Real Estate Website Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, SEO, SEM for Realtors

Increasing Traffic to Your Real Estate Websites - What's it all about?

2008-05-13T11:01:06Z

Understanding the concepts surrounding search engine optimization and website marketing is the first step towards making your website successful as a leadgeneration and sales tool through the internet as a marketing medium.

Search engine optimization(SEO) is defined as initiatives that affect a site's natural or organic search engine ranking results (not pay sponsored results). This includes analyzing and making many adjustments to items such as title, meta data, sitemaps, verification codes, robot commands, textual content, uniqueness of content, quality of content, textual links, alt tags for images, site submission, outbound linking, inbound linking, reciprocal linking and page refreshing, participation in real estate related networks.

Search engine marketing(SEM) is building and managing pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. This can be seen in the sponsored search results section on the page displaying the search engine results (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.), and on their content partners (e.g. AOL, Ask.com, etc.) and content network (e.g. sites that display ads by Google, or ads by Yahoo, etc.)

Pay featured ads refers to a charge to feature a site on another website that will not only act as an inbound link for SEO purposes, but helps drive traffic to the client site. This includes membership and inbound links from high quality real estate and agent related networks that charge a fee for membership.

20,000 Points - whew!

2007-07-14T18:26:49Z

I think this one puts me over the 20K marker - took a while, but it's been fun :o)

I love Active Rain and meeting you all - I definitely will keep blogging here well into the future. In fact I encourage all my clients, and others I meet in the real estate business to blog here.

Inbound Links That Work

2007-07-14T18:13:26Z

I have been amazed to see how well this website has done to push up it's members in the organic searche engine rankings for searches related to relocation, and several variations of this search.

LINK PARTNERS ARE FREE- and I highly recommend this site as well since it does not put a bunch of Ads by Google between you (the members) and the visitors - but is truly designed to help buyers and sellers find local agents.

Another Real Estate Website SEO Tip of The Day - Title Tags

2007-07-09T18:47:00Z

Something that is as simple as writing a good effective title can be more difficult than one might imagine - but here are a couple tricks to help out.

First you probably know that the title is one of the most important identifying factors that tells a search engine, and in turn the people searching what you website is all about - so being clear and to the point is essential.

Here are two tips:

Keep the number of characters in your title to 90 or under - plain and simple
Try to overlap keyword phrases...for example )a very basic example, but I'm sure you get the point):

Plymouth MA real estate
Plymouth MA luxury properties

Could be written to max the search string as such:

Luxury Plymouth MA Real Estate Properties

Hope this is helpful!

Knowing When to hold 'Em of Fold 'Em - SEO Tip of the Day

2007-07-09T18:06:08Z

One of the hardest things about the search engine optimization realm is know when to adapt your website due to changes in the search engine algorithms, but it's even harder to know when to not make changes and then act accordingly. Truly knowing when to hold steady and not make changes is (in my opinion) one of the hardest things to do in the space.

In the past couple weeks both Google and Yahoo's algorithms made some very serious changes (you may have noticed a lot of movement in the organic search results) - and this definitely affects all of us that utilize the internet as a serious marketing medium in the real estate and home staging spaces.

Only over time will one be able to recognize patterns and identify what has changed in the Google and Yahoo secret formulas (or algorithims) that has caused sites to change rankings while SEO pro's and a few endeavoring self-managed sites are jocking for the first page rankings - and this last time I noticed some changes that have come clear to me.

Keep your eyes open over time and they should become clear if you really pay attention - and oh yeah - I am making no major changes on this last Google adjustment since I think they over compensated on their algorithms and will revert back enough to correct themselves.

Calling Out to Home Stagers - Want to Form a Network?

2007-06-30T19:04:06Z

I am looking to build a network of Home Stagers that could benefit each other by creating a linking network - one for each area in the country so there is no direct competition, but collaboration. One of my clients, Nuances LLC, the leading home staging company in Southeastern Massachusetts has spurred me along on this idea, and I am interested in seeing who out there might be interested?

Please let me know - this could benefit all involved and help participants sites rank better on the search engines.

Another Home Staging Website SEO Client Reports First Page Search Engine Results!

2007-06-30T18:08:15Z

Congratulations to the home staging company, Nuances LLC (www.nuances,net) of Cape Cod, MA on total Internet domination in their geographical coverage area in the category of home staging. Take a look at these results!

