Search engines are web sites that keep indexes of other sites on
the Internet. Because you sell real estate, Internet users can
find your site by entering the keywords “real estate” (or
something similar) into a search engine, then clicking the link
from a results page that the search engine creates.
At least theoretically, this is a simple concept. However,
as you’ll see below, getting people to easily find your web site
using a search engine can be a difficult task. Still, it’s
something you should devote time to, because search engines are
your best source of customers from outside your area, who don’t
otherwise know about you or your business.
THIS WEEK’S TOPICS
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BUT Remember: “Live By The Search Engines, Die By The Search
Engines”
Step 1: Build and Optimize Your Web Site For Search Engine
Submission
Step 2: Choose Your Site Keywords VERY Carefully
To Be Continued…
Task of the Week
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BUT Remember: “Live By The Search Engines, Die By The Search
Engines”
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Before discussing the topic of search engines, it is important
for you to realize that the majority of “real prospects” to your
web site will NOT come from Internet search engines. While it
is true that a great position in one of the major search engines
can drive a lot of traffic to your site, there are substantial
barriers to achieving this and corresponding problems that it
will create.
The majority of the “quality” traffic to your site will come
from your own advertising and publicity of the site.
(See the Online User’s Guide chapter on Promotion.) You should
make all of your clients aware of your Web site and encourage
them to refer it to their friends and acquaintances. The goal of
your Web site should be to leverage yourself and sort the
“tire-kickers” from the hot prospects. Your Success Web Site is
designed specifically to do this by using all of the best,
proven, direct response marketing techniques.
Having said this, here is what you need to know about search
engines…
It is very difficult to stand out from all the clutter in the
search engines. There are literally hundreds of thousands of
real estate web sites out there. Soon, nearly every respectable
agent will have his or her own site. Each of these agents is
trying to find the “golden search term” that will drive loads of
new customers to their site.
Consider a homebuyer looking for real estate information. She
sits down at her computer, goes to her favorite search engine,
and types “real estate”. The number of sites returned by most
2,695,336 pages). Even after refining her search, she may still
end up with hundreds of sites. If your site isn’t listed on the
first page or two of results, and more importantly, near the top
so it’s one of the first ones she sees, it is unlikely your site
will be found.
Unfortunately, the problems don’t end there…
* Not only do you have to compete with hundreds of thousands of
other agents, there are literally thousands of companies also
trying to target home buyers and sellers. They also register
real estate specific search terms in an attempt to drive traffic
to their sites. For example, the Home Depot actively targets the
same types of keywords as real estate agents and they have a
full-time staff doing nothing but improving their registrations.
* Directories, such as Yahoo!, can be extremely difficult to get
into. Each site that is submitted to Yahoo! is scrutinized by a
staff reviewer. These reviewers face a very long backlog of
sites and it can take 6-8 weeks or more before your site is even
reviewed. Reviewers are known to be extremely fickle about the
sites that they include in their directory. If they don’t feel
that your site is professionally designed and contains valuable
resources, they will simply ignore your submission.
* Even if you manage to land a top position in one of the major
search engines, it is very difficult to maintain this position.
The information that gave your site a top position is easily
copied and you will soon be bumped from the best positions.
* Good search engine positions usually lead to large amounts of
traffic from buyers and sellers who are geographically located
outside your area and have no interest in purchasing real estate
from you. A good direct response web site will generate
information requests from people all over North America, who
have no intention of ever buying or selling a house in your area.
Sorting these “no chance” visitors from your real prospects can
be very time consuming.
* Search engines use different methods to create and index their
listings. This means that search terms and submission strategies
which work well for one search engine may not necessarily be as
successful in another.
* A top position one day may be non-existent the next. The major
engines are continually changing their priorities and indexing
methods. As of this writing, Excite had not indexed a majority
of submissions in five months. Similar “black-outs” of engines
have been reported with AltaVista, Yahoo, HotBot and other major
engines over the last year. In most cases, attempts to register
during “black-out” periods have been completely ignored.
* BEWARE of online submission software: Over the last year or
two, many online submission programs have cropped up that allow
you to “post your site to hundreds, even thousands” of search
engines, indexes and directories. While these services would
seem to be a solution, don’t be misled. Only the top 10 or 15
engines or directories will bring you any significant traffic.
These major engines account for well over 90% of all traffic on
the web and research has shown that the quality of prospect
delivered by “minor” engines is extremely poor in comparison.
Many of the top engines completely ignore submissions from some
online submission services. Online submission services, because
they have an identifiable IP address, are easily identified and
submissions from them can be blocked or ignored at the search
engine’s discretion.
The bottom line is that you CANNOT rely on search engine
registration to make your site successful. You must continually
cross-promote your site along with all of your other marketing
efforts. The majority of the “quality” traffic to your site
will come from your own advertising and publicity of the site.
That said, it is worth the extra effort to make sure that you
can be found in the search engines! With a little luck, it can
lead to a considerable amount of extra business.
Step 1: Build and Optimize Your Web Site For Search Engine
Submission
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Your Success Web Site already contains all of the features that
are required to give you the best chance at getting a top search
engine position. We continually are enhancing and optimizing
each site to keep up with the changing requirements of the top
engines.
We attempt to maximize the effectiveness of search engine
registration by making sure that the most important search terms
(usually your keywords) are found: your name, the names of your
team, your company name and the areas that you service. This is
done through a strategic combination of page titles, keywords,
“meta-tags” and page content that will produce quality hits.
