For those of you that have been getting our Agent Marketing Insider bi-monthly newsletters, you'll be happy to note that we've just created a new website (http://www.agentmarketinginsider.com/) where you can access and peruse all past articles. 

For those of you who don't know about them (let me know and I'll make sure you start getting them), they've been very popular, and have gotten a lot of positive responses.  Twice a month we send out a "Marketing Insider" newsletter by email, wherein we post all kinds of articles about marketing your business.  Sometimes we talk about leveraging new technology, sometimes it's got tips on making the most of your website, sometimes the articles are about important recent industry news/events that you can use to boost your business, etc.

There's a wealth of information available, and since they've gotten such high traffic, we decided to make it easier to get to all the past wealth of knowledge.

So check it out and let me know what you think.

Rusty

As you know, getting traffic to your website doesn't happen automatically.  The "build it and they will come" philosophy just doesn't apply to website traffic.  There are literally millions of new pages of content being added to the internet on a daily basis, and tens of thousands of sites created every day, each wanting attention. 

Simply creating a site and doing nothing more is somewhat like writing your name and number on a stone and dropping it in the middle of the ocean, then hoping that someday it will wash ashore and someone will stumble over it, pick it up, and contact you because you threw it in the ocean.  Sure it might happen, but chances are slim.  Okay, so perhaps that was overly grim.  But you get my point.  You don't often see the phrase "traffic happens", because it doesn't. You have to create it.

You create traffic through marketing and optimization.  To narrow this article down, I won't talk about marketing (advertising, purchasing adwords, paid inclusions, pay per click, banner ads, etc.) but instead focus on building good ol' fashioned organic traffic.  In other words, I want to talk about some of the most basic things you can do to increase your chances of showing up naturally in someone's search results.

The good news is that there are at least 10 things you can do today, with very little effort, that pay great dividends in your search engine ranking.  These are not listed in order of effectiveness.

1. Customize your home page.   Search engines like content, as long as it's original.  Your home page is one of the most important pages on your site, not only for consumers, but for search engines.  You need to make sure the content on your homepage is original (it doesn't show up anywhere else), local, specific, and loaded with the key words you most expect your customers to use when searching for you.
   
   If you have an XSite:  In top navigation, hover over "XSites", click "Wizard", then go to "My Content" on the left, and click "Home" from the list of content pages on the right.
   
   
2. Syndicate your listings.  By syndicating your listings you're creating links to your own site on numerous, highly trafficked real estate search sites.  When someone finds your listing on their site and clicks for more information, they're directed straight to your site.  This lets you leverage the full marketing budgets and consumer traffic of these collective sites at no cost to you.  For more about syndication, see the article I wrote in the last Marketing Insider.
   
   If you have an XSite:   Click "Listings" in the top navigation, select a listing, then click the "Syndication" tab on the left and check the providers you wish to syndicate listings to.
   
   
3. Manually enter your listings.  As I said before, search engines love unique, local content.  If you do it well, this content is unique and specific to your local area.  Simply importing listing details from the MLS isn't enough, you should take the opportunity to elaborate fully on a property's features, on nearby amenities, on the neighborhood that it sits in, and on what types of buyers it may appeal to.  All of this information is extraordinarily valuable to search engines.  It's also a good reason to keep an active portfolio of your sold properties.  When a property sells, don't remove it from your website, mark it as sold and add to the description details about how that particular sale illustrates your skills, or your area of expertise, etc. 
   
   If you have an XSite:   Click "Listings" in the top navigation, then select a listing (or click "Create a listing manually") and use the tabs to edit that listing's details.
   
   
4. Set up Google and Yahoo Sitemaps.  These site maps ensure that Google and Yahoo know the pages you want them to crawl, and know when you add new pages to your site.  That can increase the speed with which they start ranking and listing your new pages.
   
   If you have an XSite: Hover your mouse over "XSite" in the top navigation, then click "Search Engine Tools", and choose either "Google Sitemaps" or "Yahoo Sitemaps" on the left, and follow the instructions.
   
   
5. Make sure your own sitemap is active.  Your own sitemap is not only a valuable tool for visitors (giving them an all-at-once overview of your website's contents), but provides internal links to all pages to help ensure search engine spiders have ample exposure to all your content.
   
