SEO for Real Estate Investing

SEO for Real Estate Investing

Show Summary

Hey everybody, welcome back to the show! I’m here with my good friend, Cristina Kudlock, and we are going to talk about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Cristina is part of the Investor Fuel Mastermind and our resident SEO expert. Today, we are going to share some awesome tips with you! Let’s get started!

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    FlipNerd Show Transcript:

    [00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show today. I’m here with my good friend, Christina. Kubak we’re gonna be talking about SEO. She’s really, she’s a part of investor fuel mastermind, and she’s kind of our resident SEO expert. And today we’re going to share some awesome tips with you.

    Professional real estate investors know that it’s not really about the real estate. That real estate is just a vehicle for freedom. A group of over a hundred of a nation’s leading. Real estate investors from across the country meet several times a year at the investor fuel real estate mastermind to share ideas on how to strengthen each other’s businesses, but also to come together as friends and build more fulfilling lives for all of those around us on today’s show, we’re going to continue our conversation, fueling our businesses and fueling our lives.

    I’m glad you’re here.

    [00:01:00] Awesome, Christina, welcome to the show.

    Cristina: [00:01:03] Hey, I’m so excited to be here. Thanks for having,

    Mike: [00:01:06] yeah. Glad to have you here. And, uh, it was, we were talking a little bit upfront, um, about, you know, what, you’ve been, what you’ve been working on. It. It’s interesting because you, because you do a lot of SEO stuff, you’re really a virtual investor yourself, and you’re talking about moving and having, you know, different places you’ll live in the country.

    That’s, that’s actually one of the interesting things about, uh, SEO is. It’s not really, you don’t have to define yourself to one market. Like you could go do stuff in other markets and you could just go jump in another market if you’re virtual. Yeah,

    Cristina: [00:01:31] totally. Yeah. Yeah. It provides a lot of flexibility for

    Mike: [00:01:36] sure.

    Right. Right. And when you get good at it, you know, as you probably know, there’s, there’s like, I know you’re, you’re you, you’re doing very well in LA, which seems like to be a hard market to crack into any major market. Right. But I’m sure you probably know there’s some secondary markets that you could probably go in and.

    Yes in SEO in major markets, like my thought has always been, or just from talking about it was like, Hey, it’s hard to crack in and big markets, but if you’re in a secondary tertiary market, you could [00:02:00] probably own it with a little bit of effort, you know, but, uh, I know you’re proving us wrong by owning LA.

    Cristina: [00:02:06] Well, you know, I kinda went into it like probably a little bit naive and was just like, you know what? This is, I was super impacted by Trevor, at carrot at the beginning of my real estate journey. And, um, I was just like, and he’s very much like, no, you can be at the top of 90 markets. So I was like, okay, good for it.

    And yeah, it’s been, it’s been great.

    Mike: [00:02:30] That’s that Navy naivete is, uh, is, is a good thing. I mean, if you. If you don’t know, like even when I started in Oh eight, if I had listened to more experienced real estate investors that are saying, Oh my God, don’t get in right now. The market’s here. We, we did really well.

    We like crushed it when we first started without any previous experience. And partly because we just didn’t have baggage and we didn’t listen to. Naysayers.

    Cristina: [00:02:55] Yeah. Sometimes. And like, I mean off topic, but [00:03:00] hiring people, you know, a lot of times investors go and they look for other people who have already done it, but in my, like, you know, whether it’s a cool color or texture or whatever, and you come with these bad habits as opposed to not knowing anything and just figuring out what works for you.

    Cause we all have different skill sets and different. Yeah. Know what works for us. So. You know, figuring out along the way.

    Mike: [00:03:22] So tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into real estate investing.

    Cristina: [00:03:26] Yeah, so I, I actually got in, uh, started with real estate investing by reading a wholesaling book.

    And I had always been, you know, really interested in real estate, my whole life, my parents, um, they like flipping houses. It’s not, not as a business, but just, you know, live in one and move on to the next and, um, And, but from my point of view, you know, usually when we think about getting started in real estate, it’s like become a realtor or something, you know?

    And, and I went that route for a little while, did not enjoy it whatsoever [00:04:00] and decided to, um, and then just, you know, whatever. Um, anyways, I picked up a book on wholesaling one day, you can do that. That’s like, and then I’ve just been hooked ever since.

    Mike: [00:04:13] Do you remember what book it was?

    Cristina: [00:04:14] Um, you know what it was like, I don’t remember.

    Preston’s something, it was like literally a two 99 on Amazon, like an ebook kind of a thing. Like just it’s real simple. And I’m from there.

