Secrets of Real Estate Leads: Ranking Your Website for Success

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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, Todd Hutcheson shares his extensive experience in real estate investing, discussing his unique advantages in lead generation, the challenges of the Orlando market, and the importance of networking and building relationships. He offers valuable advice for new investors, emphasizing the significance of understanding neighborhoods and leveraging connections to succeed in the industry.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • IBuy Homes Website
    • Sell Orlando Home Fast Website
    • Todd Hutcheson on Youtube
    • Todd Hutcheson’s Email: [email protected]
    • Todd Hutcheson’s Phone no.: (407) 617-4289

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Todd Hutcheson (00:00)
  Leads. ⁓ Yeah, leads. mean, that’s the goal is to get in the top three. And if you’re going for a local to get into what’s called the map pack, and if you get either of those, you’re going to get leads, motivated seller leads, if you do the website right. ⁓ And, you know, the goal is to get an off market property. And the internet is a great way to try to do that.

  Q Edmonds (00:23)
  Got you.

  Todd Hutcheson (00:28)
  It’s people finding you, you’re not spending money on marketing. You’re spending money on trying to get ranked, mostly time. But sometimes you do have to buy a link, but it’s mostly a time commitment to get something ranked.

  Q Edmonds (02:13)
  Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. I’m super excited about my guest here today. And listen, I’m going to let him tell you what he’s involved in. But what I do know is that he has a lot of experience. He’s been at this for a long time. He knows what he’s doing. And like I said, I’m going let him tell you all about it. But I want to introduce you all to Mr. Hutcheson. Mr. Todd, how are doing today, sir?

  Todd Hutcheson (02:41)
  Great, Q. Welcome. Welcome to our cold Orlando.

  Q Edmonds (02:47)
  Absolutely, Yeah, we’ve been talking a little bit guys It’s a little bit chilly in Orlando and most of us just like mr. Todd when we think of Orlando We don’t think of coal and so, you know, I’m sympathizing with him for sure But listen mr. Todd, I want to jump in I would love for you to tell people What are your main focus these days what it is that you’re doing? ⁓ I would love for you to maybe to give us a little bit of an origin story of kind of how you got started

  And then you already told us where you are in Florida. And so maybe you can tell us, know, again, what your main focus is and your origin story, sir. I would love to know that. So the floor is yours, Mr. Todd.

  Todd Hutcheson (03:27)
  Okay. First of all, I’m a native Floridian. I was born in Jacksonville, moved to Orlando in 91. I was a full-time political consultant. And when you’re a political consultant, you’re only busy six months out of every two years. And I was looking for something to do on the off times. And I had an option to buy a campaign sign company where, and

  I had an option to buy it. I was working there to see if I would like it. And a guy came in and said, you need to come to our real estate investing meeting. We’re all the guys who put out the, we buy houses signs. I said, okay, that was in December of 90. And in January of 91, I went to CFRI the real estate investing association. said, and I fell in love with it immediately. Uh, I bought, I buy homes.com instead of the sign shop. I got.

  dot com dot net and dot org for fifteen hundred dollars, hundred dollars down, hundred dollars till I paid it off. So then for the next six years, I was a part time investor. And then after that, a full time investor. And my whole goal was to get Google to rank iBuyHomes.com. I did that successfully. I was in the top three for many, many, many years. I sold the website about six years ago and

  I kept the rights to this area and a couple of other areas, so I’m still partially involved. But now I’m trying to build websites for my own use in secondary markets. It’s a lot easier to build them and to get ranked. You don’t get as many leads in the smaller markets, but there’s not as much competition from a Google perspective. So that’s what I’m working on now. I run an Investing Meetup once a month.

  So I help a lot of people that are new get deals done and it brings me deals as well. So ⁓ that’s a little bit about me.

  Q Edmonds (05:28)
  Love it. Love it. So let me ask you for somebody that doesn’t may not understand putting my hand up because I’m probably one. So getting a website ranked, what are the benefits of getting a website ranked?

  Todd Hutcheson (06:33)
  Leads. ⁓ Yeah, leads. mean, that’s the goal is to get in the top three. And if you’re going for a local to get into what’s called the map pack, and if you get either of those, you’re going to get leads, motivated seller leads, if you do the website right. ⁓ And, you know, the goal is to get an off market property. And the internet is a great way to try to do that.

  Q Edmonds (06:57)
  Got you.

  Todd Hutcheson (07:01)
  It’s people finding you, you’re not spending money on marketing. You’re spending money on trying to get ranked, mostly time. But sometimes you do have to buy a link, but it’s mostly a time commitment to get something ranked.

  Q Edmonds (07:14)
  Gotcha, gotcha, understood. So now if I heard you correctly, you was a political strategist. Did I hear that correct?

  Todd Hutcheson (07:21)
  political consultant

  Q Edmonds (07:23)
  Got you, absolutely. Because I want to talk to you about strategies. I would love to know some of the business strategies that you use, but I also would like to know some personal strategies that you’ve used over the years that you know has helped you be successful. I know some people do meditating, some people may do cold plunging. So are there personal strategies that you can identify that you like? Yes, this definitely helped me. And what are some of the business strategies that help you along the way?

