Written by Trevor Mauch What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of making improvements both on your website and off-site to increase the visibility of your website in search engines like Google.
ℹ️ Learn more via Search Engine Land: What Is SEO – Search Engine Optimization? →
Why is SEO important for businesses?
SEO and evergreen marketing can result in more organic search traffic to your website, and in turn, more leads and customers for your business.
“Organic” search results are the unpaid results that appear on a search engine results page (as opposed to sponsored ads or paid traffic).
By optimizing your website to get found in the organic search results, the people who are looking for your services or products can find you, especially if you rank on Page 1 of the search results.
Few people click “next page” when searching… they never even see Page 2, never mind pages 4-9.
And the higher you rank, the more traffic you’ll get. According to Backlinko, the #1 organic result is 10x more likely to receive a click compared to a page in the #10 spot.
SEO Implementation: DIY or Outsource?
It’s vital to decide who’s going to implement your SEO efforts.
Many real estate professionals and small business owners who fail at SEO do so because they are not consistent enough or they don’t give it enough time to pay off.
We get it; working solo or running a growing company often means you are doing it all, and it’s easy to put stuff aside… even the important stuff. It’s important to commit to this and know you have what it takes.
If you question how consistent you can be or if you prefer to have someone else do it for you, consider hiring a VA (virtual assistant) or a professional company to do it for you. Browse our Marketplace of in-house Carrot services and trusted SEO providers.
However, even if you are outsourcing the work, it is helpful to understand the basics of SEO and marketing for your business. You wouldn’t hand over all of your financial statements to a bookkeeper without understanding the most important numbers behind your business, would you? The same is true for your marketing efforts.
How long does it take to see SEO results?
SEO is a long-term strategy. It’s a marathon, not a sprint!
It can typically take 4-12 months to see significant results from SEO improvements. But once you get going, SEO and evergreen marketing can help you attract and convert high quality prospects 24/7, for months and years in the future.
Be patient, because if done correctly, the results from SEO will be worth it!
If you’re looking for faster options to get leads quickly, great options are running paid advertising like Facebook Ads or Google Pay Per Click (PPC).
But let’s be clear: you should do both SEO and paid marketing to have the best performance for your website and deliver the most leads for your business.
How can I get started with SEO?
Carrot’s website platform is built with SEO and performance in mind. Our website templates are optimized out-of-the-box for keyword phrases relevant to the site type you’ve selected.
Our Content Tools like Auto-Locations Pages, AI Rewrite Tool and Niche Authority Builder help you save time in SEO content creation.
Carrot’s suite of SEO tools like Keyword Explorer, Keyword Rank Tracker, Site Audit and Backlink Analysis make it easy to do keyword research, track your keyword rankings and improve SEO results.
To get started with SEO, we recommend focusing on 3 key areas:
- Keyword Research
- On-Page SEO + Content Strategy
- Off-Page SEO
1. Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of discovering words and phrases (aka “keywords”) that people use in search engines like Google, Bing, and YouTube.
Keyword research impacts every other SEO task that you perform, including finding content topics, on-page SEO, blog strategy, and content promotion.
That’s why keyword research is usually the first step of any SEO campaign.
As a bonus, researching keywords helps you better understand your target audience. That’s because keyword research gives you insight into what customers are searching for… and the exact words and phrases they use. In other words: keyword research is market research for the 21st century.
Carrot’s website templates are optimized out-of-the-box for keyword phrases relevant to the site type you’ve selected. But we recommend familiarizing yourself with the basics of keyword research and using Carrot’s Keyword Explorer to further customize your site and beat the competition.
Learn more:
2. On-Page SEO + Content Strategy
On-page SEO (also known as “on-site SEO”) is the practice of optimizing web page content for search engines and users. Common on-page SEO practices include optimizing title tags, content, internal links, and URLs.
Having helpful, descriptive content on your website is important for getting found by search engines and building trust with website visitors. Learn more about using on-page SEO and helpful content to increase your search visibility:
3. Off-Page SEO
Finally, after optimizing your pages and creating some helpful content, you’ll want to spend some time on off-page SEO.
Off-page SEO (also known as off-site SEO) involves any activities done outside of your website that are meant improve your search engine rankings, create brand awareness, and drive referral traffic to your website from other sites. This can include creating citations, link building, forums, influencer outreach, guest blogging, and offline marketing to name a few.
Learn more:
Carrot’s Domain Overview and Backlink Analysis tools can help you track your off-page SEO performance.
Learn More About SEO:
- Beginners Guide to SEO for Real Estate
- Improving Your Google Rankings
- Join Carrot’s Official Evergreen Marketing Community!
Don’t have time to do SEO yourself?
Take advantage of top-notch, Carrot-certified SEO providers to generate more organic leads: