SEO and Online Marketing Done Right – Investing in the US with Reed Goossens
Kris Reid, the ever fearless leader of Ardor SEO, recently joined Reed Goossens on Investing in the US – An Aussie’s Guide to US Real Estate. The 53-minute episode covers topics revolving around the importance of having a great SEO and online marketing strategy. It aims to educate people on how to create a brand, attract more investors, maximize the reach of current content, and stand out from the competition.
A Man on a Mission
Investing in the US is a podcast specially targeted towards real estate entrepreneurs and international investors who want to break into the US market. Playing host is Reed Goossens, founder of multifamily syndication investing firm RSN Property Group.
His objective is to interview leaders in entrepreneurship and business to share the knowledge with his listeners. He hopes that whatever people learn on his show they will put into action for acquiring and accumulating wealth.
But enough about Reed; it’s time to let his fellow Australian Kris have the spotlight.
Who Is Kris Reid and Ardor SEO?
Not so long ago, Kris was a software engineer who worked in the financial markets in the UK. He’d sold his soul to the devil for many years before the global financial crisis finally freed him. It was a blessing in disguise as he got a huge sack of money out of it.
With that, he was able to travel around the world for some time before he went back to Australia. There he delved into web programming and built an online game. He soon ran into the dilemma of getting people to a website to play a game and was initiated into the world of SEO. It didn’t take long before he fell in love with it.
What started out as building backlinks to his website to make it rank eventually led to creating and selling software for automating the process. He barely remembers hiring his first employee and landing his first customer though because everything happened online.
Swan Diving into SEO
Getting right into things, Reed wanted to know all about what makes the business tick. Kris decided to begin with a question he’d get asked all the time which is “how much is SEO?”
He shared that he recently received an email from a guy wanting to open a fashion label in London. The person only had 200 dollars to optimize his website without realizing that anything in London is super competitive. While that amount of money seems reasonable for marketing efforts, it won’t be enough to make them win the race online.
Kris also touched on how some SEO agencies create websites to generate leads and how that affects the competitiveness and price of different keywords and niches. Reed asked him to backtrack to the basics particularly for those involved in real estate investing.
Ranking for Searches
To get on the number one page for Google for particular terms, Kris believes on the value of having a nice website. Google wants to provide a good user experience. It doesn’t want to send people to or rank websites that are not in good technical shape or don’t have relevant content.
The Ardor CEO emphasized on the importance of writing for users instead of search engines and avoiding keyword stuffing. This is because these methods won’t convert even if they lead to better rankings. He stated that, at the end of the day, new customers matter the most.
But for real estate investors with two quality websites, everything comes down to reputation and authority because Google doesn’t rely on what a person says about themselves. They trust what everyone else is saying and who are linking to them through backlinks from other websites.
Are Backlinks Good for Your Visibility on Google?
Kris is of the belief that they are for sure, especially if they are close to one’s particular niche. For instance, having yoga studios talk about a yoga teacher would mean a lot. A link from the neighborhood butcher might also help but not as much as niche-relevant sites.
Things do get complicated when it comes to localization. Taking for example an Ardor SEO customer in Cambodia offering Mekong River cruises, a link from a local site would weigh more for their target market than one from a Guardian article because people from different places are looking for different things.
Increasing Reach Online
In answer to how new businesses can become more SEO-friendly and attract more customers, Kris delved into domain authority. Most backlinks tend to point to the homepage of a website and becomes domain authority. This gets spread through the number of pages.
For a DA of 100, half of that might go to the homepage while a quarter might go to category pages. Others would receive maybe 5 to 10 percent. With more pages, the less points per page so they would be less likely to rank.
What happens is that nobody will be paying attention to the content being pumped out so Google doesn’t care about it either. So, Kris suggested in putting the same amount of effort in producing great content and in getting it out there.
“A great way to build your business is to get out there. Rather than post stuff on your website, work with other people who need to know what you do.”
What to Look for in an SEO Agency
Reed asked for advice for someone starting a real estate investing or crowdfunding website about hiring an SEO company as he’d heard that getting a bad SEO person would hurt rankings. Kris agreed that hiring the wrong person could waste money without getting any results.
He shared the following things that should be considered:
- They are nice to work with
- They take the time to understand your business
- They are professional, focused, and consistent
- They help drive consistent growth
Working Together with the Backend People
Having understood the value of two-way communication, Reed asked how business owners could consistently help SEO people do their jobs.
“Do what you like doing ‘cause you’d be more genuine and better at it.”
Reed found that interesting because lots of people think they have to be across everything but they forget about the actual business that they run. And when asked why they should do a certain thing, they would answer that they thought they had to.
Kris believes that one shouldn’t try to be an expert in all the fields as that would be really hard. He candidly shared that Ardor SEO is partnering with an agency to help with Facebook stuff in exchange for assistance in their SEO stuff. While it’s possible to have a crack at it, he thinks that it wouldn’t be as good as experts do it.
Starting with SEO in Business
Kris Reid also shares his number one tip for someone who’s starting out with SEO. Tune in to the full Investing in the US podcast on SoundCloud to learn all about it along with the other stuff he has to share.
If you want to hear more from Reed Goossens and his other guests, you can head over to his website. Or you can follow and subscribe to his social media handles:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/reed.goossens
Instagram: www.instagram.com/reedgoossens/
twitter: twitter.com/reedgoossens
As for additional information on Kris, simply Google “the coolest guy in SEO” and there you go!