Yahoo:
cape cod home staging
cape cod home staging companies
falmouth ma home staging
sandwich ma home staging
eastern ma home staging companies

Google:
cape cod home staging companies
cape cod home staging
falmouth ma home staging companies
sandwich ma home staging
eastern ma home staging

MSN:
cape cod home staging
cape cod home stagers

AND THE LIST GOES ON AND ON - ANY DOUBTS ABOUT IF FIRST SEO CONSULTANTS IS THE REAL DEALWHEN IT COMES TO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION?

We love to tell you this Nuances, and we know you like to hear it on this occasion: We told you so :o)

An Upgraded Custom Optimized Real Estate Website May Cost Less than You Think

2007-06-23T16:54:23Z

How much do you think this one was for one of our clients?

www.CapeAnnRealEstate.com

And you should see how it ranks on Google and Yahoo!!

We can develop these very quickly - and they are not the limiting out of the box solutions that don't rank very well that you get from so many other providers. Get a website that works wonders for your business!

Increase Your Web-Presence Through Relocation Network

2007-06-23T15:39:35Z

As we know in the SEO realm, inbound links from quality sites is an important variable when organic search engine rankings are calculated. As it is everyone's goal to increase your website's presence on the internet, I thought I would share a well built and structured website with you that offers FREE link partners.

Americas Relocation Home Services

This site already ranks well for many searches, will continue improving its rank organically and considered to be a high quality website by the search engines as it has been optimized on many fronts already, and the SEO process and quality content building processes continue - so this is a great way to build an inbound link to your site, and increase your own web-presence and organic search results for your real estate website.

When is it time to upgrade your website?

2007-06-23T15:28:04Z

It's always hard to pull the plug on a real estate website that may have been cutting edge at one time a couple years ago, back as websites get fancier and new technologies emerge it may be time to snaz up your website.

Here's a good before and after example of one we just upgraded for one of our clients:

BEFORE

AFTER

Framesets are on the out as well

Google States: How can I improve my website's ranking?

2007-06-23T10:36:49Z

As we all know, ranking highly on Google is the "ultimate" in internet marketing and web-presence since Google does have the largest market share of online searchers. So pay attention as Google states:

"The heart of our software is PageRank^TM, a system for ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brinat Stanford University. And while we have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to play a central role in many of our web search tools."

PageRank Explained

"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages' relative importance."

Google goes on to explain:

"Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines dozens of aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query."

Hope this helps some real estate websites!

Who receives the revenue for the ADS BY GOOGLE on the bottom of the Point2 Homes websites?

2007-06-17T11:58:47Z

I can't imagine that real estate agents would put up competing ads on their own websites - who gets paid for this website marketing?

If this was my website I would want not put up ads for competing websites and not get the money for it. However, I am not really sure how this is working - could someone shed some light on this? Thanks

Another Real Estate Website SEO Client Reports First Page Search Engine Results!

2007-06-17T10:11:01Z

Congratulations to Rosemary Quarato and here newly optimized Cape Ann Real Estate real estate website for Cape Ann, MA - a part of Gloucester Massachusetts - these are some incredible results!! SEO working wonders...again!

Yahoo:
Cape Ann real estate & Cape Ann Homes for sale

Yahoo:
Gloucester real estate & Gloucester MA real estate

Yahoo:
Beverly real estate

Google:
Cape Ann rea estate

Google:
Cape Ann homes for sale

Google:
Gloucester MA real estate

AND THE LIST GOES ON AND ON - CONGRATULATIONS ROSEMARY - I KNEW WE'D GET THERE!!

Proud to announce the unvailing of a new optimized real estate website in Cape Ann, MA

2007-06-16T23:25:57Z

We just completed another one and went live yesterday for anyone who has fallen in love with Cape Ann, MA (in Gloucester) - a beautiful beachfront community. Comments are welcome - and we are actually making some adjustments on Monday to Re/Max is up:

www.CapeAnnRealEstate.com

It also ranks very well on Google and Yahoo :o)

SEO Tip of the Day - Search Engine Optimization for Real Estate Websites

2007-06-15T09:26:59Z

Submitting your website:One of the first steps in the "right"direction to increase your website's traffic is to make sure your website is being found and crawled by the major search engines. Be wary of companies that offer to submit your website to 50 or 100+ search engines for $59.95 (or something like that) - many times they do not even submit your website to search engines that really matter in the United States, and they use what are called "robots" to submit your domain to many search engines (in this case, robots are programs that automatically submit your domain to websites - but the most important websites do not allow this manner of submission - this is why you sometimes have to put in a verification code and hit submit at the bottom of the page).

