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Canned or Personalized Links-Which Strategy Is Best for Websites?

By Pat Fenn

Services for Real Estate Pros with Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker

May 23, 2009 10:56 AM

As part of looking at revamping our website and combining various blogs I've been looking around the internet at links. Not linking strategies, or link farms or even sausage links but canned versus personalized links on agent's websites.

It appears many agents who have template websites have left the links that came with their website just as they were delivered. They refer to "local" information yet some of the links refer to services that are hundreds of miles away or are duplicate links that just go to a sub-page of a website already featured with a link. It fills up a page but does it make sense?

So what do customers think? We know that many surf the web before they find an agent they want to work with. When they see one site that has the same page of links as the next one does that instantly knock you out of contention? Do they want to see a full page of links, separate from relevant descriptive text or would they rather read about an area and see the appropriate link text highlighted? Do they care about services in areas where they aren't going to be living?

It appears we could take the easy way out and just buy a webpage full links and be done with it but I'm not convinced that this is what our customers care to see. So I'm curious what other agents and real estate professionals think?

Is a page full of links the way to go or should we stick with our current strategy of interspersing links within the text of our website?

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Elizabeth Benefield

Montana Country Real Estate - Libby, MT

I don't thing people want to read so much about other areas we just don't have time.

May 23, 2009 12:51 PM

Charles Stallions

Charles Stallions Real Estate Services - Pensacola, FL

850-476-4494 - Pensacola, Pace or Gulf Breeze, Fl.

Very interesting I have the same thing and it doesn't seem to be a problem.

May 23, 2009 01:04 PM

Michael Lee

Frog Realty - Tallahassee, FL

I agree, Lenn Harley's tips will be helpful to you.

May 23, 2009 01:07 PM

Pat Fenn

Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker - Springfield, VA

Andrea-certainly if we have maintain websitew we are going to have static pages that should be updated. However when I see a website that has the same page of links on it as the next I wonder if a buyer or seller is going to just move on as they don't see any relevance to them.

May 23, 2009 01:41 PM

Pat Fenn

Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker - Springfield, VA

Maria-thanks x 2. Lenn is a great example of someone who knows how to attract potential clients. There is nothing "canned" about what she does. It seems to me that a large part of attracting clients is creating a personal connection and a page full of links that aren't relevant to them would seem to be a turn off rather than an attraction.

May 23, 2009 01:44 PM

Pat Fenn

Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker - Springfield, VA

Elizabeth-you are right that we only have a few seconds to attract a potential clients attention and if they see us as just another agent with the same page of links then whey would they stay?

May 23, 2009 01:45 PM

Pat Fenn

Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker - Springfield, VA

Charles-Are you saying that you have the same links on your webpage as a dozen or more agents in your area? I'll have to go check out your site!

May 23, 2009 01:47 PM

Pat Fenn

Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker - Springfield, VA

Michael-Lenn is certainly one of the best around on building an internet business.

May 23, 2009 01:47 PM

Chanda Barrick

Keller Williams Indy Metro Northeast - Indianapolis, IN

in referral

Pat, I'm glad you made this post. My website was created from scratch so I'm still working on what I think would be important to my clients and also bulking up the content. I've seen the template sites that have eight million links to different pages, but I wonder about a couple of things: 1. Is this information overload 2. Is the information all useful and/or relevant 3. Is there soooo much going on, that people decide to move on?

I'm that way with blogs, if the blog is 5 pages long I just don't have the patience to sit through and read it all. It may be good information, but my attention span can be very short! Again, thanks for posting!

Chanda panda

May 24, 2009 12:00 AM

Jay Neely

Cambridge, MA

Hi Pat. You're asking good questions.

When creating your site, the goal should never be to "fill up a page". Your visitors are looking for specific pieces of information, and if they don't find it on your site quickly & easily, they'll leave and look for it on another site.

Extra content to arouse people's interest and bring them to your site is good, but it should be in a separate section, not cluttering your main navigation menu and making it harder for visitors to find the three things they're most likely looking for:

The homes you have for sale.
Information about an area they're considering moving to.
Information about your ability & style as a sales agent.

