Investors need more social media and less SEO to be successful faster. While there’s nothing wrong with SEO, it has some big challenges that make the ROI slow to come, and expensive to attain.
Speed is the name of the game when it comes to real estate investing. As an industry, real estate investing is insanely competitive which means you need to respond fast at every level from giving an offer to closing a deal, and then complete the job as fast as you can to cut holding costs and HML/PML interest. And while speed is a critical component to every aspect of this business, investors are drawn to SEO which is the slowest marketing channel you can implement. This is not to say that SEO isn’t effective. It can push large amounts of traffic to a website that is optimized just right. Which brings us to our first SEO challenge.
Choosing the Right Keywords
Keywords or keyphrases are just the words that get typed into a search box. Choosing keywords to optimize for is where a lot of investors get it wrong. And why wouldn’t they? Motivated sellers frequently use keywords that can solve their underlying problem like: “foreclosure help.” A quick search revealed more than 90 million results! “Pre-foreclosure help” has a mere 56.5 million results.
In both cases, the top results are paid ads by lenders and attorneys. The first organic listing is hud.gov. After that is a cool box from fdic.gov. None of these results mention working with a real estate investor. All of these results are from deep-pocketed companies or government-backed agencies. Competing with any of these for a top slot is nearly impossible without a big…no, make that huge budget.
The fact is, motivated sellers either don’t know they have a problem, or they are already researching mainstream organizations to help them resolve it. This means Investors are left with the low hanging fruit keywords like “sell house fast“, “cash homebuyer” and “sell as-is.” Is it impossible to be found for these keywords? No. In fact, if you insist on implementing SEO, these are the keywords you have a chance at ranking for. But guess what? It’s still going to take time and money to build the authority you need to rank.
Authority Building Content
Authority is one of the most important metrics that Google and Bing take into account when ranking your site. It’s made up of many different factors including, but not limited to:
- – how frequently you publish content
– how many visitors you get to your site
– how long they stay on your site
– how many other sites are citing you as a reference
– reviews (number of reviews and overall score)
– and your social media presence (likes, followers, shares)
SEO takes an insane amount of content! Think blogging once a month is going to do it? Likely no. Also, you need to publish long content, ideally 2,000 words or more. (This post is only 935 words!)Â
It’s going to take you a while to amass enough authority to start making a dent. If you want to be an actual real estate investor instead of a copywriter, you’re going to need to pay someone to write this content. You’re job doesn’t end there, you’re going to need to proof it because most copywriters have no idea what we do and you’re going to sound like a real estate agent at best, or a Wikipedia entry at worst.
Time Needed to Rank
Time is the most limited resource we have. What we don’t have is a long time to wait until we’re at the top of the search results to begin putting in offers with sellers. Ranking on the first page of the results can take as little as six months or as long as 10 years (or more) depending on the keywords you’re trying to rank for. SEO is a long game and success is not guaranteed.
So, why not tackle social media while you’re waiting for Google to take notice of you? Social media is not a wasted effort. Remember, it is one of the factors search engines use to determine your authority!
Social Media Saves the Day
We’re obviously biased when it comes to social media. (It’s what we do!)
Speaking without bias, as investors ourselves, we love social media. Here’s why:
- – Instant results: begin building an audience from day one
– Low ad costs: it takes far less money to boost a post ($10) than to pay per click on Google ($10+ for each click, even the clicks that are accidental)
– Better ad targeting:Â Forget trying to get found for that one elusive keyword. Instead, target your ads like a sniper to an audience that is tailored to your business
– Build your network: Finding sellers is awesome, but there are a lot of other professionals we need to work with like contractors, agents and even other investors. They’re on social media and a simple hashtag makes them rise to the top so you can begin building your network in less than 10 minutes and for zero money.
– Build your reputation: You don’t need 2,000 words to show people what you’re doing, who you’re helping, or what you believe in. Images are louder than words and can express more with less.
More Social Media
Investors need social media. It’s fast, it’s targeted, and it’s far less expensive than SEO. So, while you create authority on your website, don’t forget to add social media into the mix. When you join REI Social’s monthly content plan you’ll have ready-made posts just waiting for you to share out to your audience. Schedule it and forget it. Nothing could be easier!