"Build it and they will come."  That's all fine and dandy but they have to know it is there before they come.  Who is "they" and equally important, what is "it"?  "It" is a targeted niche website.  In my case, www.PDXRelocations.com born out of Michael Russer's Online Dominance class and built on a Dakno SwiftSite. 

As author of the Portland Real Estate Blog, I'd like to think that I am at least a better-than-average writer but at the end of the day I am a Realtor, not a author.  The content for the site comes from three sources: 1) content I wrote my self, 2) content written by a copywriter (mostly testimonials via interviews she conducted), and 3) content licensed directly from First Books, the publisher of the Newcomer's Handbooks (in my case the Newcomer's Handbook for Moving to and Living in Portland).  Using their content, we've created the following neighborhood profiles bulleted below.

Now, in addressing "they" there are two of them: search engines and clients.  If you can get the search engines to love you naturally you might be able to avoid paying them to respect you (AdWords and other pay-per-click).  I've done it both ways and am a much bigger fan of the "free" method.  Our blog ranks on the front page of many real estate related searches in Portland, the same cannot be said for our other sites.  As long as I pay attention to the blog, it takes care of itself.  But when it comes to more static sites I've had to be more active and labor intensive. Though it is too early to see the results we had our first lead from the site today so there is some reward for the time invested.  This is the more important "they" by far.

I'm not a web guru or a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert.  What I know, I have largely taught myself and paid attention and asked questions when it gets over my head.  This post isn't totally aultristic, it comes at a suggestion from one of those that know more about this than me.  I've spent a lot of time on Google's help pages trying to understand what does or doesn't work (and then have been straightened out by the experts).  Michael Russer would almost certainly say that this is stuff I should outsource to a Virtual Assistant but in my own geeky way enjoy figuring it out.  Here's what I'm doing:

  1. Use Google's Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics.  They are free.
  2. Upload a Sitemap to the Webmaster Tools site.  I don't fully understand what it does but do it.
  3. Provide content that isn't available elsewhere.  In my case, the Newcomer's content.
  4. Create sources that link to you site.  Google tells me that most of PDXRelocation visitors are linking over from the blog.
  5. Use meta tags, descriptions and titles for every page that are not duplicates from the other pages on the site.
  6. Don't fall into the trap one site can cover all the bases for all your (potential and actual) real estate clients.  I probably own 30 domain names but only have four sites set up so far.
  7. Once you've done your homework, confirm what you think you know with those that know more.  I found out that many of my assumptions were wrong regarding my own site.  If you're lucky, they won't send you a bill.

Newcomer's Handbook for Moving to and Living in Portland content on our website:

Happy Holidays  

 

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Charles Turner, www.PortlandRealEstateBlog.com

Portland, OR

More about me…

Carrington Real Estate Services (US), LLC

Address: 4800 SW Macadam Ave, Suite 305, Portland, OR, 97239

Cell Phone: (503) 936-7764

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