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If you are in real estate today, you have to have a web
site? Absolutely. The problem is that
very few real estate websites perform well with search
engines and the reasons that they don't are:
1. Most
of the large real estate web site design companies
offering fancy package deals for brokers and
agents don't understand search engine optimization
and don't offer worthwhile SEO services to their
clients. Many of these companies are real
estate web site factories, rolling out
pre-programmed content and functionality with your
name and picture on it for your geographic location,
like cars off a production line with a few different
options and different paint and upholstery colors.
2. Real estate brokers
and agents
don't understand why
they need search engine optimization or SEO, the
acronym for the same.
Regarding Item 1,
if you search on Google for real estate web site
design, 9 out of 10 web sites on the first page have
significant structural errors that are preventing their
webs from getting the best possible rankings.
9 out of 10!
If they don't do first class search engine
optimization for their own webs, what makes you think
they can or will do it for you?
Regarding Item 2,
if you have or are planning on having a website for your
real estate business, you either need to educate
yourself about search engine optimization or you need to
hire a really good
SEO certified consultant to work with you and your
web designer to hopefully get it right the first time or
improve what you already have online.
Regarding Item 1,
based on my experience with one of the companies listed
on Google page one, if you were to read this page to
them the response might very likely be, "Hey, we ARE on
page one at Google, aren't we? What the big deal?"
The big deal is that every competing web on page two at
Google is equally deficient, so if all of those folks
made corrections and additions to their webs, they might
well displace most of the webs on page one!
Regarding Item 2,
search phrase research reveals very few search engine
searches for real estate website optimization or SEO.
Real estate folks don't know much about optimization and
aren't seeking information. If you take the initiative,
you will be well ahead of the rest of the pack in a
market that has an incredible number of competitors with
very low barriers to entry - it is pretty easy to become
a real estate agent? Only a few who call
themselves real estate professionals actually make the
big bucks. This is an opportunity for you to
really separate yourself from the pack.
So what is a real
estate broker to do? First of all, you can
educate yourself:
-
You can learn
about
how
to become number one at Google.
(A little proof for you
here. My Google rank for become number one
Google is # 1 out of 79,900,000.)
-
You can read
about why text on your web pages is so important on
my
web copywriting basics
page. Good copy is frequently missing from
real estate web sites. Most real estate web
site factories are graphically intensive and lack
good copy. Graphics are easy to create.
Writing great copy that works well for search
engines is not.
(web copywriting basics # 1 out of 925,000*)
-
Search phrase
research will help you to know what search targets
you are missing for your market. Read my
keyword services
page. This is something you can learn to do
yourself and you will be amazed at what you can
learn.
(keyword services # 2 out of 314,000,000*)
-
Truly powerful
websites have lots of good content, well over 100
pages if you want to be a powerhouse with Google.
Read about how to get great content on my
web content
provider page.
(web content provider # 14 out of 253,000,000* and I
am working on getting to page one)
-
You can learn
about other strategic and affordable ways to promote
yourself and your business on my
small
business web publicity page.
(small business web publicity #1 out of
394,000,000*)
-
I have over 250
pages in my website and they all contain good,
solid, reliable information about web marketing that
works.
If you are web
programming savvy, read about my
expert SEO technology report. You can also
get the very best
SEO training courses for yourself or
someone on your staff. You can also use my
Do It Yourself SEO
program.
(expert SEO technology #1 out of 4,080,000 and SEO
training courses #4 out of 1,290,000*)
Most real estate web
sites are substandard from an optimization perspective,
and one of the motivations I have for writing this page
is to help adjust the seemingly cavalier attitude of
some of the people I have dealt with on behalf of my
clients who have websites designed by one or more of the
companies on page one of Google for the search phrase
real estate web site design. One account rep I
talked with recently boasted of his firm's 97% client
retention rate. Perhaps the reason for that is
that there is no better place to go? This seems
quite likely to me. A less than optimum
performing real estate web site appears to be the
ordinary.
My opinion is that
there is no reason you should be ordinary if you have a
choice.
I don't want to program or manage your real estate
website, and I have no interest in running a real estate
website factory, but I certainly would appreciate the
opportunity to help you make your web site much more
visible within the search engines so that the home
buyers and sellers who are searching for you can easily
find YOUR Web site faster than they find your
competitors. If you would like the same,
please contact me.
If you are looking
for a custom website developer who can get you online in
a hurry,
complete this form and we will contact you.
I expect success.
*Based
on the day this page was written April 9, 2006. |