Real Estate Internet Marketing - 7 Ways to Boost Your Online Visibility
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by Brandon Cornett
Every real estate agent wants his or her website to rank well in the search engines. With so many buyers and sellers online these days, it's a no-brainer. Search engine visibility can increase the amount of qualified traffic to your website, and that has a direct impact on client acquisition.
But with so much information (and misinformation) swirling around about search engine visibility, it can be hard to decide what actions to take for best results. I hope to put some of this confusion to rest -- and in doing so, help you improve your website's visibility -- by offering seven specific strategies you can focus on in the new year.
These are the same strategies I've used while working in a search engine optimization (SEO) capacity at a marketing company serving mostly real estate clients. These strategies have worked for me time and time again, and I'm sure they'll do the same for you.
So without further ado, here are seven ways to boost your online visibility this year.
1. Add 10 Pages of Content to Your Site
Writing website content is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to increase your search engine visibility. If two websites are similar in most regards, but one is twice is large as the other, the larger one will rank higher in the search engines.
Creating additional web pages is easier than you might think. See the seven items listed in this article? I could easily make a web page out of each item, if it benefited my readers to do so. I would simply expand them a little, link them into my navigation structure, and presto ... 10 new pages of keyword-rich content to inform my readers and feed the search engines. Glossaries and Q&A pages are other ways to implement this tactic.
Note: If you don't have the time or the desire to write your own website content, check out my web writing services.
2. Acquire Inbound Links
An inbound link is exactly what it sounds like, a hyperlink from another website that leads to your website. Most search engines, and Google in particular, use "link popularity" as one of several criteria to evaluate and rank your website. Link popularity refers to the number, quality and relevance of inbound hyperlinks from other websites to yours.
The practice of seeking and acquiring inbound links is known as link building, and it's the quickest way to get your website found by search engines in the first place. You don't need a "submission service" to submit your website to the search engines -- just get a few inbound links and the search engines will find your website in a matter of days.
If your website is already listed in the major search engines, additional links will improve your ranking (and by extension, increase the amount of traffic you get).
Note: If you don't have the time or the desire to conduct a link building campaign, check out my link building services.
3. Blog Regularly
If you're serious about search engine visibility, you should consider using a blog. The benefits of blogging are many. It helps you grow your website, acquire inbound links, build your reputation, inform your readers, reinforce your brand, and of course, increase your online visibility.
You can set up your blogging software so that each post is saved as its own page (in addition to being part of the chronological tally on the blog's home page). Blog three times a week for a year, and you'll have more than 150 pages of additional web content. A blog can also help you tap into the social aspects of the web, which can lead to more links, more readers, more traffic and more business!
Note: If you want a blog but don't have time to post content on a regular basis, check out my blog writing services.
4. List Your Website in Directories
Search engines and directories have the following things in common. Both have databases full of websites, both have a search field where you can enter key phrases, and both provide search results with websites ranked by most to least relevant. But the similarities end there.
A directory is basically a big catalog of websites that's edited and managed by people. With a search engine, automated web crawlers find websites and add them to the search engine's database. With a directory, human editors find websites, screen them for quality and relevance, and add them to the proper category of the directory's database. This "human intervention" is what makes a directory different from a search engine.
An obvious benefit of having your website listed in a directory is that people can find your site when they search that directory. But directories can also help you rank well in the major search engines like Google. How? Because Google, for instance, uses directory inclusion as part of its algorithm.
In other words, if a website is listed in a directory like Yahoo, or Microsoft's Small Business Directory, it can score more "points" with a search engine like Google. When you think about it, it's perfectly logical. Being included in a directory is a vote of confidence. It means a human editor (not a robotic crawler) has reviewed the website before adding it to the directory. This tells the search engine that the website has some degree of quality, legitimacy and relevance.
Many of the directories that are worth being listed in will require a submission / review fee, ranging from $9 on the low scale and $299 on the high end (namely Yahoo). In most cases, these fees are nominal when you consider the lasting benefit you get in the form of search engine visibility and website traffic. I use Reals.com quite a bit, because it's part of a large network of real estate directories (more bang for the buck). I also think it's an excellent value.
The important thing to note is that, like anything else online, there are good directories and bad ones. When weighing the cost of a directory submission, consider such factors as the directory's age, ranking, and the number of links they put on each page (a good directory will limit listings to about 10 or 15 per page). If you're not sure which directories provide the most value, get help from an SEO professional or a colleague who is familiar with directories.
