There's an SEO expert in all of us

One of the things that is largely overlooked in an agent's website is their tracking ability.  Not just their number of visitors but where those visitors come from and what terms they used to find you. I want to show you how to do a little work on your site and get results organically. For me, this achieves two important things for my website. First, it ensures that I am continually updating my site with new and fresh content which will help with search results. Second, it helps me identify what actual buyers and sellers are typing into the major search engines and what I might need to change, delete or update on my site.

Inside your XSite is a Stats tool that will show you the number of web visitors you've had from today through the last 90 days.  It also shows how many of them are returning visitors.  This is great information to share with your sellers. But there are two areas that I continually watch and want to focus on here: "Referring URL's" and "Common Search Phrases". These two areas tell me exactly how and where people are finding me on the web.

Referring URL's

It might look like gibberish but there's gold hidden in those links. As I scroll through the list of addresses, I take special note of areas that appear numerous times. If it's a site that I have a profile with (like ActiveRain), I will make sure that I update my profile on that site and also write down that site for later use.  I look at the search engines that are ranking me and write them down as well. But here's the big secret: if I see a site like Yahoo in my list, I will move my mouse just over that link. When you hover over it, a yellow banner will appear and show the address.  At the end of it you'll see exactly what the visitor typed to find your site!

Here's an example:

Notice at the end of the link it shows, "Richardson+Homes+Oklahoma+City", what that tells me is that a buyer or seller went to a search engine and typed in "Richardson Homes Oklahoma City" and my site came up. Knowing this, I would then go back to my home page in the "My Content" area and edit that page to update my Keywords at the bottom of the page and add these terms to help boost my rankings. See example below.

Common Search Phrases

This area tells me the most common words or phrases that were typed into a search engine that resulted in my site coming back in their search. I look for the most frequently used terms that returned my site as a result to see if the general public is looking for a common item or term about real estate.  I can use that to boost the information on my site or even create an entire page to it. By eliminating those pages that get no views and replacing them with what people are actually looking for, I keep my site relevant and fresh for visitors, while optimizing it for search engines.