Top Producer Websites Tip
Quick Tips to Help you Understand Online Marketing
Web-savvy REALTORS are aware that there are a variety of online internet tricks
that can be applied to increase the chance that prospects will find your websites.
This month we want to help you to better understand the basic of search engine optimization
(SEO). Becoming more knowledgeable about SEO will help you optimize your site or
help you communicate with a potential consultant. Some of you more tech savvy REALTORS
may want to try implementing some of these strategies on your own. (Remember, you
can always contact our technical support team to help guide you through any obstacles
at 1-800-830-6047.)
Search Engine Strategies
Web search engines work by storing information about a large number of web pages,
which they retrieve from the World Wide Web. These pages are retrieved by a web
crawler (sometimes also known as a spider or bot) — an automated program which follows
every link it sees. The contents of each page are then later analyzed to determine
how they should be indexed.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about making your website as search-engine
friendly as possible. Implementing some basic SEO tactics can go a long way in helping
you increase your website ranking with the top search engines like Google, Yahoo,
and MSN.
- Good Content
One of the first goals is to make a site easy to find, easy to follow, and easy
to read for crawlers. Step 1 is good content on your site. Well written topical
content and a fair number of relevant links (see #7) are the most important aspect
of search engine optimization.
- Make Sure Your Keywords Are in the First Paragraph of Your Body Text
Search engines expect your first paragraph to contain your important keywords. However,
you should never just artificially stuff keywords here. More is not better. Google
might expect a keyword density in the entire body text area of maybe 1.5% to 2%
for a word that should rank high, so don't overdo it.
- Include a Page Title
Write a descriptive title for each page of 5 to 8 words. Plan to use descriptive
keywords along with your business name on your home page title. If you specialize
in vacation properties, don't just use your company name "ABC Realty" use "Vacation
Properties -- ABC Realty". The words people are most likely to search should appear
first in the title (this is called "keyword prominence"). Remember, the title you
use will be your entire identity on the search engines.
Remove as many "filler" words from the title, such as "the," "and," etc. This page
title will appear hyperlinked on the search engines when your page is found. Page
titles are found between the < head>< / head> tags, in this format: < title>Real
Estate -- Bay Area Homes For Sale< / title >.
- Use a description META Tag
Meta Tags provide information about a given webpage, most often to help search engines
categorize them correctly. They are inserted into the HTML document, but are often
not directly visible to a user visiting the site. Some search engines include this
description below your hyperlinked title. The description should be a sentence or
two describing the content of the webpage, using the main keywords and key phrases
on the page. If you include keywords that aren't used on the webpage, you could
hurt yourself.
When you prepare a web page write the description first in a sentence or two, using
each of the important keywords and key phrases included in the page content. Then
for the keywords META tag, strip out the common words and leave just the meaty words
and phrases. The keywords META tag is no longer used for ranking by Google and many
other search engines, but it is currently used by Yahoo!, so it’s a good idea to
leave it in. You never know when more search engines will consider it important
again.
- Include Your Keywords in Header Tags
Search engines consider words that appear in the page header and sub header to be
important to the page, so make sure your desired keywords and phrases appear in
one or two header tags.
- Develop Several Pages Focused on Particular HTML Keywords
Create several web pages on your site that focus on different keywords or key phrases.
For example, instead of listing all your services on a single web page, try developing
a separate web page for each. These pages will rank higher for their keywords since
they contain targeted rather than general content.
- Use Keywords in Hyperlinks
Search engines look for clues to focus on from the page. When they see words linked
to other places in the document or entirely new documents or sites in the body text,
they consider these potentially important, so hyperlink your important keywords.
- Submit Your Site to General and Specialized Real Estate Online Directories.
Submit a listing with a link to your websites in various online directories, especially
ones focused within your territory. This will not only help prospects find you when
using the online directories, depending on the SEO strategies of the directory it
can possibly help boost your Page Rank and search engine ranking. Also consider
listing your business with online industry specific sites such as REALTOR.com.
- Request Reciprocal Links
Find complementary websites such as local mortgage dealers, truck rentals, online
sites describing a local neighborhood, local community sites, etc. and request a
reciprocal link to your site. Be prepared that you may be faced with reluctance
from high-traffic sites because they don't have anything to gain. Look for smaller
sites that may have linking pages.
- Begin a Blog on Your Website
A Blog is when you create a comment or article about a particular topic on your
website. You can then allow people to add comments to the blog. You choose to allow
those comments to be viewed or not by everyone. You may even want to send out an
email to your contact list inviting them to view and comment about a blog you recently
posted.
If you offer excellent topics and content, people are likely to get engaged and
even refer their friends, increasing your site's Page Rank.
Create interesting local specific topics pertaining to your business such as recent
sold properties comparing asking prices versus selling prices, new construction
in the area and how it affects the community, new amenities proposed in the community,
etc.
Webopedia is a very helpful online dictionary about the internet. Click this link
to access it for additional information. www.webopedia.com
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