    Mike: [00:04:28] Yeah. Yeah. Essentially how it, little, little things are like a catalyst sometimes. So it’s not even necessarily what you read. It’s just like it just spurred a thought or spurred, like.

    Researching more or taking it to the next level. So, yeah. It’s amazing.

    Cristina: [00:04:41] Absolutely. It gets you, you know, from there you start asking better questions, you know? Right. You know, and just, yeah. Spiral.

    Mike: [00:04:51] Yeah. Out of control out of control is the rights, the rights phrase there. So some will, but we’re going to, we’re going to talk about a bunch of stuff inside of SEO [00:05:00] that we can, you and I talked about a little bit upfront, but you know, I think a lot of people, they either.

    Spend time on it, or they think it’s a waste of time or they just think it’s a good idea, but they never get to it. It’s I don’t want to talk about a bunch of that, but maybe let’s just kind of start off by saying, you know, why is SEO important? There’s lots of ways you can advertise, but why is SEO important?

    Would you say,

    Cristina: [00:05:17] wow, well, I mean, if you just look at the way our world is going, I mean, everything is online and online is where you have people’s attention. Anytime. You know, I can’t tell you how many leads that. I’ve gotten through SEO that people say, yeah, I have this stack of, you know, stack of mailers, but then I lost them and, you know, so they, they go looking for, um, for their answers and.

    Where do we go to look for anything we go to Google or online and, um, yeah, so it’s, I just feel like that’s the direction the world is going. And, um, you know, it’s not the, the kind of, it’s definitely a [00:06:00] supplement, you know, you don’t, at least for us as real estate investors, you don’t. It’s kind of waiting for the leads to come to you.

    And you’re always looking for more leads or, you know, it’s not so much like the hunting and, you know, going out like cold calling or texting would be right. Um, but it also really does help to build your credibility for those other things, too. You got tons of people who are like, well, let me see your reviews.

    Let me see. Um, You know your website, they want to make sure you’re credible. So that, that lens all of it too. And so it really does supplement, you know, no other, other forms of marketing for sure. But I mean, I just believe that the SEO leads are just always the best. They’re always my base. I guess steals.

    They’re the ones that come to you ready? You’re not having to do months of follow up and not all of them, but, um, yeah, I’m

    Mike: [00:06:52] not, I know not everybody’s like me, but I’ll be honest with you. Whenever I look, look for something on Google, I generally skip the ads. [00:07:00] Because I want to see, I don’t want, see you bought their way there.

    Cause I know, you know, I know enough to know anybody could buy their way. They’re like show me people that earn their way. They’re like, that tells me something about that company. Right. So I know not everybody is that way, but that’s how I that’s generally how I use Google.

    Cristina: [00:07:12] Same, same. Yeah. I mean, every, it depends depending on what it is, but yeah.

    Mike: [00:07:19] Yeah. It’s kind of like, it’s like a review almost. It’s like they, well, they couldn’t have gotten there without a lot of effort and I, I. You know, I want to reward effort. It’s like cross it’s like crossing a threshold for me. It’s kinda like, wow. They were, especially if it’s a competitive area, like, wow, these guys are at the top.

    They must have, they must, they must put some, yeah. They care about, they care about their business. Right.

    Cristina: [00:07:40] Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

    Mike: [00:07:42] Awesome. So let’s talk a little bit about, um, you know, what are some of the kind of foundations like people can go hog wild, they can hire a bunch of agencies or announced people to do.

    So what’s kind of like the foundation of what your website should have.

    Cristina: [00:07:54] Totally. Yeah. And as we were saying earlier, you know, when we talk about [00:08:00] SEO, the website’s the foundation for all of it, but technically. That’s not what SEO is, but in order to have good SEO, you, you know, you definitely need that foundation there.

    Right. And I’ll keep saying it again. Cause carrot, they just, I mean, if you look at the top top results in almost any market, it’s almost, if, if carrots not the top one, it’s one of them. And so we definitely know what they’re doing and I have. Zero. Like I’m not techie, um, coding and all of that. It’s just really, uh, that’s not my, I don’t enjoy it.

    I don’t get it until they just provide a really good foundation for all of that kind of behind the scenes stuff that Google cares about and looks at, um, and further algorithms to make sure that like you, that you do have a good website. So they. You know, they take care of all that for you and then just make it really, really easy to customize it yourself.

    [00:09:00] Um, I would say though, when carrot does give you a web site, they’re giving that same website to everyone where you won and when Google was except that, and they see, so let’s say you take carrots website and you just make it go live. You don’t do any customization. Google’s gonna start to snow. It’s not going to hold your website in high value because it sees it’s a duplicate of all of these other websites,

    Mike: [00:09:27] right?