  Todd Hutcheson (07:51)
  I reading is, you I learned before YouTube how to do real estate investing and it was all through books and I love reading. ⁓ taking bits and pieces from book business books and applying it to my business, like negotiation ⁓ is a big one. ⁓ How to communicate, talk to people. I just read a book about that. So I like to read.

  And so therefore I like to read business books and try to take the best part of each book and put it into my business.

  Q Edmonds (08:23)
  I love it. I absolutely love it. Have you ran into any adversity as you was building your business? Has it been smooth sailing or have there been some bumps and roads?

  Todd Hutcheson (08:32)
  There’s always bumps. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Everybody would be a billionaire. yeah, I mean, the biggest bumps is when Google, for me as an internet marketer is when Google does an update and your website goes from ranked in the top three to on the fifth page and your phone stops ringing and you have to figure out what steps to correct or add to the website to get it ranked again.

  And that’s happened a few times to me and it’s painful. But if you don’t do any nefarious stuff that Google doesn’t like, you’ll get ranked back eventually if you do the right thing. but yeah, Google is the biggest problem or thorn in my side and the biggest supplier, I guess, if you will, of my deals.

  Q Edmonds (09:23)
  Absolutely, but they but they say the gift in the curse right is the is the is the great gift and then when it does something like ⁓ What can you identify as your next real goal? Like are you looking to solve scale a problem? Like what’s the next real goal for you,

  Todd Hutcheson (09:44)
  My goal this year is to buy at least two deals in a different market. ⁓ I’m going to South Florida and Southwest Florida and one and in Montgomery. And I guess another goal is to sell off some of the websites that I own different city specific, we buy houses things so that the reason I’m selling them and

  possibly building a website for somebody is I want a link back to me. That’s going to be a condition of the sale. One of the ways to get ranked to the best way to get ranked is to have authoritative real estate links pointing to your website. And ⁓ I do speaking for that. And I once flew to Las Vegas for a two day seminar where I was speaking only so I could get a link because I knew how powerful that link would be because it was a real estate specific.

  conference and yeah, so Lynx is all what it’s about, I guess, for getting ranked.

  Q Edmonds (11:25)
  Yeah, absolutely. So I love how you said, you you flew the Vegas just for the link. You knew how powerful it would be. I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments. And I, when I say that, I mean, like, as you go through life, different iterations of your life, you pick up transferable tools, transferable skill sets that you constantly use. So are there things from your political strategy, political consultant days that you feel like still help you

  within the things that you do right now.

  Todd Hutcheson (11:57)
  ⁓ Yeah, I did direct mail for political campaigns. learning the ins and outs of the post office and how it works definitely helps me. ⁓ I don’t do a lot of direct mail, but I help other people and whenever I help other people, they bring me into deals. So ⁓ that definitely transferred and

  Being not afraid to talk to anybody like yesterday. I give an example. I try to teach my sons. If you’re eating by yourself, try to find a countertop. Teach so can talk to people. I bought three houses from sitting at a countertop eating and just running my mouth and telling people what I do. I’ve bought three houses, two from Chili’s and one from a local pizza restaurant right down the street. So.

  Yesterday, what happened is I got the talking to this conversation. I helped this guy with the website. He walked up and he said, I just want to thank you. And he gave me $175 gift card to Merrill shoes. He was a rep for Merrill shoes. Um, so me helping somebody gave me something in return that I wasn’t even looking for. And it’s the same way with real estate. If you go out and speak and help newbies, that comes back to you twofold.

  There’s no question in my mind. ⁓ It may not come back today. It may not come back tomorrow, but those people you help are going to remember you.

  Q Edmonds (13:30)
  Absolutely, absolutely. So you definitely you transition me to my next question. But before we get there, you mentioned the post office. I was a letter carrier for 14 years, for 14 years of my life. Yes, sir. When I when I was in training, when I first came into the post office, my training, my trainer said, you are about to see that it’s a miracle that mail actually gets delivered. That’s what he said. And I had no idea what he meant.

  But once I started learning the inner workings, how much mail you actually pass through human hands, how many times things got ate up in a machine or just human error. was like, it is definitely a miracle that people get their mail every single day. So you learn in the in and out stuff. Yeah. ⁓

  Todd Hutcheson (14:19)
  When you have a distinct advantage, if you don’t know it, you have friends that are letter carriers, correct? Okay. So one of the things I teach is to talk to letter carriers and ask them where the vacant houses are. The letter carriers know where every vacant house is. And what you want to learn is the relief carrier is your best one because they’re on five different routes and.

  Q Edmonds (14:26)
  Yes, sir.

  Todd Hutcheson (14:48)
  They know five different, whereas your normal carrier only knows the vacant houses on their route. You want to talk to the relief carrier, the one that comes to your house once a day and say, here’s my card. I know you can’t give me information that’s not readily available to the public, but if you see a rundown vacant house, would you please send me the address? And if I buy it, I’ll pay you a hundred bucks.