   If you have an XSite:   Hover over "XSite" in the top navigation, click "Wizard" from the dropdown, then click "My Content" from the list of steps on the left.  Check the box next to "Site Map" from your "provided content pages" list.
   
   
6. Be careful with animated intros.  There is a time and a place for an animated intro.  Successful animated intros are built to add substantially to the end-user experience, and help establish an "atmosphere" that strengthens your connection with the visitor.  But they come at a cost.  Often having an animated intro to your site can harm your search engine ranking by causing an extra gate (with no other links), for spiders to crawl through to get to the real content on your site.  So if you're thinking about using an animated intro, you'll want to weigh the costs against the benefits for how you intend to use your website.
   
   If you have an XSite:   From the XSite wizard, click "My Intro" from the Extra Tools section on the left.
   
   
7. Use a XSite footer and include site navigation.  Again, this has to do with providing ample accessibility to your sites main pages to search engine spiders, but can also be valuable for visitors.  Usually these link to your most prominent pages.  As a general rule of thumb, the things that users find helpful, search engines will credit you for.
   
   If you have an XSite: From the wizard, click "Site Footer" from the steps on the left, and check the box "Include navigation as text links in my site footer".
   
   
8. Make sure all pages have a title and keywords that match the content on that page.   XSites give you the ability to quickly and easily edit the Title and Keyword "metatags" on your site.  It sounds like geek-speak, but it's simply a way to tell search engines what a given page is about.  The more closely your title and keywords match the content on a given page, the more credit search engines are likely to give that page.
   
   If you have an XSite:   From the wizard, click "My Content" from the steps on the left, click on the pages you have checked from the lists of content pages to open the content editor, and fill in the Title and Keyword fields.
   
   
9. Build links within your pages linking to other pages on your site.  When you do this, you build a natural flow throughout your site to relevant content.  That's something that benefits visitors because they can quickly see where they should go for more info they're likely to be interested in.  As I said before, what benefits users will usually be good for search engine ranking.  Building these internal links improves your "internal page rank" of key pages and can boost your rankings.  For instance, you could create a page "For Buyers", and in that page, have links that go to all other pages on your site buyers might find compelling.  The more often (and naturally) these internal links occur, the more search engines are likely to credit those "linked-to" pages.
   
   If you have an XSite:   From within the content editor, click the "Custom Links" dropdown, and select the page you wish to link to.
   
   
10. Commit to creating a new content page once a week or start a blog.  Again, content is king when it comes to natural search engine ranking.  There's simply nothing you can do that will give you more benefit than regularly added, custom, local, and unique content.  It makes sense if you think about it.  Search engines want to find sites that they think are "serious", and when you're adding content regularly, that helps show them you're serious about your website.  Whereas if you never add content, search engines naturally see you as stagnant, and your rankings are likely to decrease.
    
    If you have an XSite:   Create content within the "Custom" tab in the "My Content" step, to create a blog, hover over "XSite" in the top navigation, and click "Blog" from the drop down.

Of course, there are lots more things you can do, but if you just start by doing these basics, you should begin to notice a substantial jump in your search-engine generated traffic.  Remember, there are probably thousands of agents in your area with a website competing with yours, if you do nothing to your site, it's not likely to show up in search engines, and users aren't likely to pay much attention to it.  After all, why would they?  Like any other business or product, with your website, you have to differentiate.  You have to show that yours is better.  Start today with these ten tasks to creating a better website.

For more tips, tricks and XSites stuff, see my full blog at www.xsitesblog.com. 

This year, as you're thinking about those things you most want to accomplish, consider making a resolution to work on your website content at least once a week.  Regular contributions to your website content is probably the single biggest thing you can do to boost your search engine rankings and generate more inbound traffic to your website.

This is traffic that costs nothing, other than the time it takes you to write the content.  In a slow market, it's the best solution - low cost, high return.  Even better, it's a residual return.  Unlike other advertising that expires, the benefits of regularly updated/added web content only keep accumulating.

For more tips, tricks, and XSites stuff, visit my full blog at http://www.xsitesblog.com/.