One of the fundamentals of commercial real estate success is investing in the right properties. As it turns out, that principle also applies to digitally transform commercial real estate lending.
Fintech Janover Ventures has built an online network including some of the most valuable, highly trafficked commercial real estate multifamily and small business finance websites. By “owning” this digital real estate through search engine optimization (SEO), when a borrower performs a web search to find financing for multifamily or commercial properties, they find Janover’s services on the front page of search engine results.
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A Clear-Cut, Logical Strategy
After realizing that good information about commercial property financing options delivered in user-friendly websites was a rare find on the internet, Janover decided to fill the gap. Blake Janover, founder and CEO, says that his company chose a “highly logical and reasonable path” when laying the foundation for its websites. His company rejected the idea of attempting to find a trendy name for its online services and, instead, chose to build online content around highly targeted, descriptive domain names, such as multifamily.loans.
Janover explains that selecting a descriptive top-level domain (TLD) “makes the best use of the prime real estate at the top of the website in the URL. We use all of the characters in our domain name to tell what we do – not some characters plus .com.”
“There is very little left up in the air about what we do with a domain like multifamily.loans, and it is the ‘seed’ keyword we rank for,” he says.
Once Janover captures attention with its domain names, the company provides the information a borrower needs to make a decision, pyramid-style, starting with broad topics under the first heading on the page – the H1, such as multifamily.loans followed by supporting content, such as “Multifamily Financing Options” and “Apartment Loans by State.”
Of course, a part of the equation is also building a high-quality, responsive website that loads quickly and is easy to use and navigate on any device so that nothing stands in the way of quick and easy access to Janover’s content.
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Undeniable Proof that the Strategy Works
By executing this well-organized plan, Janover has built one of the most complete and intricate commercial finance networks in the world. Janover’s websites engaged 1.2 million unique visitors from 2020 to 2021, and most of that traffic was organic. People searched for the commercial lending services they needed – and found Janover.
Furthermore, because Janover’s websites explicitly state what they’re offering, the people who click are members of the company’s target audience, such as commercial and multifamily property borrowers, entrepreneurs, and commercial lenders. Getting the right information to the right people has delivered dramatic results. The company experienced 184 percent growth in 2020, despite the pandemic, and its proprietary technology, the intelligent portal that replaces legacy complex and high-touch transactions with low-friction, web-based alternatives, is processing more than $2 billion in loan inquiries per month.
“No backlink outreach, no black hat tricks — just great, unique, high-quality content on a fast, responsive site,” says Janover. “We provide value to users and a clear message to search engines that tells them what our websites are about.”
In addition to capturing the attention of borrowers and search engines, the Janover strategy also turned heads in the investor community, with 2,500 retail investors in its first round.
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Plans to Keep Building
Although Janover has achieved many of its goals, its growth aspirations continue. The company owns more than 40 more descriptive domain names that they are planning to develop, including commercial.mortgage, following the same strategy of using a logical organization and value-infused content to dominate on the web.
“Our strategy makes sense to us, to other people, and to Google,” Janover says. “For us, the right answer is the easy one.”
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AUTHOR
Mina Neuberg
Chief Marketing Officer
Mina is the Donuts’ Chief Marketing Officer. Mina brings an expertise in consumer understanding, brand strategy and data-driven storytelling. Prior to Donuts, Mina was the Chief Marketing Officer at Revolution Math, a live online math enrichment program. She has also served as the VP of Marketing, Consumer Insights and Creative at BAMKO, a product development company and VP of Strategy at Bovitz, a market research firm. Mina holds an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA and also a BA from UCLA.
