Many real estate professionals were provided with a website from their Real Estate Agency and others decided to purchase one on their own.  Many website companies will charge you a reasonable fee to provide you with a user-friendly website.   However, here is the million dollar question!   Is anyone finding your website?  

Did You Know?  

The NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers has found annual percentage of home buyers using the internet as their source was 84% for 2007.  Also, did you know approximately 80% of home buyers are finding their realtor online and typically selecting the first one they see online?   So, are they findking your business online first?  How well does your website rank on Google, Yahoo or MSN?   Have you ever checked? 

These are important questions for each realtor to consider.  As more and more information becomes available to the savvy home buyer, they are taking advantage of all the key resources before talking to an agent. 

What can you do to help position your business for success online? 

Consider searching for a reputable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultant to develop a personalized Search Engine Marketing plan for your business.  Here are a few services or ideas that should help:  

• Research:   Your SEO webmaster should do an evaluation of your website to determine the best keywords and keyword phrases for your business. 
• Assessment:  You need to know what is your current ranking.  Is it poor?  Do you have this wonderful looking website, but no one is finding it!   Or, are you rankings great?  What are your current rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN?   The consulting company should be able to generate a report on your ranking against the best keywords (phrases). 
• Development: The SEO consulting company you choose to work with should be able to document an SEO Master Plan.  You don't have to understand everything in the plan, but you do need to understand the value of their work.  Make sure their plan includes a link building campaign.  Having incoming and outgoing links can really help your website traffic!
• Consultation:   Discuss their SEO Master Plan get a basic understanding of the work being performed and how long it will take for them to complete the work.   How will you measure the ROI?
• Budget: You need to think about your budget prior to finding your SEO consultant.  Please understand search engine optimization work is not cheap, but the time, resources and effort your SEO consultant puts in is hard work.   Trust me on this one, I have been doing this work on many websites and it is very time consuming.  
• Metrics:  Make sure they provide you with a baseline of metrics, so you understand where you website is ranked and positioned today.   This is very important!   Once they have completed their initial work, your website is indexed again, a few month have went by and now you can rerun your metrics to evaluate your ranking improvements.
• Patience:  SEO work is not a sprint but a long well planned marathon.  The work is very tedious and not an exact science.  It will take time to improve your rankings. (Months) 
• Cost:  Many consulting companies ask for a large chunk of money up front.  Consider negotiating a a fixed cost contract for the initial work or a pay as you go plan.   Then an on-going maintenance contract to continue to grow your business

 Again, is anyone finding your business online?   

I hope this information is helpful to you.   To learn more on intenet marketing opportunities check out our NEW business!  http://www.goWEBSgo.com

Dan Dunleavy

President, FixtoFlip Inc (The Tools and Resources you need to Fix and Flip Real Estate Profitably!)