimidated by the jargon. Let’s break it down in everyday terms.
First, the main challenge. When users search for information on search engines like Google, they usually only focus on the first page of search results. If your website is buried on page 10, it might as well be invisible to them. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get your site to rank higher.
But how can SEO help? It’s simple—SEO aims to make search engines understand the content of your website and recognize its value and relevance. When this happens, it results in higher rankings and greater visibility.
So, how can you encourage search engines like Google to boost your website’s ranking? Here are four things you need to know:
Online Content
Emphasizing Quality
Keyword Optimization
User Experience
1. Online Content
To attract search engine traffic, you must include good content on your website. By good, I mean relevant and informative information that aligns with your target audience’s search queries.
For example, if you’re a real estate investor targeting motivated sellers, creating blog articles that provide valuable tips for selling a property quickly or understanding the local market trends can be effective.
Creating blog articles that are informative and relevant for your target audience and posting them on your website is an effective way to boost your site’s ranking and, in turn, organically attract visitors. Unlike PPC advertising, where you pay to drive traffic to your site, SEO-driven traffic is free in the sense that you’re not directly paying for each visitor.
Keep in mind, though, that SEO needs an investment of time and effort and often money. Producing quality content takes time, and optimizing each blog post for SEO also requires some effort. While some website owners hire professionals to manage their SEO on a monthly basis, you can still achieve positive results with minor adjustments without breaking the bank.
2. Emphasizing Quality
Google, being the search engine giant that it is, prioritizes high-quality websites in its search rankings. Why? Because it aims to provide its users with the best possible experience. Because Google employees cannot manually review each web page, it relies on specific signals to figure out the quality and relevance of content.
So, what does Google expect from a blog post? Google expects a blog post to:
Have a clear and relevant title, subheadings that outline the main points, and well-structured content.
Include keywords in the title, sub-headings, and main points so that search engines understand what the context is and who the content will be good for.
Another important point is when websites with a good reputation link to your site, it signals to Google that your content is valuable and worth promoting.
SEO TIP
To reach your higher ranking goal more quickly, if you write an informative article on real estate investing strategies, you can reach out to industry influencers or authoritative real estate websites to request a backlink to your article. This can enhance your website’s credibility and improve its search engine rankings. However, there has to be something in it for the website owner to link to your content, so it must provide exceptional value that they wouldn’t have otherwise.
3. Keyword Optimization
Keywords play a significant role in SEO. These are the words or phrases that users type into search engines when looking for information. By using relevant keywords in your website’s content, you can improve your chances of ranking higher in search results.
For instance, if your target audience is searching for “investment properties in New York City,” using variations of this keyword phrase in your content, such as “buying investment properties in NYC” or “real estate opportunities in New York,” can help search engines match your website to those search queries.
However, it’s important to keep a balance and avoid keyword stuffing (that means just putting the keywords in your article tons of times in a way that is not natural), which can negatively impact your website’s visibility. Use keywords, but don’t sacrifice quality for the sake of using many keywords.
4. User Experience
User experience (UX) is another big deal for SEO. Search engines prioritize websites that offer a positive browsing experience. They look at factors such as:
- Website loading speed
- Mobile responsiveness
- Easy navigation
- Engaging design
These all contribute to a better UX. Optimizing your website for these factors can improve its search engine rankings and keep visitors coming back for more.
Now that we have covered the basics of SEO, let’s discuss how it differs from PPC advertising:
Cost Structure
SEO-driven traffic is theoretically free, as you don’t pay for each click or impression. On the other hand, PPC advertising involves paying for every click on your ads. While SEO requires an investment of time and effort to optimize your website and create quality content, it can generate long-term results without incurring additional costs unless you are paying people to manage your SEO for you, in which case it can be costly.
Timeframe
SEO is a long-term strategy that requires patience. It takes time for search engines to crawl and index your website, analyze its content, and adjust its ranking accordingly. It may take weeks or even months to see big improvements in your website’s visibility. PPC advertising, on the other hand, can deliver immediate results as soon as your ads are live.
Organic vs. Paid Traffic
SEO primarily focuses on generating organic traffic who have searched for information on a search engine. If you’re using search PPC like Google Ads, then the quality of traffic would be similar.
However, if you’re using PPC that doesn’t require the person to be searching, such as Facebook ads or Google’s advertising network ads where your ads appear on other websites rather than search results, the quality of the leads will typically be lower. The reason is that those people were not actively searching for a solution to their problem. They were just browsing the internet or social media and saw your ad. They are typically going to be less motivated.
Control and Flexibility
With PPC advertising, you have greater control over your ad campaigns. You can set specific budgets, target keywords, demographics, and geographic locations, and monitor the performance of your ads in real time. SEO, on the other hand, relies on search engine algorithms to determine your website’s ranking. While you can optimize your website and content to improve your chances of ranking higher, you have less control over the exact position of your website in search results.
SEO content and PPC advertising both have their unique advantages and can complement each other in your real estate investing business. SEO offers long-term visibility and increased credibility. On the other hand, PPC advertising can deliver immediate results and provide more control over your ad campaigns. Ultimately, finding the right balance between the two strategies can help you maximize your online presence, generate motivated seller and cash buyer leads, and achieve success in the competitive real estate investor market.
Start with the right website
A good website is one that is easily read by Google and loads fast for users. An SEO pre-optimized website is just one of the many features you get with Done Deal Website. All content comes pre-optimized to help you rank on search engines for keywords relevant to your location, kickstarting your SEO. Each site also comes with a blog you can use to add content to rank higher on search engines and showcase your real estate knowledge.
Getting started is a breeze. See how our websites can transform your real estate investing business in minutes. Don’t wait. Take the leap and seize the incredible opportunities waiting for you with Done Deal Website.