I am a lazy slouch! I keep getting involved in Real Estate stuff instead of coming back here to my blog! There are a lot of client "time wasters" out there right now and with the market the way it is, I have to invest the time because you never know.
I will say that although I get more activity on my site and talk to more people, I also get a lot of people that really aren't serious or just want to use my expertise and probably already have an agent they plan to use. I have often wondered about the 80%+ start looking on the internet for real estate. I believe THAT part is true, but I wonder what percentage actually do business with an agent on the Internet.
A couple years back I got something like 7-9 deals of my website at a cost of about $200 a month in strategic PPC keywords. The year before that, 5 deals. Now, I am in a much more visible position on the web and while I do get good traffic, have only seen one deal so far this year. I know the market is a big part of this but still it is disappointing.
I will say that having a good, solid, and demonstratable web identity is a wonderful selling point for listings. It really makes the pitch much easier and other agents can't compete against that too well.
Well, last I left off was about tracking software. For the short quick peek, I use Statcounter and I just looked today and so far I have about 170 unique visitors to my site this month and 320 page views. I like to focus on unique visitors but I also was getting about 10 returning visitors.
As I talked about last time, getting a keyword list is paramount in my opinion. Then, I move on to on page optimization. I know I put a lot more work into this then was needed. But I am optimized for many of my best keywords and I believe it has helped immensly. I learned very quickly how to write content that encapsulates many of my keywords while having excellent flow. This has helped me in so many ways. There are a lot of sites that I rank underneath for a specific keyword, BUT I usually rank MUCH better than these same sites in almost all the other keywords I have selected.
I get more exposure and also, as I add links, I will eventually over take these sites I believe in their prime spots. I believe in strongly working on my entire SEO body, not just the biceps so to speak. I am getting hits from things I never even imagined because of good on page optimization.
Also, on page optimization has helped me learn more HTML aspects that help in articles, additional pages, clickable table design and a full fledged understanding of my website. I strongly urge you to invest the time and create a basic model of your site that you want to work with, and then build it.
Use the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle. I have a model that I haven't even completed yet, but work a little towards it each week. I want to have 4 main city pages for my keywords, my main page, a referral / link directory, about me area, MLS (of course), Testimonials, and community information.
That is pretty straightfoward and with the city pages, you can work on them until they are ready and then turn them live. I plan to do optimization for the main page first and foremost and then start working on links. Meanwhile, as I discover things I like about a city, I just write it down and put it in my to do file. When I work on that page, I incorporate the idea and build that page to be targeted just at THAT specific keyword. I build it to last but very simple to use.
Lately, I have been working on links and it is time I got back to my city pages and also working on links directly to these pages. I will see how this works in the near future as the search engines start to catch up with what I am doing. I just need to dedicate more time to it. I have been holding off because a new template technology is available from Superlative that could be VERY helpful in SEO activity.
That's it for today. Basically, I am suggest that you build a fantastic keyword list and then work on your on page optimization first! That way, your optimization will start working for you right away and teach you what you need to know so you can maximize your link strategy. It is nice to do one thing right that can stand on its own for a bit, then the next thing. Linking and all the other off-page stuff is hugely important but you want to have your house in order first. Off-page stuff is a constant process and it is very tough to go back and tweak something when you are already getting good rankings.
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