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When a Carrot website isn't getting leads, it is almost always one of two problems: not enough of the right people visit it, or people visit and leave without contacting you. A lead is a homeowner who contacts you about selling, by filling in your form, calling or texting. This guide shows you how to tell which problem you have, the six reasons sellers leave without reaching out, and the fix for each one.
We build Apex Vivus, a Carrot alternative, so we'll be open about it: where Carrot already does a good job, we say so, and most of these fixes work on Carrot too. You decide what to do with them.
Not enough of the right people find your site. This is a traffic problem: rankings and marketing.
People come, look around and leave. This is a conversion problem: the site isn't convincing them.
Whether it is a traffic problem or a conversion problem decides the fix, so find that out first. Traffic means the people who visit your website. Conversion means a visitor becoming a lead. The two need completely different fixes. It takes about fifteen minutes and three numbers.
Carrot's own pages say you can connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console to your Carrot site. Google Analytics shows how many people visited. Search Console shows how many found you on Google, and what they typed. Use 90 days so one slow week doesn't mislead you.
Every form, call and text from a seller. Carrot attaches a lead source to every lead, so you can see them in one list. Leave out spam and people who aren't selling a house.
That is your conversion rate. 20 leads from 1,000 visitors is 2%. For something to compare against: Carrot's own pages say its sites convert 35 to 37% of visitors from paid ads, and quote a customer converting about 8.5% of visitors from Google search. Those are Carrot's numbers, not an independent measure, and visitors from ads and from search behave differently.
Few visitors means your site isn't being found. That is a ranking and marketing problem, and no change to the page itself will fix it. Read why a Carrot website is not ranking, and how to fix that.
Plenty of visitors with few leads means people find you, but the site doesn't convince them to reach out. That is a conversion problem, and the six reasons below are where to look.
Your site may well look like your competitors' sites: many investors in the same town use the same kind of website, and a seller comparing three "we buy houses" sites at night often can't tell them apart. If they can't remember which one was yours, they may call the wrong one, or nobody.
"I started on Carrot. One day a seller told me they'd already sent me their information. They hadn't. They'd filled in a competitor's form, on a site that looked so much like mine they thought it was mine. Most of the time you would never even know that happened."
Jerryll NoordenBuying houses in Connecticut since 2016, creator of Apex Vivus
Replace stock photos with real photos of you, write your own story in your own words, and use your own colors. Carrot lets you change the design; how far you go is up to you.
Every site is designed around its owner. Designs are inspired by one person, a couple, partners or a team, so the site carries your character and energy, not a design the investor down the street also has.
If your page is written for everyone, it doesn't speak to the seller's situation. Sellers don't search for "a house buyer". They search because something happened: a foreclosure notice, an inherited house, a divorce, a tenant who stopped paying. A page written for everyone feels like it's written for no one, and a long one-size form asks a lot from someone who isn't sure yet.
Build a separate page for each situation you buy in (foreclosure, inherited houses, divorce, landlords) and send each ad or letter to the page that matches it. Keep the first form short: name, phone, address.
The SmartForm asks the seller one question, "What's going on with your house?", and the whole page rewrites itself for their answer, on every page of the site, with no extra pages for you to build.
A stranger believes you only once you've earned it. A seller is about to give their address and phone number to someone they've never met, often about the hardest thing happening in their life. Before they do, they decide three things, usually in seconds and without noticing. We call them the three pillars of conversion.
Do I know what I'm doing? A seller judges that from clear steps, how long it takes, what it costs them (or that it costs nothing), and answers to their questions.
Am I a real person they'd like to deal with? A seller judges that from your face, your name, your story and your voice, not a stock photo of a smiling family.
Can I prove what I say? Proof is credibility, which means believability: real reviews, houses you've bought, how long you've been in business, and a real local address and phone number.
Put your real face and story near the top of the homepage, add reviews from real sellers with their first name and town, and show the steps of working with you in plain words.
Every site is built around those three pillars from the start, and Humphrey, the guide built into Apex Vivus, can walk a seller through your site out loud and answer their questions at any hour, so nobody leaves confused.
Personality is a face, not a stock photo. Anthony Bostic in Augusta, Georgia put his own face on his website, the way Jerryll teaches, and his site is the first result on Google:
October 27, 2026 · his Facebook post
“As promised a couple of weeks ago, I have reclaimed my throne! I now rank #1 on Google and Bing as I did a couple of years ago. […] As you can see, my face is showing like Jerryll Noorden. He has given the blueprint.”
Anthony Bostic, Anthony's Estates, Augusta, Georgia
On most sites there is no reason to leave their details today: "Fill in this form and we'll call you" asks a seller to give before they get anything. Many sellers aren't ready to talk to anyone yet. They want to know roughly what their house is worth and what an offer might look like first. Give them that, and many more of them will reach out.
Offer something useful in return for the form: a written cash offer within 24 hours, a free guide for their situation, or a clear "what happens next" right beside the form.
Instant Offer, Home Sale Forecast and a Photo Repair Estimate are built into the site, so a seller gets a real answer first, and you get the lead with their photos and their address already attached.
How fast a seller hears back from you often decides who gets the deal. This one happens after the form, so it doesn't show up as a lost lead, it shows up as a lead that went nowhere. Speed to lead means how fast you answer a seller after they contact you. A seller who writes at 10 at night is often writing to several investors at once, and the first one to answer usually gets the conversation.
Maria fills in three investors' forms
One investor's site texts and emails her back
The other two call. She's already talking to the first one
Carrot's free CRM (the software that comes with the website, where you keep your sellers and follow-ups) is for one person and doesn't send automatic replies to new leads. Automatic replies start on the $179 a month CRM plan. Carrot also describes an AI lead manager that texts and emails leads.
Every new lead gets a text and an email within seconds, the conversation lands in one inbox, and follow-up messages keep going out on their own until the seller answers. That is in the full CRM included with every plan, for every person on your team.
You know which marketing brings you deals only by tracking every lead to the closed deal. If you don't know where your leads come from, you keep paying for marketing that doesn't work and cut the marketing that does. And a lead is not a deal: the money only arrives when the house closes, so the real question is which marketing brought you paychecks.
On its own pages, Carrot attaches a lead source to every lead, gives each account a free local tracking phone number, records and scores calls with AI, and offers links that track your campaigns.
It follows each lead past the form to the closed deal, so you see which ad, search or letter brought the paycheck. Then it learns: when a deal closes, Apex Vivus tells your Google and Facebook ads which seller became a paycheck, so they look for more sellers like that one.
Carrot is a serious company, and getting leads from a website is what it focuses on. Here is what its own pages say, checked on 14 November 2026, next to what Apex Vivus adds.
Carrot reports speed scores of 98 or more on computers and 90 or more on phones, and slow pages lose visitors.
Carrot says thousands of tests over more than ten years decide how its pages and forms are laid out.
A lead source on every lead, a free tracking phone number and campaign links, so you can see what brings leads.
Want the full picture, prices included? See Carrot vs Apex Vivus, the Carrot alternative compared, or what Carrot really costs in 2026.
What it looks like when the leads come in. Shade Forkner in Seattle posted this when the first lead arrived through his Apex Vivus website:
I got my first Lead on my Vivus website! She filled out the info box.
it's a multimillion Dollar house on the lake, looks like a low repair costs by the pics. ARV of 15 million.
I will be contacting her today to get some info, and schedule a walk through, for some solid numbers, including actual repair costs.
And one month after his website moved to Apex Vivus, Šemso Gagulić sent Jerryll these two messages:
Šemso Gagulić, one month after his website moved to Apex Vivus. Shown with his permission.
Open your website on your phone, the way most sellers will see it, and go down this list. Every "no" is a place where leads leak out.
A Carrot website usually isn't getting leads for one of two problems. Either not enough of the right people visit the site (a traffic problem), or people visit but leave without contacting you (a conversion problem). Count your visitors and your leads for the last 90 days: few visitors means you need more traffic; plenty of visitors and few leads means the site is not convincing the people who land on it.
A lead is a homeowner who contacts you about selling their house: they fill in your form, call your number or send you a text. It is not a sale yet. It is the first step of a deal, which ends when the house closes and you are paid.
A conversion rate is the share of visitors who become leads. If 1,000 people visit your site in a month and 20 contact you, your conversion rate is 2%. Divide your leads by your visitors for the same period to find yours.
You check how many visitors your Carrot site gets with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, which Carrot's own pages say you can connect to your Carrot site. Google Analytics shows how many people visited; Search Console shows how many found you on Google and what they searched for. Use the last 90 days, so one slow week does not mislead you.
An investor website has no single right conversion rate, because it depends on where the visitors come from. Carrot's own pages say its sites convert 35 to 37% of visitors from paid ads into leads, and quote a customer converting about 8.5% of visitors from Google search. Those are Carrot's claims, not an independent measure, but they give you something to compare your own numbers against.
Yes, Carrot has tools to help you get more leads. On its own pages it describes sites built to turn visitors into leads, tested with thousands of experiments, plus a free local tracking phone number, a lead source on every lead, links that track your campaigns, and an AI lead manager that texts and emails leads. Its free CRM, the one that comes with the website, does not send automatic replies to new leads; those start on the $179 a month CRM plan.
Sellers usually leave your site without filling in the form for one of four reasons: the site looks like every other investor's site, the words are written for everyone instead of their situation, there is nothing that proves you are real and trustworthy, and there is no reason to leave their details today. Each one can be fixed, and the fixes are on this page.
Speed to lead is how fast you answer a seller after they contact you. A seller who reaches out at night is often contacting several investors at once, and the one who answers first is usually the one who gets the conversation. Automatic replies make the first answer instant, even while you sleep.
Yes, a seller can confuse your website with a competitor's, and it happens more than investors think when many sites in one town share the same look. Jerryll Noorden, who built Apex Vivus, found out when a seller said they had already sent him their information: they had filled in a competitor's form on a site that looked like his.
Apex Vivus helps a website get more leads in five ways: each site is designed around its owner instead of a shared design, the SmartForm rewrites the page for the seller's situation, sellers get tools that give them a reason to leave their details (an instant offer from photos, a home sale forecast, a repair estimate), Humphrey walks sellers through the site out loud, and new leads get an instant text and email. No website can promise a number of leads, and Apex Vivus does not.
You know which marketing brings you deals by tracking where every lead comes from, then following each one to the end. Carrot attaches a lead source to every lead and offers call tracking. Apex Vivus also tracks lead sources, and follows each lead to the closed deal, so you see which ad, search or letter brought the paycheck, not just the lead.
Whether you should leave Carrot depends on the cause, so fix the cause first: find out whether it is traffic or conversion, then work through the causes on this page. Many of the fixes work on Carrot too. If you want a site designed around you, a full CRM for your whole team and tools for every step after the lead, compare the two side by side on the Carrot alternative page and decide for yourself.
Start with the comparison, then read the guide for the question you have.
The Carrot alternative page puts both next to each other: what each costs, what each does, and where each one stops. Or talk to Humphrey and see everything Apex Vivus does for a seller, from the first visit to your paycheck.
Is your Carrot website not bringing you leads? Let me walk you through it out loud: how to tell which problem you have, the six reasons sellers leave, and how to fix each one. About five minutes, and you can stop me or ask me anything.
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