    It’s generic. It’s just a shell at

    Cristina: [00:09:29] that point. Exactly. So my, I mean, first number one, you know, foundational tip for everyone, it’s customized. Everything do not use any of the VR. They give you kind of. And have a really good roadmap to what you talk about on your website, but even if you go and rewrite it all in your own words, but you do, you just want it to be a hundred percent unique and, and custom from you.

    Another really good tip that I’ve, [00:10:00] if that makes it easier to crack into your market is use a it’s called like a URL word counter. And so just Google one of them. There’s tons of items and you can put a website in and whatever. So if you’re giving a direct, you know, the URL for a website, it’s going to tell you how many, um, how many words are on the, that homepage for that website.

    And if so, if you go and you look at all of your comp competition and see like the top three websites and they have, let’s say, you know, 1800 words, or it can vary, some will have like 700, um, Trying to do like a couple hundred more than the cause. Google likes a lot of content. So it makes that will make it easier for your website to rank, um, because

    Mike: [00:10:53] they prefer more content.

    And you’re specifically, you’re saying the homepage because that’s where. Most people, if you do a Google search, you’re going to find a home [00:11:00] page. Probably.

    Cristina: [00:11:00] Yeah, really? Any page though. I mean the home page is the one we work on the most rank, but then let’s say you go and you make city pages for a unit, like, um, for Riverside, as opposed to just like Los Angeles, my home page, that’s all geared for chess Los Angeles, but then I have all these other pages because.

    You know, people might, even though they live in Los Angeles or the smaller neighborhoods, they might not, uh, type at your time, did something like, so my house past Los Angeles, maybe they do sell my house fast torrents, which is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, you know? And so you, you make another web page specifically for that.

    Um, and so you can. And then in that sense you would look at like, okay, so, so my house fast, Los Angeles, or Torrance, where are all of the, what are, what are the websites that are coming up? And oftentimes you’ll see that there’s different peach, [00:12:00] excuse me, words for each page. So you, you, you look at that and then, you know, how, how much content you need to bring.

    Mike: [00:12:07] Yeah. And that’s a general, general guideline is you can say who do some searches for keywords. Find out where your competition is. Right. And then find out how to do it better than them. Right.

    Cristina: [00:12:16] I mean, essentially. Yeah. And I mean, I was talking to someone the other day. They were like, well, well, what about like Apple, Apple?

    They don’t have very many words on their website. It’s like, yeah. But Apple already has. Built in credibility, everybody, like you type an Apple, it’s the first thing that’s going to come up because they’re there brand recognition. Right? Whereas like a little investor like me or really anyone in LA, like Google doesn’t automatically know who that is.

    So they’re looking at your website too. So determined that and the more content you give them the higher, um, just, it makes it easier to rank. Yeah.

    Mike: [00:12:55] Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. Would you say a homepage is [00:13:00] rank higher or if somebody finds your own page? Based on the number of pages and the content of the page, like behind the homepage, like all, if you have like lots of, you know, articles or blogs or city pages, things like that, does that help?

    I mean, as volume does volume always better?

    Cristina: [00:13:15] Not necessarily, no. I wouldn’t say like the number of pages, it’s just your, the number of pages really gives you what you want to look at is each page. Is an, uh, an opportunity for someone to tighten a set of keywords or a keyword and be able to find you that way.

    So it doesn’t necessarily mean Google sees that they’re like, Oh, this one is the most credible. You’re just giving yourself more chances because each page has kind of like geared for a specific kind of whether it’s like for foreclosure or, you know, probate kind of a thing. You have all these different pages.

    That’s. That page is, uh, uh, an opportunity for people to find you based on what they’re searching. Yep. Yep.

    Mike: [00:13:57] So I’ll prompt. We were talking about how [00:14:00] some people just, uh, and I think, you know, we’ll add a link for Kara down below. Probably most people that are listening to this already have a cure page, or if you don’t finally, so you can get directly there.

    And Trevor’s a member of our investor fuel mastermind get back is one of our founding members, great guy. A lot of people use them. And some of the times the biggest complaint is like, well, our sites all look the same, but if you were to go. Uh, install a WordPress theme right now. It’s the same out of the box too.

    Like it’s not intended to be like a totally done for you. Everything you need all in one it’s you have to, no matter what website you start, you have to customize it.

    Cristina: [00:14:31] Yeah. And the thing is too. I think we’re a lot of people were thinking they are all looking the same is, um, and care. It’s really great about doing all these updates.

    They do. Whenever you like. Yeah. Um, about two years ago, the, the website that they were giving everyone has the sidebar and like a widget, and then they give everyone the same widget. So that again, you really have to go in and especially like the pictures, but [00:15:00] that care gives you change all the pictures, change everything.