We’ve done all the hard work for you. HOWEVER, since only you
really know your target market, it is vital for you to complete
the remainder of the steps.
Step 2: Choose Your Site Keywords VERY Carefully
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When choosing your site keywords, it is important to put
yourself in the shoes of your prospective clients. What kind of
keywords or phrases are they likely to use when searching for
real estate information? Choose the wrong keywords, and you’ll
never be found.
Fortunately, we have carefully studied which words people use to
search for real estate. The results may surprise you.
1. Most surfers begin by searching for “real estate”. They quickly
realize that this search is much too broad and refine their
search by region.
2. Approximately 70% of surfers looking for real estate
information use the search term “AREA real estate”
(i.e. Chicago real estate, California real estate).
3. Approximately 20% of surfers looking for real estate
information used the search term “real estate AREA”
(i.e. real estate Chicago, real estate California).
4. All other terms are used significantly less. Terms such as
“home buying” or “home selling” are almost never used.
What lessons can we learn from this?
1. Make sure that “real estate” is one of your keywords.
2. Regionalize your keywords wherever possible. Make sure that
you use each of the areas you service in your keywords. For your
best areas, combine your AREA (City, State/Province) with “real
estate”. The more localized the better. “California real estate”
is extremely competitive. “San Francisco real estate” is less
competitive. “Venice Beach real estate” is even better.
3. If your happy customers, or people they’ve referred, are
trying to find YOU and can’t remember your domain name, they
will likely search for your name. If you use your name in your
site title, make sure that you use the most common form and
spelling of your name. If most people know you as “Dave Smith”,
you should use “Dave Smith” in your site title, NOT “David Smith”
or worse “Dave T. Smith”. Most search engines are very specific
about spelling and will ignore matches that are not exact.
Also, make sure that you use all variations of your name, and
other agents on your team, in your keywords. If your name is
“Dave Smith” and you work with a partner named “Sandy Wong”, you
should consider including ALL of the following keywords:
Dave Smith, David Smith, Sandy Wong and Sandra Wong.
Once you’ve decided on your keywords, carefully prioritize them.
There is a limit to the number of keywords you can use, so you
should order them accordingly. Pay particular attention to the
top 3 or 4 keywords.
Here is a suggested list of keywords (ordered by importance):
1. Major areas you serve followed by “real estate”. Don’t forget
commonly used short forms (i.e. Los Angeles real estate,
California real estate, LA real estate, CA real estate).
2. The most commonly used form of your name (and partners if
applicable).
3. “real estate”
4. List of areas you serve (State/Province, Cities and Towns).
Again don’t forget commonly used short forms.
5. Uncommon forms or common misspellings of your name
6. “realtors” (note that the plural form will also cover
“realtor” since it is included in the word)
7. “homes” (plural includes “home”)
8. “real estate agents”
9. “listings”
10. “realestate” (common misspelling)
11. Other common real estate terms most applicable to you
(i.e. “distress sales”, “relocation”, “moving”,
“properties”, etc.)
As an example, here is a suggested list of keywords that we are
currently using for Craig Proctor. Creating a similar list for
your site should prove quite successful.
1. Newmarket real estate
2. Aurora real estate
3. York Region real estate
4. Craig Proctor
5. real estate
6. Newmarket
7. Aurora
8. York Region
9. East Gwillimbury
10. Bradford
11. Oak Ridges
12. Richmond Hill
13. Thornhill
14. Markham
15. Unionville
16. Craig Procter (note common misspelling)
17. realtors
18. homes
19. real estate agents
20. realestate (note common misspelling as a one word)
21. distress sales
The next thing to do is to test your keywords. Try out some
searches on several different search engines, using the keywords
you’ve come up with, and note the results. Check out the first
5-10 listings you get, to see if they can provide any other
ideas.
You can look at another page’s keywords by clicking the “View”
menu in your Internet browser and selecting “Source”. This will
open a window showing the HTML code for the page you are viewing.
You should see the page’s keywords near the top. Be careful not
to simply copy keywords from someone else’s page - some of the
keywords may be registered trademarks, and you may break
copyright laws.
Another way to get ideas for keywords is to use GoTo.com’s
Search Terms Suggestion List. Enter a common keyword or phrase,
and you will see the number of times that term has been used in
a search during past month. You’ll also get a list of other
suggestions.
Once you have created and tested your own list of keywords, go
into your Web Site Control Panel with your Internet browser
site accordingly. Click the Search Engines button. Modify and
order the keywords. When you are finished, click the Submit
button at the bottom of the page.
To Be Continued…
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There are, in all, seven steps to fully prepare your site for
submission to a search engine. We’ll continue with the rest of
the steps next week. In the meantime, make sure you complete
this week’s task.
Task of the Week
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Research, create and test a list of keywords that will uniquely
identify you within a search engine. Try to come up with as
many search terms as you can think of that a potential visitor
might use to find your site.
Once you’ve got a list you’re happy with, open the Web Site
Control Panel and enter your 21 best keywords into the Search
Engine Parameters and Keywords option.
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“Profiting from your SuccessWebsite” is the email
version of our “Weekly Success Guide” Online Training Course.
The online version is available at:
Success Web Site Online User’s Guide:
For more information on the Success Web Site:
Promoting Your Website:
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GOT AN IDEA ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SITE? We’d love to hear it…
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT YOUR SITE? Tell us your success
stories…
If you have questions, comments or concerns, please let us know
——————————————————–
The SuccessWebsite Team
(416)227-0363
Email: support@SuccessWebsite.com
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