Website design and hosting advice needed

[Elizabeth Wilson]

We currently have an investor carrot site but wondering what other online/web options people have found that work for them and why?  Specifically why did they choose that web service?  Does it affect your SEO? Do you have it integrated into your CRM (Podio, etc)?

Thanks!

[Dave Ramirez]

All of our forms, chat sessions, Facebook messenger, Adwords and session cookies are linked to my CRM. I like investor Carrot if your the only investor Carrot website in the market. In Memphis you might have some competition!

[Craig Bellot]

We set up WordPress investor sites with SEO and lead capture plugins and email auto responders.

This does everything investor carrot does without the monthly fee.  

[Jerryll Noorden]

Originally posted by @Dave Ramirez:

All of our forms, chat sessions, Facebook messenger, Adwords and session cookies are linked to my CRM. I like investor Carrot if your the only investor Carrot website in the market. In Memphis you might have some competition!

 Everyone and their dog has Investor Carrot in my market. You do not need to look alike. My site looks totally different.

Not all investor carrot sites are equal. I blow all other carrot sites away in my market, BY FAR!

It is not the platform that has the power. It is how you leverage that platform, how you apply your SEO, and how credible you are.

Ultimately it is not backlinks, not citations not anything other than CTR, Bounce rate and time on page. How many people bookmark your page etc. etc. is what is ultimately will rank you high. Even if Google does not want to admit it.

[Jerryll Noorden]

Originally posted by @Craig Bellot:

We set up WordPress investor sites with SEO and lead capture plugins and email auto responders.

This does everything investor carrot does without the monthly fee.  

.. and without ranking first on Google..

My point is.. a website is not about "auto responders"

Not about "Capture lead plug ins".

If you think that  "this is everything investor carrot does", you are severely missing the point here.

It's about ranking high,

Fast hosting speed. Support, Credibility..

and ultimately.. making deals.

That is what IC is about. Making deals.

Keep in mind, ranking first is just half the battle. Your site can be ranking first, but if your site sucks, no one will opt in the forms. Sorry, but I just do not see a wordpress site beating a Investor carrot site, all other things equal. There simply is no way!

[Dave Ramirez]

@Jerryll Noorden  i think you gave me a taste of what you know for SEO. Have any more insights?

[Jerryll Noorden]

Originally posted by @Dave Ramirez:

@Jerryll Noorden  i think you gave me a taste of what you know for SEO. Have any more insights?

 I have seen your contributions here on SEO. Always great comments. I think you know your fair share.

I am happy to give any insights. If you have a topic in mind or a goal, I could tell you how I would approach it.

[Elizabeth Wilson]

@Dave Ramirez, @Craig Bellot, and @Jerryll Noorden - Thanks ya'll!  Guess what I'm hearing is the webplatform doesn't matter as much as how the site is used, set-up, etc.

Good to know.

[Jerryll Noorden]

Originally posted by @Elizabeth Wilson:

@Dave Ramirez, @Craig Bellot, and @Jerryll Noorden - Thanks ya'll!  Guess what I'm hearing is the webplatform doesn't matter as much as how the site is used, set-up, etc.

Good to know.

 It kind of does.

What ever site you are using needs to be mobile optimized. Something Goolge takes seriously.

Needs to be fast.

And it needs to be authoritative.

If you look at it that way, then no it doesnt matter who it is as long as it is used correctly.

Looking at it from an other perspective, choosing investor Carrot for example, you can rest assured, they are fast, reputable, and mobile optimized.

Getting a wix site.. or a wordpress site.... you just are not a very serious player. You need to invest money to make money.

If you choose a wix site because it is free... how serious of an investor are you really...

[Eric James]

Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:

Originally posted by @Dave Ramirez:

@Jerryll Noorden  i think you gave me a taste of what you know for SEO. Have any more insights?

 I have seen your contributions here on SEO. Always great comments. I think you know your fair share.

I am happy to give any insights. If you have a topic in mind or a goal, I could tell you how I would approach it.

 I'm a complete newbie when it comes to SEO.  What kind of site visits will boost my search rankings? People directly typing my web address? Being accessed through links on other pages? Other things? I have gotten from you that things like time on page are important. 

[Jerryll Noorden]

Originally posted by @Eric James:

Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:

Originally posted by @Dave Ramirez:

@Jerryll Noorden  i think you gave me a taste of what you know for SEO. Have any more insights?

 I have seen your contributions here on SEO. Always great comments. I think you know your fair share.

I am happy to give any insights. If you have a topic in mind or a goal, I could tell you how I would approach it.

 I'm a complete newbie when it comes to SEO.  What kind of site visits will boost my search rankings? People directly typing my web address? Being accessed through links on other pages? Other things? I have gotten from you that things like time on page are important. 

OK Master Noorden has the mic.

Sit down shush and focus.

Ready?

CTR.

Click Through Rate.

You search for "We Buy Houses In Connecticut" right?

You see a bunch of results.

ALL of them say "We Buy Houses In Connecticut  | Sell Your House Fast" as the title in the search heading.

I mean ALL of the results have that.