  You know, there used to be a bar that I used to have go to have one drink with because all the postal carriers went there after work and I talked them up. Now they don’t go there. Two of them retired. And so I haven’t found the new place yet, but find where your carriers go for a drink after work and just talk them up. You’ll get leads, free leads.

  Q Edmonds (16:20)
  Sir, you’re you are absolutely right. I’ve had people come up to me when I was a mailman Same same same scenario wanting to know where the vacancies are and as you’re absolutely right So I’ve been removed from the post office now for five years But when I was there we called them they was called the t6 and like you said the relief carrier It was a t6 a person that was assigned to you had a ⁓ cluster of Routes that you would that the t6 was assigned to and he would switch up

  Every day he was on a different route. And so yeah, absolutely. You’re on it, sir. For sure. Absolutely. You’re on it. Absolutely. ⁓ but so though this again, it leads me into the question I want to ask you, cause you talked about going to the bar. didn’t buy three houses just, know, being at restaurants. So I want to talk about relationship building. It seems like to me, you understand the power of relationship building. So please tell me more like is relationship building important to you?

  What are some of your strategies when it comes to building relationships? We already got one that you told your sons, eat at the bar. And so are there other ⁓ strategies that you use to build relationships?

  Todd Hutcheson (17:31)
  So I rarely walk out of the house without something that doesn’t say I buy homes on it. And I put it on the front of my shirt, but I also put it on the back of my shirt in case you’re in line, you’re at a football game or Publix or wherever. And it just gets people talking to you. It gets a lot of realtors talking to you. It gets homeowners, it gets contractors. yeah, relationships are paramount. ⁓

  Your best relationship, you’ve got to have at least two two title companies, at least a lawyer who will take your call every single time you need it. In my business, that lawyer needs in Florida, we have title companies and lawyers of both two closings. ⁓ But you want to probate lawyer, you want a relationship with a couple if you’re in more than one market. So relationships to me with people who we can help each other. ⁓ Hard money lender.

  I once bought a house from a hard money lender where they got their money from a bank and the bank had 17 houses on one street where they got finagled out of money. I bought 17 houses from a bank on a one-page contract all because my hard money lender knew I would take care of them. Yeah.

  You know, we made an enormous amount of money on that deal all because of this hard money lender had moved to Orlando and I sort of took him under my wing introducing him to everybody. And that just came back to me in spades probably four years later.

  Q Edmonds (19:16)
  it four years later. So you you put an investment in the ground four years early and got a tremendous return on it. So again, that’s showing that relationship building power, like build authentic relationships, organic relationships, and you never know later on that thing will pay tremendous dividends. So I hear you. Yes, Well, listen, Mr. Todd, how can people if people want to reach out to you, connect with you, learn more about what you’re doing?

  How can I get in contact with you,

  Todd Hutcheson (19:49)
  ⁓ my, always answer text. My phone number is 407-617-4289 or [email protected]. T O D D at i-B-U-Y-H-O-M-E-S.com. ⁓ I’m always open. I’ll help you with your real estate website. If you give me a link to my website. So, ⁓ well, it’s a win-win situation. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with your website. You give me a link to my website.

  And we both win. So that’s what I’d love to help people. I love talking real estate. ⁓ I love people helping people with their website needs.

  Q Edmonds (20:28)
  I love it. Listen, is there any subject that we haven’t touched, anything that we haven’t talked about that you feel like you want to talk about or any kind of last words you want to give people as far as encouragement, education, inspiration, anything like that, Mr. Todd?

  Todd Hutcheson (20:45)
  If you’re new, yeah, I’d say drive for dollars. You’ve got to learn neighborhoods and you got to pick the right neighborhoods. You can’t pick a really nice neighborhood. That’s not where we typically buy houses. You want to buy on the lower end of middle class is the sweet spot. So you need to learn. If you don’t know where those neighborhoods are in your market, you need to drive until you have two of those big neighborhoods within 30 minutes, 40 minutes of your house that you can visit on a regular basis.

  ⁓ Stop at every garage sale, stop at every estate sale, talk to your carriers, really know those areas so that when something changes and somebody calls you with a lead, you don’t need to get in your car to go see if it’s a deal or not. You know it’s a deal because you know the neighborhood. So figuring out a neighborhood that you want to farm ⁓ is paramount and it’s got to be on the lower end of middle class.

  Q Edmonds (21:44)
  Well, there he is. Listen, you can’t tell me Mr. Todd has not given you the nuggets today. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much for your time because of course, time is valuable. Thank you for your story. Absolutely love your story. And so thank you for sharing that. And also, Mr. Todd, thank you for your perspective. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this podcast. I really appreciate you today,

  Todd Hutcheson (22:06)
  Okay, thank you. Have a great day. Be safe out there, everybody.

  Q Edmonds (22:10)
  I appreciate it. Well, listen, y’all heard Mr. Todd. Y’all got the value from him. can’t tell me that you didn’t. And so please make sure you are subscribed. That way you can continue to have, hear these great conversations that we’re going to continue to have. So thank you, Mr. Todd. And to everyone else, we will see you on the next time.