    And, um, then you were websites, but you could take off the widget too. And now. With what they’re giving you. I mean, it’s a, it’s a blank slate. You can change everything. And, um, that, that was actually my hesitation with Karen at first too. I’m like, they all look the same, so I just wanted them was changing everything and.

    Um, yeah, it there’s, there’s only so many ways you could do sure. The seller’s website anyway.

    Mike: [00:15:32] Right, right, right. So what are some of the, we talked about it a little bit, but, um, what are some of the kind of basics like I know, I think I’ve heard drivers say in the past, like, Hey, the about us page is generally one of the most viewed, but like what are some fundamental stuff?

    Like, you must have this, whether it comes with. A new theme or not like, what are some things that if someone was going to, if somebody bought a site, they had a site it’s up and they really haven’t touched it. And you’re like, Hey, if I can tell you like, A couple of things to go do, like right now, everything [00:16:00] else,

    Cristina: [00:16:01] credibility, boosters, all day, your social signals, the directing people to, you know, looking at your reviews.

    Here’s my Google reviews. Here’s my Facebook reviews. Here’s my better business Bureau, you know, links to everything. That’s just like credibility. Yeah, whatever you can do to, yeah. That’s the first thing. I mean, you have the, um, the hero section, it’s the basically kind of the main picture that carrot gives you and the lead capture form.

    The lead capture form. You want first, obviously like that, that needs to be right there because there’s a lot of people that would come to your website that don’t necessarily care. They’re probably going to like 15 websites dropping their information everywhere so that they can just start with collecting offers.

    They don’t really care to read the whole thing. So you want. You want the lead capture, right. That right there, first thing they see, and then a lot of people know, they need to know, well, who are you? What are, [00:17:00] um, you know, tell me about your company. What’s your process and that’s what, you know, the rest of the website.

    Mike: [00:17:05] Yeah. How are you different? Yep.

    Cristina: [00:17:06] Yep. So

    Mike: [00:17:07] talking about, um, how to kind of consistently make tweaks, because I think like, It’s the same thing in direct mail. People say like, well, I have the list as it as if it’s the static list that doesn’t change. Right. And I can assume that with a website, people like, well, I love to, he did my site.

    I’ve got, I’ve got some content on there. It’s like, they just kind of do enough to like check it the box and stop. And you know, we’re real estate investors, smallest runners were wearing a lot of hats. So we’d love to check something off and say we’re done, but Don doesn’t. Don and SEL you’re never done.

    Cristina: [00:17:38] Right. So

    Mike: [00:17:40] how do you consistently make tweaks and how do you consistently kind of set up time to make sure that you do that? Cause it’s definitely one of those things that you’re like, well, nothing’s on fire, but I know I should probably do it. So a lot people just don’t get to it.

    Cristina: [00:17:55] Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, for if you’re brand [00:18:00] new or, you know, just have a site that you haven’t paid attention to yet.

    I mean, even if it’s. Taking one going through one page at a time and customizing each one. I would say the very first thing, if someone’s looking for an action item is just customized their website to, to the fullest extent. Really all the pictures need to be different. All of the, um, if you, if you’re using the kind that has like the widget bar to the side, changing all of that and just, you know, making it more about your company and giving like, Um, it’s an office.

    Awesome idea to have your own picture on it too, because it gives people a, you know, just more calm, they’re more comfortable and they know who they’re calling, or at least, you know, who’s the person that’s going to be buying their house. And it just, you know, and, and. Um, I wish I had like some kids in mind rent, some

    Mike: [00:18:57] kids you could run some kids or [00:19:00] dogs.

    Yeah. But the point is, is like, Hey, if you have a family use it. If you have a team, who’s the team, like here’s a picture of our team. We’re here to help you like kind of use, really interacting with, right.

    Cristina: [00:19:15] Yeah. Humanize it and make people comfortable and be like, you know what? This, like, I’ve gotten so many people that are like, I just, you know, you’ve you seem like a nice, a nice lady and there just feel more comfortable.

    Talking to you, especially, you know, in the real estate industry, a lot of people, you know, sharks and stuff like that. And so like a familiar face who’s like made it all these videos. They’ve had a chance to connect with you when they’re just comfortable. Yeah.

    Mike: [00:19:44] Especially if you’re, if you’re smaller and, you know, uh, in your.

    You’re on the phone with people too. If they see your website and they’re like, wait, I saw your picture online. Like they, they know like they made the connection, like, Oh, I’m actually talking to you. I figured they probably figured that was just like,

    Cristina: [00:19:59] I love that. Yeah. [00:20:00] Love to call

    Mike: [00:20:01] it some random dude, you know?

    Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, what kind of guidance can you give for a, I guess kind of consistently creating content? So some people like hate to write, you know, videos easier, but some people are afraid of the camera. Well, you have to have some consistency to say like, Hey, every house I go to, I’m going to create a video.

    Or every Friday I’m gonna create five videos or some kind of like something you can block time and just chip away at a little bit here and there. Right.

    Cristina: [00:20:28] Totally. And if you are out in the field, like if for an, and it doesn’t even have to be you yourself, like the owner of who it’s up website that is, if you have an acquisitions manager, put it on them, you know, it’s just about creating content and giving.

    Um, people, a chance to see that you’re real what you’re doing and just connect with you. Um, for me, like, like we were talking about, I do do a lot of work well, um, but I do still go to some houses. I try not to, but like [00:21:00] anytime I am at a house, I absolutely will. Like I use, I take advantage of that and, you know, make a piece,

    Mike: [00:21:07] that’s the best stuff.

    It’s very relevant. Right? You’re at a house. And if you’re reviewing the site, you’re probably thinking about selling your house. So here they are at a house, even if it doesn’t look like yours, it’s just like, it just makes the connection of this is a real thing, you know?

    Cristina: [00:21:20] Totally. Yeah. It, it, it shows that you’re real.

    Mike: [00:21:24] Yeah. And you can, and when you do that, you can drop keywords like for the city. Like if you’re looking to sell your house in Dallas, No, I’m at a house in Dallas right now. We just helped to sell her. And you probably do a lot of stuff. Like, you know, dropping like. Here’s the situation they were having, trying to relate back to, like we help people and we also help people, you know, you could say, well, look, her, her mother died and, and we’re silver selling mom’s house.

    And, you know, we help people in situations like that. And here’s several other situations where we help people.

    Cristina: [00:21:52] Yeah. Well, and then especially like, Showing how, and I know like, cause there’s so many go givers in like in, in [00:22:00] investor field, people really do go above and beyond for the people that they are buying houses from and, you know, create these just, you know, crazy different kinds of solutions to help them.

    And. And talking about that and showing that, Hey, we’re not just buying your house, we’re actually going to make it convenient and provide a solution that just really takes the burden off of people.

    Mike: [00:22:24] Right, right, right. Yeah. I think it makes it real. Cause there’s so many other sites out there look kind of canned and they’re like, ah, but when they see real people dealing with real things and they call and I’m talking to that same person, that’s in the video and they’re the same, one’s going to come out to my house and not everybody’s set up that way, but I’d say disproportionately, a lot of real estate investors there.

    Smaller teams. So that’s a, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s cool. Awesome. So,

    Cristina: [00:22:49] I mean, just to piggyback on what you’re talking about. Like action items too. If there’s people who aren’t in houses everyday, like I’m, I’m not in houses every day. I’ll just, just give myself like [00:23:00] one day a week where I go and just bank photo or not photos, but bank videos.

    And I’ll read the like, Go change an outfit. So it looks like a different day, choose a new backdrop, you know, and it’s nobody, I hate, I hate video something absolutely hate it, but it goes, I mean, it’s a necessary evil when we’re talking about online marketing.

    Mike: [00:23:24] Yeah. And I think people like, uh, you know, This, this, I don’t want this to sound negative, but type people that, that are in a difficult situation, they need our help.

    Like, they don’t really care how you look. They don’t want, she looked like a, like a serial killer, but like, yeah, they’re not worried about like you have a, can you see the pimple, like on the back of your neck? No, nobody, nobody can see that. And nobody cares if you’re going to be habit, it’s like, We’re kind of buying imperfect houses for people in imperfect situations.

    Like they don’t care if you’re perfect, just be yourself. And at the end of the day, like, just be helpful and tell the story like that. That’s what it’s not, you’re not like it’s not a tryout [00:24:00] for Hollywood or anything like that,

    Cristina: [00:24:01] right? No. Yeah. I know. And, um, who’s, I TA I was talking to someone else about it the other day and they’re like, I just like hate video and I’m like, Oh, me too.

    And he was like, really. I would have thought you liked video. I see all these videos, like on, I have a ton of them on my website. It’s like, no, like I have to force myself to do that, but, um, it’s just, yeah, it’s a good thing.

    Mike: [00:24:22] If you’re listening right now and you think that way too, cause I’ll be honest with you.

    We’ve created over 1500 podcasts and I’m not always comfortable in video. I’m just like, I don’t know what to say right now. Like I don’t know if you’ll like it. I find so much to use and not have to. I mean, the beauty of my podcast is it’s scheduled in my calendar. And I immediately, it’s an interview. So I’m meeting with you, but it’s so much harder.