A surfer would have no incentive to click on any result specifically other than it is "#1 or 2 or 3 in the ranks.

Now Imagine you see a result like this among all the same old results: "I am MONKEY I buy Your House with Chickens and Virgins"

You WOULD probably click that link out of sheer curiosity.

So Google thinks, "Ohh wow, for the search query "We Buy Houses In Connecticut", that weird chicken and virgins site gets 90% of clicks. That site must be an amazingly good result for that keyword. I will rank them higher because apparently, everyone like that site.

Once on the site, there are more factors Google monitors, but I will end up writing a book.

So to answer your question.

If someone just types in your site in the URL bar, it has little to no SEO benefits or ranking. People need to organically look for  it on the search, and click you organically!

[Elizabeth Wilson]

@Jerryll Noorden - Pretty please tell me that you really do use lines like that in you links?! :)

[Jerryll Noorden]

Originally posted by @Elizabeth Wilson:

@Jerryll Noorden - Pretty please tell me that you really do use lines like that in you links?! :)

 I KID you NOT.

I do!!

A seller called me one time and we were talking about how it all works.

I said, we buy your house in cash. He said, well that is the only currency I would accept.

I told him: "WHAT the Freck!? You don't take chickens or goats? WHat is wrong with you"

He literally couldn't stop laughing for minutes!!

[Elizabeth Wilson]

@Jerryll Noorden - Hilarious! I absolutely adore your creativity!  I think the book title should be "Rogue SEO"!

[Eric James]

Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:

Originally posted by @Eric James:

Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:

Originally posted by @Dave Ramirez:

@Jerryll Noorden  i think you gave me a taste of what you know for SEO. Have any more insights?

 I have seen your contributions here on SEO. Always great comments. I think you know your fair share.

I am happy to give any insights. If you have a topic in mind or a goal, I could tell you how I would approach it.

 I'm a complete newbie when it comes to SEO.  What kind of site visits will boost my search rankings? People directly typing my web address? Being accessed through links on other pages? Other things? I have gotten from you that things like time on page are important. 

OK Master Noorden has the mic.

Sit down shush and focus.

Ready?

CTR.

Click Through Rate.

You search for "We Buy Houses In Connecticut" right?

You see a bunch of results.

ALL of them say "We Buy Houses In Connecticut  | Sell Your House Fast" as the title in the search heading.

I mean ALL of the results have that.

A surfer would have no incentive to click on any result specifically other than it is "#1 or 2 or 3 in the ranks.

Now Imagine you see a result like this among all the same old results: "I am MONKEY I buy Your DAMN House with Chickens and Virgins"

You WOULD probably click that link out of sheer curiosity.

So Google thinks, "Ohh wow, for the search query "We Buy Houses In Connecticut", that weird chicken and virgins site gets 90% of clicks. That site must be an amazingly good result for that keyword. I will rank them higher because apparently, everyone like that site.

Once on the site, there are more factors Google monitors, but I will end up writing a book.

So to answer your question.

If someone just types in your site in the URL bar, it has little to no SEO benefits or ranking. People need to organically look for  it on the search, and click you organically!

Can you recommend any introductory tutorial materials?  I am such a beginner I don't even know how to enter titles like that for my site.  

[Jerryll Noorden]

Originally posted by @Elizabeth Wilson:

@Jerryll Noorden - Hilarious! I absolutely adore your creativity!  I think the book title should be "Rogue SEO"!

 ha ha Stinky Monkey SEO (SMSEO)

[Jerryll Noorden]

Originally posted by @Eric James:

Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:

Originally posted by @Eric James:

Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:

Originally posted by @Dave Ramirez:

@Jerryll Noorden  i think you gave me a taste of what you know for SEO. Have any more insights?

 I have seen your contributions here on SEO. Always great comments. I think you know your fair share.

I am happy to give any insights. If you have a topic in mind or a goal, I could tell you how I would approach it.

 I'm a complete newbie when it comes to SEO.  What kind of site visits will boost my search rankings? People directly typing my web address? Being accessed through links on other pages? Other things? I have gotten from you that things like time on page are important. 

OK Master Noorden has the mic.

Sit down shush and focus.

Ready?

CTR.

Click Through Rate.

You search for "We Buy Houses In Connecticut" right?

You see a bunch of results.

ALL of them say "We Buy Houses In Connecticut  | Sell Your House Fast" as the title in the search heading.

I mean ALL of the results have that.

A surfer would have no incentive to click on any result specifically other than it is "#1 or 2 or 3 in the ranks.

Now Imagine you see a result like this among all the same old results: "I am MONKEY I buy Your DAMN House with Chickens and Virgins"

You WOULD probably click that link out of sheer curiosity.

So Google thinks, "Ohh wow, for the search query "We Buy Houses In Connecticut", that weird chicken and virgins site gets 90% of clicks. That site must be an amazingly good result for that keyword. I will rank them higher because apparently, everyone like that site.

Once on the site, there are more factors Google monitors, but I will end up writing a book.

So to answer your question.

If someone just types in your site in the URL bar, it has little to no SEO benefits or ranking. People need to organically look for  it on the search, and click you organically!