Note: Directory submissions are a big part of my link building services. So if you don't have time to do it yourself, contact me.
5. Publish a Press Release Online
Did you know you can publish a national press release online (with keyword-rich links back to your website) for only $80? It's true, and it's a tactic I use about once a month for publicity, direct exposure, and yes, SEO benefits.
I use and recommend PRWeb.com. It costs $80 per release, but it's worth doing once every other month, or however often you have news. You can also hyperlink some of the key phrases within the body of your release. Remember, links to your website with key phrases in them can boost your search engine ranking.
For instance, if your press release links to your website with the phrase "Mayberry real estate agent," and your release ends up on a lot of websites, then your search engine ranking for the phrase "Mayberry real estate agent" will start to climb.
Note: I offer an SEO training module for online press releases. If you don't have time to do it yourself, I also have a optimized press release service.
6. Examine Your Website Structure
Website structure has a lot to do with search engine visibility. So whether you're building your own website, outsourcing the development, or purchasing a "ready made" website, you need to understand a few things about site structure. Two of the most common structural problems I encounter (from both an SEO and a usability perspective) are the improper use of Flash and the use of dynamic menus without a text-based alternative. Let me explain.
Flash is a design program made by Macromedia and now owned by Adobe. I guarantee you've seen it used online. You know those websites that play a movie of sorts when you visit them, with a "skip intro" link somewhere down below? That's Flash.
When used carelessly, Flash can frustrate visitors and send them packing. Overuse of Flash can also reduce search engine visibility, because search engines can't decipher your Flash movies. I'm not saying "All Flash is bad." I'm just saying that many of the Flash implementations I see reduce both usability and visibility.
If you're going to use Flash (and you care about your website's visibility), contain your Flash movie within its own space, and offer plain text content in addition to the Flash movie. To see this in action, check out Adobe.com, WebTrends.com or ClickTracks.com. Adobe sells the Flash program, and even they're smart enough to avoid entire pages made of Flash.
You should also be careful when using dynamic menus (drop-down menus, rollover menus, or other menus with "action" to them). I've worked with a lot of websites that only had dynamic menus with no alternative path, and they all had one thing in common. The home page would be indexed, frequently crawled and well-ranked by search engines. But the internal pages would be virtually invisible. The reason for this is that search engines have trouble crawling through dynamic menus, which means they don't visit your internal pages as often (if at all).
There's an easy fix to all this! Simply create an alternate, text-based menu at the bottom of your website. It won't change the look and feel of your site, but it will improve your site's usability and visibility. Go back to the Adobe.com home page mentioned earlier. Notice how they have a fancy, dynamic menu up top (for people) and a plain text menu at the bottom (for search engines).
Note: If you'd like to learn more about making your website more "search engine friendly," check out my SEO training module for onsite optimization.
7. Make Your Website a "Must Read"
Earlier, we talked about the importance of inbound links (from other websites to yours). Well, when you have a website worth linking to in the first place, your link-building program will practically run itself. "Link worthy" websites come in all shapes and sizes, but they all have one thing in common. They all offer content that gets people's attention.
Aside from directories and other paid listings, few people will link to a "bare bones" website that offers nothing unique, helpful or interesting. If you start hunting for inbound links before your website has earned its place on the web, you're going to have a long, hard slog ahead of you.
On the other hand, if you build the kind of website that makes other in your industry or niche say, "Wow, that's really something! I know some folks who would like that," then your link-building efforts will be a breeze. You'll get unsolicited links without even asking for them.
Unsolicited links happen when people visit your website, find it extremely helpful, and link to it as a recommended resource. Your direct competitors won't do this, but others in related industries will. For instance, if you have a real estate news section that's relevant to your area, a mortgage company might add it to their "resources" page.
The more "link worthy" your website is, the easier it will be to acquire inbound links. The more links you acquire, the higher your website will rank for key phrases. The higher your website ranks, the more people will find you online ... you get the picture. It all adds up to more leads and more prospective clients!
Note: If you need help making your website a "must read," please see my web writing services.
Internet Marketing & SEO Support Services
If you need help with any of the Internet marketing and SEO strategies listed on this page, please contact me. I have designed my services in such a way that I can provide as little or as much support as you need. You'll also find a variety of training modules in the SEO Support Center. So no matter what your budget is, we can find a way to work together.