    Like I tried last year, I tried to start getting a bunch of podcasts and I’ll still do something like this where it’s just like me and my car. But after five minutes, like I’m not even interested in what I’m saying anymore.

    Cristina: [00:24:52] Like,

    Mike: [00:24:52] I can’t, I can never do a half hour video by myself,

    Cristina: [00:24:56] but your videos,

    Mike: [00:24:57] the type of stuff

    Cristina: [00:24:59] you should

    Mike: [00:24:59] do, like three [00:25:00] to five minute videos anyway, they

    Cristina: [00:25:01] should be.

    And not, I mean, if you’re talking about like real for us, like video content for sellers, I mean, A minute, max, unless you’re really going, like you have an elaborate story, but like, oftentimes I’ll try to use like one piece of content and put it several different places where I’m like using it for an ad, putting it in, um, uh, putting it on the website.

    She’s posting as a favor post, you know, and, and trying to, to think about, okay, let’s not try to make this, like, Hey, It’s Christina, I’m here on Facebook, you know, and making it so customed so that it can only be used for that place, but like, thinking about it where, you know, how can I maximize this and use it in multiple places too.

    Yeah.

    Mike: [00:25:47] And you could, you could, um, you know, you don’t want to lie, but when you go to a house, you could, you could make several videos, several like brief stories about how you help people. Right. And so.

    Cristina: [00:25:58] Cause we have a ton of [00:26:00] stories from, you know, all of these deals that we’ve done. It doesn’t have, like the point is to show people how you’re helping.

    It’s not like, Oh, it was this exact house, you know, it’s just showing what you’re doing.

    Mike: [00:26:12] Yeah. Right. And the thing is, is like you said, you don’t, you don’t have to, you don’t have to be these wild stories. I think one of the things that is most helpful for people is. You use the platform that you already have, which is looking at houses.

    You can make videos, even if you’re looking at house and you haven’t bought it. Like I just looked at this house and you know, we’re trying to help the seller in this situation. Like, it doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t have to be

    Cristina: [00:26:32] like perfect story.

    Mike: [00:26:35] Here’s exactly what happened. I need to document that. It’s like just use a house where they were already at.

    If you could force yourself to say, Hey, every house that I go look at. Um, I’m going to create one video or two videos, and here’s a list of the types of stories that I want to tell. Like, we help people in this part of town that are dealing with this and that, and this and that. Just look at this house here and I’ll be happy to look at yours or, you know, something that’s, that’s, that’s a little brief, but something like that, it’s like, it [00:27:00] doesn’t have to be like a novel every time.

    Cristina: [00:27:02] Absolutely. Yeah, because people, they. Their

    Mike: [00:27:06] attention span anyway, don’t care.

    Cristina: [00:27:09] Nobody cares. Cause they’re just trying to see you’re a real person, you know what you’re doing and you know, a lot of the times it’s not, you can have an amateur that’s document that document, that documenting everything and then have somebody who’s, you know, super seasoned, but hasn’t, hasn’t documented everything.

    For someone who’s just around looking to sell house that, I mean, in that situation, the amateur is probably gonna look like they know what they’re doing more. So just from the eyes of a seller, who’s looking for information. It’s, it’s not, it’s not that technical.

    Mike: [00:27:51] Yeah. So what can you, what are some tools you use to, uh, to.

    Help with SEO or even create content. What are some tools that you think people [00:28:00] should know about? Like some, some I’m sure you’ve got some secret weapons that, uh, you tell everybody

    Cristina: [00:28:05] about. Which wouldn’t make it a secret by the way. So like Moz and SCM rush, those are two really, really good tools for like checking out your competition, trying to see the kind of backlinks that, you know, that’s one of these best way to get back links is, um, Doing like a backlink checker for pu who’s in your market.

    Look, who’s in the top three spots and look at their top backlinks and then go and just reverse engineer. Right? Um, but honestly, when we’re talking, my biggest tool for STO is my BA and me. She’s just like, she’s good with it. She’s just, I just love her. She does everything for me. A VA does just doesn’t cut it.

    Like she’s not a VA. She does everything. She puts all my videos. She puts [00:29:00] them up. She knows how to optimize because all of that can be very, very busy, tedious work, like having a solid VA who knows how to do, um, Just all of the editing and the content and posting to Facebook, my life goal to avoid all social media, as long as to the day as possible.

    Right. If I can still stay off of Instagram and Facebook until like three o’clock, that’s a great day for me, you know? And so like, it’s kind of reversed to what I need to do though. Like I can’t be, I need to post every day. So just having somebody else to do that for you and, um, and just. Not have to do it yeah.

