All Forum Posts by: Aaron Cote

Thanks for the tag @Filipe Pereira!

Hey there Ryan,

I run an SEO consultancy. We do Facebook + Google Ads on occasion but primarily work exclusively with SEO. PPC marketing might be the only way to go depending on whether or not there's any search volume in your area for people wanting to sell their houses. If your target markets are viable from an SEO perspective, it might translate to a higher ROI (once you stop paying for PPC ads, you stop generating traffic, but with SEO, after you stop paying the SEO agency, you keep the results).

My company is based out of the U.S., but we do have experience with the complexities that can come with international SEO. If it's something you're even remotely interested in, shoot me a message, and I can answer any specific questions you might have about how it works, how well it works, timeframes, etc.

@Jerryll Noorden That's fine.

Even though we have pretty polar opposite opinions on SEO, I do wish you and your business the best. 

Good luck 👍

@Jerryll Noorden

My point for mentioning that I’ve owned my SEO company for about 2.5 years was to let people know that I know a thing or two about SEO.

Impulsive?

I wasn’t the one who said that ‘DMM is only the choice when people have done ZERO friggin research on marketing’.

Angry?

Have you read anything that you’ve posted? I’m definitely not the angry one. I’m just frustrated to see such bad advice coming from people in this industry.

Jealous?

Of what?

Saying that each marketing situation needs to be looked at for what it is before deciding on which type of marketing to do is an empty claim?

To be credible, you do have to show results. I agree. There’s a fine line between showing actual results and posting screenshots trying to show high rankings of pages for keywords with little to no search traffic or competition. You said that you “have absolutely no competition” and I can see that.

Calling me names is definitely not a good look for your reputation (angry boy, young man, butt-hurt?). It appears that you’re the one who’s ‘attacking’ me. Also, I like how you found a month old post to comment on saying that the tools I use are only for people who know nothing about SEO. Classy.

You also said that you’re ‘sitting here teaching others and guiding them’. I’m interested in the SEO you do, because it’s extremely different from SEO industry leaders that have spent years upon years doing this daily building large agencies up and getting results.

If I use two of the best SEO tools that have some of the most accurate data, I’m doing it wrong? What are your keyword research standard operating procedures?

How do I do what I do? By having spent years building out standard operating procedures to allow me to work as effectively as possible, attending national SEO events, and staying up-to-date with best practices.

I’m well aware of the importance of searcher intent. SEO is constantly changing and if you’re not staying up-to-date, you’re falling behind.

Not stubborn. Not ignorant. I am smart enough to not ‘adopt your teachings’ though. Everything I’ve seen from you has been arrogant or misleading. I can’t say I’d be interested in adopting any of those.

Why would you target a keyword that’s irrelevant in the first place? Your ‘keyword lesson’ makes 0 sense.

You said that I ‘dare bark at you… The supreme overload of all’? Are you for real? How can anyone take you seriously?

So the results I’ve gotten for perfecting my SOPs is ‘wrong’? That also, like just about everything you’ve said, makes no sense.

NEVER said it was easy to rank for keywords that get volume. I was insinuating that it’s easy to rank for keywords nobody is searching for though. Good try.

Question.

You said that keywords don’t matter and stressed the importance of qualified traffic. Why is it that you’re getting ~1,500 site visitors/mo for “we buy houses”? Surely not every person is from Connecticut.

I've owned and operated an SEO agency for nearly two and a half years now, and I have to say - this is painful to read. 

It's not difficult to rank for searches that, according to Ahrefs and SEMRush (two of the industry-leading SEO tools), get around 0 searches/mo. 

SEO is NOT a blanket solution. 

SEO, PPC, and DMM are all excellent solutions for specific circumstances. 

If you're targeting a community that is predominantly made up of people who might be opposed to technology (elderly, very rural areas, etc.), SEO is still better than direct mailing? 

I'm not trying to knock your hustle @Jerryll Noorden, but you need to be a little more transparent and a lot less arrogant. 

I use Ahrefs and SuferSEO primarily for competitor analysis.

I don' know of any specific courses that are extremely helpful for real estate SEO, but the Beginner's Guide to SEO by Moz is a phenomenal resource for getting into SEO in general.

Hey @Andrew Yu

I run an SEO agency, so I might be able to help answer your question.

The answer is exclusively SEO. Sometimes it’s strategic SEO, and sometimes it’s accidental. I’ve seen quite a few websites that haven’t invested in SEO, but are still ranking high for specific keywords and getting traffic because they’re consistently putting out high quality content.

This is absolutely something you can do yourself - it just takes a while to really learn the basics of SEO, and then a little while longer to get up to date with best practices because almost every training resource will be out of date (Google updates their algorithm SO frequently).

When I’m working with my writers to create content for my clients, I plan out the entire article in a ‘content optimization guide’. I basically look at the competitors that are performing well to see what they’re doing right, find the average word count, recommend some keywords and phrases to incorporate, and then structure an outline for the writer to go off of. Basically, I find what’s working already, and then improve upon AND make it unique. I personally don’t write anymore, but creating these guides allow me to get exactly what I need from my writers to get content that ranks. My advice if you wanted to tackle this on your own would be to look at competitors that are performing really well and just noting down some of what they’re doing and try incorporating that to a degree. If they have unordered lists in their copy, try including an unordered list. If they have question subheadings, try including that.

One of the largest ranking factors is backlinks. There’s not a lot you can do on your own without much knowledge on different backlink acquisition methods, unfortunately. One of the next largest ranking factors is quality content. Make sure that the content you put out helps lend your brand an expert, authoritative, and trustworthy reputation. Google prefers websites that hit those 3 indicators (E-A-T for short).

Hopefully this helped,

Aaron

@Richard H. I also recommend @Filipe Pereira . He is a great guy and is extremely professional. He not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. He has phenomenal reviews across the board (see his Google My Business listing and his Facebook page). 

@Ryan Gagne In my experience, it usually takes about 3-6 months to start seeing some decent results, although I have seen numbers rise as soon as 1.5 months in. 

It mainly depends on what content currently exists to work with on the website. 

Hi @Dillon Gulczynski , I'd recommend starting with a basic website so you have somewhere to direct people.

Then I'd get some business cards and try some brief/basic word of mouth marketing with some of the people you think will provide you value.

Next, I'd look into targeted Facebook ads to start generating some leads and revenue.

As your marketing budget increases, I'd recommend looking into SEO to generate leads. This is my favorite/most effective method for my clients, as it's passive and allows leads to find you.

@Ryan Gagne I'm probably a little bias in this regard since I run an SEO consultancy, but SEO is the way to go in my opinion.

Instead of spending time/money finding leads, spend a bit of money on an SEO agency to have the leads find you . And the best part (in my opinion) is that you'll become an authority in your locale and will improve your brand awareness.