Here is a list of some of the most important places to start submitting your URL (website address):

Google

Yahoo

MSN

DMOZ - this one you want to be very careful to make sure you identify your correct category and FOLLOW THE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES to the word - if you get rejected it can be months before they consider you again, and if you submit many times in a short period they can ban you - I highly recommend having an experienced webmaster that has done this before help you with this.

Real Estate website's will not be found by the general public if they are not indexed and cached in the major search engines directories. I hope this helped

Somebody Registers at Your Website - Now What?

2007-06-14T17:06:35Z

Many times I have seen real estate agents, or agencies that capture many leads in their virtual office website (VOW) and then, time and time again, many leads go cold, or the person that has registered buys or lists through another agent. This happens all the time - how frustrating!!!

Here are 3 easy steps to help you increase your conversion rates from website registrations (in your VOW) to actual deals:

Call them immeidately - waste no time (put a disclaimer on your website allowing you to contact them by phone if they register on your website) - so not be intrusive or pushy - just thank them for signing up and let them know you are there to help
Send them a personal welcome email - mention their name, where they are looking to buy, and the type of property they are interested in - everything else can be pretty generic
write them a person note card (if you have their address from the VOW sign-up, otherwise get it from them over the phone politely) - most agencies have little 3x5 cards you can send, it not go pick up a box of Crane cards with envelopes - and once again write something short and sweet that they will actually read - pop in your business cards as well

Amazingly I have seen something as simple as this increase conversion rates by 10%. Stop leaving money on the table.

I hope this brought some insight to somebody :o)

Driving Traffic to Your Website - Tip of the Day

2007-06-13T17:53:37Z

Once again I would like to tell you about the importance of high quality inbound links - no not those sites that you exchange links with that put all those "Sponsored Ads" above where they list you - the agent - most of those sites don't even rank well organically (naturally) on major search engines.

Here's a site you can exchange links with for FREE that does put a bunch of Ads BEFORE YOU - and that's truly intendsto not only provide a very high quality inbound link to your website (which can improve your website's ranking on the search engines), but intends to increase your web-presence and actually drive buyers and sellers to your website:

http://www.americasrelocationhomeservices.net/

Real Estate Websites - SEO Tip of the Day - Mirror Sites Get Banned!!

2007-06-12T16:54:38Z

As I rack my brain to try to always come up with something helpful, and of true value that you don't have to be a technology wiz to get and implement - which is not as easy at you may think - it came to me that sometimes I think too far forward on these SEO tips of the day - and here is one that many times could be overlooked and could cause your website to be banned from the major search engines:

Avoid Mirror Sites!!! - Now to let you know what this means in case you are scratching your head.

Mirror sites are when you might for example have more than one domain name with identical content, and neither of the domain is forwarded to the other, they are both destination pages. The example I will use is:

www.oysterre.com --> this site forwards to www.oysterrealestate.com- but if oysterre.com did not forward and had the same webpages, then it would be a mirror site.

If the search engines find this out, or someone reports you to them (the more common way they discover it), then you can quickly get removed from their directories - good luck optimizing and marketing your website for the next 6 months at least if that happens.

How many people actually write their own blogs?

2007-06-09T20:28:38Z

Is it me - or is everyone a blogging expert haha!

I got to hand it to the companies out there writing blogs for others - they do a great job - in fact, they are doing such a good of job that it is obvious that the person they post for did not write them - especially when you go and view their websites. I read postings constantly that it is so obvious that they are written by blogging companies, that it actually takes away from my user experience.

I guess all is fair in love and war, and when everyone is fighting for top rankings on the search engines and content is king, it makes sense that many would outsource this task.

But do they have to make it so obvious? I would lsite examples, but I don't think that's playing nice in the sandbox.

Website tip of the day - Don't Use Hidden Text and...