Hope that's helpful feedback for you!

May 24, 2009 01:18 PM

Pat Fenn

Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker - Springfield, VA

Chanda-I counted the links on our website today and I think we have 65 that go to "official" websites. They aren't all on one page but where we have content about Northern Virginia Relocation we have specific links to schools, transportation etc.

May 25, 2009 12:28 PM

Pat Fenn

Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker - Springfield, VA

Jay-thank you for your feedback and information. We don't have scrolling menus and we are tightening up some of our content in a rewrite. What we don't have is a "canned" set of links, though lets face it if you have a link to an official county website it is going to be the same one I have, but we interspersed our links within the content about relocation or an area and not on a separate page.

May 25, 2009 12:32 PM

Jay Neely

Cambridge, MA

Pat, took another look at the site, and it's much improved! It still feels a little overwhelming (22 links in the navigation is a lot for a visitor to process and choose between), but the Search for Your New Home graphic is a good, actionable focal point. I think it'd be better to emphasize it even more by placing it more prominently, and trimming the 6-pargraph site intro.

Keep up the good work!

Jun 06, 2009 05:04 AM

Pat Fenn

Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker - Springfield, VA

Jay-we haven't gone back to the nav bar and created sub-menus. Actually this site is now really a place holder as we are going to combine the "outside" blog and website into one animal. It will be a lot leaner. The team is so busy right now selling real estate that once again the technology is on the back burner!

Jun 08, 2009 11:50 AM

Rick Silver

Nexus Software Systems - Danforth, ME

Your website can be one of the most valuable tools for attaining new clients and taking care of your current ones. It represents you and your business. A cookie cutter website should be out of the question. The small investment you make in a high quality dynamic website will pay off many times over for years to come and provide you with the quality representation you deserve and your clients deserve to visit.

Why link anywhere but internally to your own unique, useful content? If you don't have the content, have it created or create it yourself. Typically, every external link that you have on your website will hurt your search engine rankings, unless it is to a high profile site with relevant content.

Jun 25, 2009 12:05 PM

Pat Fenn

Marketing Specialist for CJ Realty Group/Cindy Jones Broker - Springfield, VA

Rick-thanks for the tips. Our external links are to county, state and other sites relevant to someone relocating. We do have internal links pointing to other pages of content that aren't shown on the top level of the website.

Jun 28, 2009 11:21 PM

Rick Silver

Nexus Software Systems - Danforth, ME

Pat,

Those sound like useful external links that you have. One way to sculpt your page rank would be to use rel="nofollow" tag for external links, this would enable the linking to external sites while mitigating any negative effect that might have on your site's page rank.

Jun 28, 2009 11:59 PM

Rick Silver

Nexus Software Systems - Danforth, ME

All of your left sidebar navigational images should have keyword rich, descriptive alt tags and the links at the bottom is another opportunity to insert relevant content like:

Belmont Bay Real Estate | Lake Ridge Homes | Westridge Properties for sale

Also, I don't know if you have any control of your listing or listing detail pages, but there is another great opportunity to populate image alt tags and descriptive text with relevant keywords. Would be great to have some <b>, <h1> & <h2>s with your chosen words as well.

I just noticed the title on your Westridge page is :

-Westridge - Cindy Jones

Jun 29, 2009 12:46 AM

Rick Cordisco

Pocono Mountain Lakes Realty - Lake Harmony, PA

Pocono Real Estate Professional

Pat,

I know exactly what you are saying. Like in a template site under 'testimonials' it will still say "put your testimonials here". I do have one page with community phone numbers and if they have a website themsleves then I'll link it to their name but I agree, links only are not the way to go. Information is the way to go.

Jul 01, 2009 12:12 AM

Sandra Scott

DPR Realty - Payson, AZ

REALTOR of Choice! Payson, Pine & Strawberry, AZ

The first website I had, I built myself. Thought a lot of information was important. WRONG! After I placed the Google Analytics on my site, I learned that only about 3 pages got viewed. So no, I don't think a lot of links are important.

Jul 09, 2009 06:59 AM