SEO Advice From a Digital Marketer

[Andrew Helling]

Hi everyone, I'm new here and am starting to build another income stream by generating motivated seller leads. My full-time gig is to invest in income-producing websites (digital real estate) and I'm working backwards to first increase the authority of my website to then eventually rank organically in Google.

Given my experience building sites, I personally don't think SEO is as complicated as any agency makes it out to be. Unless you're creating regular blog posts, most page optimizations only need to happen once.

Homepage

The big things to include on your homepage are natural inclusions of your keywords (think "sell your house fast in x," "x homebuyers," "we buy houses in x for cash," etc. Then include an intro to your company, why you buy houses, services offered, why someone should work with you, etc.

Other pages

Then make About, How It Works, Your Advantage, and Contact pages along with some blog posts that are relevant to your services offered. Interlink these pages within your site where relevant. Everything in SEO should be natural and nothing should be forced. Look at the site and layout through the eyes of the reader; never put Google first, as that'll always result in unnatural text and layouts.

All of these things can easily be done with Carrot templates without paying for third parties to give you their "secret sauce". Just include a lot of info about your company with clear calls to action without overwhelming the reader and you'll be fine. And again, make sure it flows naturally.

Keep it natural and clean

You get bonus points if your templates look like they're not from the 90s. Trust me, you've seen these templates all over the internet. Keep yours clean, simple, and easy to read without using 30px text or humongous font size. I find this to look spammy and over-promotional.

Use a lot of blue and green, as those colors signal trust and comfort. On your buttons, I suggest using Amazon's orange color, #FF9900, as it subconsciously signals to people that they're getting a good deal.

Use schema

Then, make sure your site is technically optimized. Add in "Author," "Article," and "Organization" schema. Most sites don't have this and Carrot says that it's easy to add. In your author bio, include "knowsabout," "alumniof," "website," and "description," as a bare minimum. This is critical to include.

Other technical items

Once that's done, be sure to include meta descriptions and titles, images that are 1,000 pixels or less, and alt text in your images that includes some of the keywords you're ranking for, when relevant.

Build links

Then use HARO (now Connectively) to build natural links to your site by being quoted as an expert on flipping, home sales, home repairs, etc.

These will be homepage links, but since you're going to be trying to rank your homepage, you're looking to boost your overall domain authority. Contrary to what an agency will likely tell you, you don't need the exact match keywords, since those are often unnatural and Google will typically ignore them since they seem as spammy.

Don't get ripped off

And always remember that many agencies will sell you on "link building" or monthly "optimization" packages. If the agencies can't explain what they're optimizing, you're getting ripped off. Most of these links will also be low-quality, as most link builders take the path of least resistance and buy links.

It's really hard to build links and no agency is going to spend the time is takes to do it right, as the return is just not there for them unless you're paying ~$1,000+ per link. The only way to build high-quality links is to hustle and contact other bloggers, authority sites, or podcasts yourself. A few of these links go a long way and it's well worth the effort.

Yes, it seems like SEO has a big learning curve, but it's not as tough as it seems. Just my $.02.