I'd just like to bring one thing about Google searches to your attention that I have not seen blogged here.
I'm lucky to own "MovingtoTheCountry.ca" and I do get a regular flow of contacts from it. If you are in Ontario, Canada, it's a pretty sure bet that if you search for information about "moving to the country" on Google, even if you have the bubble filled in for "Search the Web" - rather than "Search Pages from Canada", this site will come up ranked as #1 on Google.
Great. Wow! Here I am searching the whole web and I am number 1, right???
Not so right ... and not so fast.
I have had a friend in England do a search for "moving to the country" and I don't even come up on the first page.
Why is that?
It looks like Google gives a higher ranking to local results. So if you have a domain name like "greatproperties.com" (I haven't checked that one, but I'm sure it's taken), and you type in "great properties" in a Google search, you may get results that show your site as number one (or you may not, and we all know about those other nasty SEO factors). If you do, my guess is that you are still only getting that ranking locally, not all across the web.
So, here's some advice.
Tie your domains to your location.
People who are looking for property in Trenton, Ontario are most likely to search for "real estate trenton ontario". If they leave out the Ontario part, they will, of course, get lots of results for Trenton, New Jersey and have to try again. If you are in Trenton, Ontario and you expect them to find you using a generic title like "wonderfulplaces.com", though, you might be waiting a long time.
In most cases this will not make a difference to your business because you really want the local results, and the opposite problem can occur - with my generic title about "moving to the country" I have been getting inquiries from Europe and other places where people have not even worked out if they could migrate here - but that can be a good thing too.
So, are you #1 on Google? Maybe yes, Maybe no. It's more likely if your post or domain name are linked to a specific location.
Just a hint.
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