2007-06-09T09:04:15Z

According to Google there are certain Things to Avoid - especially certain deceptive practices that can hurt your site since now the search engine spiders (or crawlers) know to look for them - for example:

Do not hide text by putting for example, white text on a white background - this will get you banned.Don't fill your page with lists of keywords, attempt to "cloak" pages, or put up "crawler only" pages. If your site contains pages, links, or text that you don't intend visitors to see, Google considers those links and pages deceptive and may ignore your site.

Absolutely the most important factor to a successful website

2007-06-08T17:22:17Z

Give visitors the information they're looking for - According to Google:
Provide high-quality content on your pages, especially your homepage. This is the single most important thing to do. If your pages contain useful information, their content will attract many visitors and entice webmasters to link to your site. In creating a helpful, information-rich site, write pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic. Think about the words users would type to find your pages and include those words on your site.

This is just one of the many steps to creating a successful website - but definitely the cornerstone.

Watch Out for Phishing Scams - the Latest in Identity Theft through the Internet

2007-06-07T15:55:44Z

I was recently talking to a friend of mine name Billy whose Bank of America accounts were all drained in about a two day period without him knowing it. How did this happen - he fell victim to one of the most rampant forms of fraud that is out there called Phishing.

Essentially what Phishing is is when you receive an email that looks totally legitimate from your bank (or another bank that claims to be your bank) - or I have even seen them from PAY PAL - and they tell you there is a problem with your account and you need to come login to the website to confirm something, or change something, etc. etc.

The email looks just like it is coming from the bank, or Pay Pal, and when you click on the link to login, you go to a website that looks totally legitimate as well, but when you put in your user name and password, that is the beginning of the identity theft process, they will then most likely prompt you to confirm your address, social security number, and maybe your date of birth and mother's maiden name, etc. You get the point.

The whole time this is happening they are preparing to immediately login to your real account and start draining your funds.

This is a terrible crime that unfortunately preys on the trusting and innocent, and I would personally like to see the culprits strung up.

To let you know, Billy is still struggling to get his money back.

For more on Phishing, you can see what Symantec says about it here:

http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/security_response/phishing.jsp

SEO is just a "SCAM" and tricking Realtors - according to A La Mode real estate websites

2007-06-07T15:30:05Z

I had taken this down and was asked by several to put it back up - so here it is:

My opinion is that they don't know what the heck they are talking about - I personally have worked with their websites, and they not only do not rank well generally, they do not have good SEO tools. And if we in the SEO business are just tricking and scamming our clients - then why are my clients making at least 300% ROI in year one, and over 1000% by year two - EVERY ONE OF MY CLIENTS - and if these are such old scams then why do A La Mode real estate websites rank so poorly?

But here is what A La Mode says - you be the judge:

XSites Resource Area

The Straight truth about search engine optimization

You've probably heard all kinds of misinformation about this topic from self-proclaimed "experts" and other website providers. Keep in mind, they're trying to sell you something and the "tricks" they propose are old scams that haven't worked in years.

As an XSite customer, rest assured you can rely on us as a non-biased, truthful source of information. We've been in the business of providing real estate technology to professionals just like you for 21 years and we didn't get there with smoke, mirrors and hype.


The "tricks" you hear about from other website providers haven't worked in years and even if they did, they'd be counterproductive to your success.

Real Estate Websites - How to Make a Ton of Dough

2007-06-06T16:14:48Z

Here's the cut and dry version - 3 points:

Driving traffic (visitors) to your real estate website through developing a web presence (SEO/SEM, inbound links play a huge part)
Keeping the visitor at your websiteand compelling the visitors to take a specific action and thus converting the visitor into a registration or customer (actions would be: call you, email you, register in your VOW/IDX online database)
Converting the registered customer in an actual client and sale - CRM - how you manage your internet leads can cause you to convert from .05% of leads to up to over 20% of internet leads

This is what real estate on the internet is all about - you get your arms around all three, then you got it licked and you will make a ton of money through the internet as a marketing medium. Anyone who wants to talk about this - I am open to it as this is exactly what First SEO Consultants does for our real estate services clients.

Importance of Inbould Links - How Can I Create a Google Friendly Site

2007-06-06T15:51:09Z

Google webmaster's guidelinesspecifically talk about how important this is - and I would like to share a site that is already yielding great inbound link results for many AR(er)'s:

http://www.amer-relo.net/

Or to go directly to the join page (LINK Partners are FREE)