    Mike: [00:29:42] In your VA. Is that something that you, you taught them that or did they come in with some skills in that area already?

    Cristina: [00:29:47] Yeah. You know, so my girl, I actually hired her as a cold caller and she does still cold call. Um, but she’s just really like, there’s stuff, just computer kind of stuff that like, [00:30:00] I just like, cause again, I’m not techie at all.

    Um, and I just send it to her and she always figures it out without she knows. Um, yeah, she just goes like all, cause I don’t have any patients for like YouTube and all that stuff, but I mean, for SEO, you. That’s that’s a lot of, um, just busy work kind of stuff. So having somebody, um, I think she learned a lot, actually.

    Mike: [00:30:30] That’s how that’s how most things are, right? Like learn on the job, just do it and learn to do it. I mean, there’s so much information out there that you can. Exactly yourself on from, you know,

    Cristina: [00:30:41] like yeah, exactly. Like trainings and the last like investor field training. I had her on that stuff when the, the event too.

    And so it was funny too, cause she was, she was watching it with me. We were like kind of texting back and forth and she’s like, um, it was the Josh [00:31:00] polar one and she was like, Oh, we need to start doing this. Like just little tips that he was giving for like optimizing all of it. She was like, Oh. I already looked for an article.

    I’m gonna learn how to do that. And so it’s cool. Just having like a solid pay, I think, as is everything.

    Mike: [00:31:15] Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about a couple of tools there. Talk a bit more about backlinks. Like the significance of lot people think that the, you know, I guess how do you rate. What’s more valuable. Is it, is it the content you’re creating or the backlinks to it or, I mean, I know you have to have both, but kind

    Cristina: [00:31:31] of share your thoughts.

    You’re looking for. So one of the best, uh, one of the easiest kind of backlinks to go after, um, when you’re getting started, especially as citations. So that’s like, like technically a Google, my business listing. That’s a citation. That’s Google’s. Mmm, creating a business listing through their site and which site is more credible than Google, like [00:32:00] or another example like Facebook, that’s another kind of, it’s a citation, your having your own profile at a.

    At a domain that’s much higher than yours because Facebook, I think they’re dumb. They’re domain authority. And if you’re, if you want to, to check to see what a site’s domain authority is, um, use Moss Mazda is a great tool for that. Um, and you could do like a little Moz installer on your, um, on your browser and.

    It, it, it will automatically tell you what the domain authority is for any given site. And so, um, so getting citations, another one would be like yellow pages.com Yelp. And so having, uh, a listing for your business at all of these. Different places, um, can be really powerful because you’re lending from their domain authority.

    Right? You’re you have a back link now that’s pointing to your website that that is hosted at Yelp or all [00:33:00] of these places. And so, um, and all of those. Kinds of sites naturally have a really high domain authority. So you’re basically lending from that. Right. That’s a good thing.

    Mike: [00:33:11] Yeah.

    Cristina: [00:33:13] Really easy and cheaper.

    Yeah. So that’s

    Mike: [00:33:17] great. Awesome. Awesome. Well, this is any, we talked about a bunch of stuff here, any kind of. Final words of wisdom. Like if people were going to go do like one thing right now, or tomorrow, they’re going to set aside a couple hours to go do, like what’s what, what should that be? Thank

    Cristina: [00:33:29] you.

    Mike: [00:33:31] Maybe just to build a plan, right? I’m like,

    Cristina: [00:33:33] what is, Oh yeah, definitely a plan and just really stick to it. A lot of people get, um, uh, they put SEO on the back burner just because if you go to like an SEO agency or, or affirm, I mean, it’s. Easily a thousand dollars a month. And then they’re going to tell you, especially if you haven’t done any work on your website yet expect six months to a year before you’re [00:34:00] actually going to see results.

    And that’s a lot of money to just, you know, put up front with no results and just anxious weight on it. So, um, just action items. Yeah. I th even, I think. Carrot has like a 30 day plan where they give you, like, you know, so many activities too custom your, your website and all that. But really, I mean, as you go through it, just learning, uh, you know, a little bit more about it.

    It’s like, Hey, what, like one of the things that I just like to Google is like best high powered backlinks to get. And then from there you just kind of go down a rabbit hole, right. And it’s. Um, and if you think about, if you’re Googling these questions onto Google they’re, I mean, pay attention to the top, to the top result, right?

    I mean, that’s what we’re, we’re trying to do is be the top result. So whatever the top results are telling you, obviously it is good advice. Yeah.

    Mike: [00:34:54] Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, good stuff. Thanks for sharing all that today. Yeah, of course. Yeah. [00:35:00] Christina, you’ve been an investor fuel for a little while now. Um, and uh, you’ve been hugely helpful for people in the SEO space.