Can you recommend any introductory tutorial materials?  I am such a beginner I don't even know how to enter titles like that for my site.  

 Go to your investor carrot page. Click on Help. They have a solid intro with tutorials.

That is a great start!

[Aaron H.]

I don't have any personal experience using IC, so I can't make a direct comparison with anything else. I've heard they're great and have no reason to doubt the advice of others here who use them.

If you know nothing about web design, SEO, etc. then you're almost certainly better off going with an established vendor like IC than making a terrible site on your own.

But, want to clarify: calling something a "Wordpress site" is a bit confusing. Wordpress is just the free software that runs on the server to let you build a website. Usually when people are talking about Wordpress, they mean one of two things:

1) A site you set up through wordpress.com, which is their commercial hosting service (that uses the Wordpress software under the hood). That may be a site on your own domain name, or it may be something like "mycoolsite.wordpress.com." The latter obviously suffers from some professionalism/credibility problems.

2) A site you built yourself (or hired someone to build), running on your own server or web host, using the Wordpress software.

Option #2 accounts for between a quarter and a third of all websites on the internet, including some of the largest companies in the world.

The bottom line being, don't hear "Wordpress" and immediately think it's a sign of low quality or a lack of professionalism. With Wordpress, you get out what you put into it.

There's nothing that IC (or any other lead generation vendor) can do that you couldn't do as well or better using Wordpress. Stuff like mobile design and SEO aren't magic. And in many markets, having a custom-built site might go a long way to differentiating you from the sea of cookie cutter sites every other investor bought from the same vendor.

But, even if mobile design and SEO aren't magic, they are often difficult. So you're not going to set up a vanilla Wordpress site in 5 minutes, install a few plugins, and have a top-ranking website ready to go. If you have neither the expertise nor interest in learning to do it right (and aren't willing to hire someone who can), you should absolutely buy something off the shelf.

[Elizabeth Wilson]

@Aaron H. - Excellent points!!  Thanks for chiming in!

Even just the difference in wordpress.com and wordpress.org sites is important to know and understand!

All one needs to do is google wordpress themes and that, shows the dramatic differences in sites!

My question was does that web platform choice, in and of itself, make a difference? if so what kind of difference? 

[Aaron H.]

@Elizabeth Wilson The short answer is no - all else being equal, the platform you use to produce the site doesn't matter. Google doesn't really think "Oh, this is a Wordpress site, +- 5 points."

To slightly over-simplify things, all web platforms ultimately produce HTML, which is what search engine webcrawlers "read" to look at your site. With enough tweaking, you could produce the exact same rendered HTML output using any platform. You could produce an exact clone of an IC site by hand-writing the HTML in Notepad if you wanted (very bad idea).

What matters for SEO is a long list of factors that the web crawlers use to rank your page - what kind of words are used in headings (that is, what does the page appear to be "about"), what types of phrases and words does the body copy of the site use, how similar is that content to other sites, how many incoming links does the page have from other "high authority" sites, how much traffic are you already getting, how quickly does the page load, how recently was the content updated, how effectively does the site render on a mobile device, etc. etc.

Nobody knows the exact formula for how search engines use those factors, and they change all the time. Staying on top of what currently seems like the optimal way to rank highly is difficult and time consuming.

So, the way in which the platform you use matters is "what tools does this platform give me to make sure that the site I'm building checks all those boxes easily and effectively?"

Wordpress as a platform has a huge number of tools, plugins, and expertise available for hire to ease the burden of doing manual SEO. Those tools are only as good as the person using them.

Other platforms geared more towards drag-and-drop brochure sites with minimal customization options will give you far fewer options.

Services like Investor Carrot do exactly the same things. They just have the expertise to know what works well for real estate investment specific sites and a track record of ranking well. You'll still need to customize your IC site (like Jerryll is suggesting), but it comes more ready out of the box with many of the things that investors are looking for. You ultimately have less tools available for customization than you would with a platform like Wordpress. On the other hand, you may need them less.

[Elizabeth Wilson]

@Aaron H. - Thank you!  

Definitely don't have the time/patience/desire to reproduce an IC site!

Thanks for taking the time to share all of that.  Lots to think about when creating and maintaining a good lead generation and SEO site!

[Justin F.]

There is some solid and creative advice on here from others.  I would just like to add that I don't believe there is a one size fits all solution nor one supreme option that stands above the rest.  I think it is more of a case by case basis and really depends on several things, including:

• The level of competency to understand and implement the system in house or outsourced
• Your timeline and how much effort you're willing to put into it
• Your budget
• Your goals
• Other systems you're already using that you may want to integrate with
• Features you may require
• Simplicity vs capability, sometimes there are tradeoffs between systems
• etc...

Depending on a combination of the above as well as many other factors, one solution might lend itself more to your situation than others.  I would recommend a more tailored approach to your web hosting and SEO needs by speaking with a professional to have them go over all those details with you.

[Elizabeth Wilson]

@Justin F. - Thanks for that advice!  I completely agree with you!  The more I read and learn about online marketing in general, the more I realize how nuanced and how much personal preference has to do with i!