    Cause like you said, a lot of us are like, they know it’s important, but they’re like, eh, I just don’t get to it. It’s not the hottest fire I know today. Right. Um, so you’ve been very valuable and a big giver in the group. Could you share just in your experience so far in the group, like. What it’s been like in terms of how it’s impacted your business or your life?

    Cristina: [00:35:22] Oh my gosh. It’s just been, you know, cool journey of being in real estate or real estate investor. It can be kind of lonely, like, especially like I have a home office. Most of what I do is offer my computer and just being around other people who are doing it and fun. About the same, like passions and likes.

    And just like to talk about this kind of stuff, you know, because I don’t have too many friends that I just go and talk real estate with, or, um, so just being around people that have, uh, you know, the same interests that I do have has been. [00:36:00] Probably my most favorite part, but it’s just so motivating too, because I’m, I’m for sure.

    The smallest one in there. And so there’s tons you can learn from, from everyone. And just, just seem like everyone in there has all of the same problems. Right. And, and you know how to see how other people. Are handling stuff. And, and it’s funny too. I was talking with my husband. It was for the, one of the last, um, one of the last meetings.

    And I have, uh, like three deals that were like, right on the cusp of closing. I was just like going and saying, like, I need these to close before investors. Like, I need to have something to show when I console. She’s like, it’s just motivating, you know, you don’t want to like. Turn up to the next meeting and not have, you know, some, some sort of work to show everyone.

    So that’s just been for me. Um, the most exciting part is it’s just [00:37:00] motivating. It’s like, I can’t go and be in that room with all these like crazy badass and then not, not have any deals, you know?

    Yeah.

    Mike: [00:37:08] That’s awesome. Well, thanks for sharing. Yeah, there there’s definitely. And accountability level two, it kind of forces you to a lot of people, you know, our meetings are typically every 90 days, roughly.

    So you kind of use that as like a quarterly milestone of like, how am I progressing, forces you to name a little bit? Cause you’re coming, like you said, nobody’s gonna. Nobody’s gonna like, like beat you up. If you

    Cristina: [00:37:28] have a

    Mike: [00:37:30] person that cares most about your goal should be you, but there is some accountability level to it of like, Hey, I need to, I, you know, I want to come prepared to show that I’ve progressed.

    Right. So,

    Cristina: [00:37:39] yeah. Yeah. Absolutely interest. Yeah. Progress. Yeah.

    Mike: [00:37:43] Awesome. Awesome. Well, we appreciate you in a group, for sure. It had of one to, to, uh, to get ahold of you a bit more about you. I know you just said you’re not. You’re not in love with social media, which is most people, they use it all the time.

    We’re not in love with it. They just are addicted to it. But if folks want to connect with you, where can they go?

    [00:38:00] Cristina: [00:38:00] Yeah. Facebook, Facebook, I’m Christina block and, um, Instagram the same Christina KU lock I’m on I’m on both of those. Um, yeah, I’d probably . Yeah, no, Christina dot  at gmail.com. You can reach me there too.

    That would probably be the fastest we’ll add.

    Mike: [00:38:23] We’ll add some links down below in the show notes, so great to see you today.

    Cristina: [00:38:27] Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

    Mike: [00:38:31] Awesome. Awesome. Well, everybody hope you got some good value there. That’s the, I was one of those things that. It’s easy to, uh, not get you because it’s not the hottest fire, but I think if you chip away at it a little bit at a time when you kind of have a goal, it’s like, it’s kind of like saving for retirement.

    Like it just builds up over time. Right. And you get to the point that where hopefully you have this insurmountable wall that, uh, that is hard for other people to compete with because you started early enough.

    Cristina: [00:38:56] Yeah.

    Mike: [00:38:56] Put some focus.

    Cristina: [00:38:58] Absolutely. This will [00:39:00] get someone inspired to just start chipping away.

    Mike: [00:39:03] Yeah. Yep, absolutely. But, uh, everybody, thanks for joining us for today’s episode. I hope you got some good value. Thanks Christina, for sharing some great information with us, you haven’t yet checked this out and investor fuel. Our next meeting is actually coming up pretty fast. You go to westerfield.com.

    Learn a little bit more about us. We’d love to jump on a call and. And see if we’re a fit for you and learn a little bit more about you. Yeah. Yeah. So appreciate it. Everybody. We’ll see you on the next episode.

    Are you an active real estate investor? If so, and you want to latch onto the power of surrounding yourself with over a hundred of the nation’s leading real estate investors. All committed to building stronger businesses and living richer fuller lives. You should jump on a call with us to learn more about Bester fuel.

    Simply visit investor fuel.com to get started. [00:40:00] .