| What are ways to promote
your web site? This is important
particularly with the new service from ICIWorld where over 14,000 real
estate have and want ads are placed on a broker's web site in a way that
the broker receives all the calls.
If a broker receives 10 calls that lead to
referrals of five minutes each and they all go through at an average of
$10,000 each, that is $100,000 for 50 minutes work if they all go through.
So driving traffic to your web site becomes a very
profitable venture.
There are many ways and we ask you the readers to
contribute here.
Your comments are appreciated.
Here are some ways.
-
Obtain a keyword-rich domain name, such as one that ties
your area to real estate (DenverRealEstate.com) to improve your visibility with
search engines; for large cities, focusing on a suburb will increase your chance
to come out on top (LittletonRealEstate.com).
You can have more than one domain name pointing to your
web site.
You can have yourname.com
Help Video on
Domain Names Everyone should see this video.
You can go to
http://www.networksolutions.com click on Domain Names and do a "whois" lookup to see if that
domain is taken and if it is, they will even give you suggestions for a new
name.
- Start handing out more of your business cards
with your web site address. Inform people you have residential
listings with color photos and slide show displays, 20,000 commercial real
estate listings with 50-100 new listings per day coming in on your web site!
If they want information on any of
them, they just have to call you. Put this on all your promotional material
including letterhead and envelopes.
The key is to tell them what is on your web site, ie: thousands of
residential and commercial real estate ads.
The key is to tell them about the listings on your web site and that there is new information on your web site daily
so visit regularly and often.
- In your ads in a newspaper, make a statement
that you have 14,000 Have and Wants ads on your home page. These
are world classified ads on your home page. Over $1 Trillion of
Buyers, over $8 Billion of Properties For Sale and For Lease. In any
advertising that you do, let people know you have this information. They
will visit your home page. Let them know there are hundreds of news ones
coming in regularly. That encourages them to visit your web site on a
regular basis to check the new listings.
By letting people know you have buyers, people may be more inclined to
list with since they see how well connected you are into the market
place for buyers.
- Place key words in your meta tags on your home
page. The major search engines of the world send out "spiders" to crawl
everyones web site on the Internet. They immediately go the "meta tags"
on your web site, take those words and place them in their search engine
index. The next time someone searches those words in that search
engine, your page will come up.
- Sponsored links. If your page comes up as
one of 5,000,000 pages found, people will not find you. However
you can sponsor a link so that you are on top. Sponsored links in search
engines average .15 cents per click to $.50 per click and more.
Every time a person clicks on your link you are debited .15 cents. We
suggest you start with a budget of $50 per month to $200 per month for
three months. Each month when your budget is reached your
sponsored link will stop and then restart next month. In the case of
real estate, if you are specific about what you sponsor, you can get
very high qualified leads only. Would you pay .15 cents for a lead where
you end up selling a shopping center? This is possible to do with
the right wording.
go to www.google.com
go to the bottom that says Advertising
go to google ad words
Here is a search tool It explains searches and estimated costs.
It also gives you suggested search terms.
- Home pages and web sites are like billboards.
If a billboard is in your garage, no one can see it. If it is on a
highway then many people can see it. Promote your web site in search
engines and any and everywhere you can.
- Promote your web site in the signature files of
your email. Every email that you send can contain a signature file that
is attached to every email that you send out. Advertise 14,000
commercial haves and wants on your web site with a link to your web
site.
- Economic Development Agencies. These
departments of most cities promote business in their communities. You
can ask to have your web site listed on their site.
- Fax Multi Cast. Develop a list of fax numbers
of all businesses in your community. Send them a list of Haves and
Wants once a quarter, every 3 months, of listings in your area.
People love reading real estate ads. Then provide the link to your web
site. We suggest you use Winfax Pro to do group faxes.
By doing this you are building a real estate practice, not just chasing
the almighty deal.
- EMail Multi Cast. Develop a list of EMail
addresses of people who deal in real estate. Send them an email
once a quarter with links to your web site and what kind of information
you provide.
- Join a builders construction association.
Distribute information to them at meetings, etc. and build databases of
people interested in real estate.
- Join other groups, Chambers of Commerce, any
groups of people. There are always people interested in investing
and dealing in real estate.
- Network your web site to lawyers, accountants,
doctors.
- Place a magnetic sign on your car or license
plate holder.
- Take out radio ads, billboards on all the major highways
in the USA. You get the picture. Promote it.
- Literally invite any and everyone to visit your
web site to view haves and wants in real estate. When they are
interested in something, they should contact you.
- Develop a press kit. Notify them of sales
in your area. Include "provided by" information with links to your web
site.
- Analyse your web site.
-
The
basis of ALL search engine rankings is keywords. Users enter keyphrases
in Search Engines to get information they need, It is VERY
important that you optimize for such keyphrases.
This tool provides you keyword
suggestions and reports on their monthly search estimates.
http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-playground.php
As anyone with a Web site knows, you need to
appear in search results to get visitors to the site. And, the higher
up in the search results, the better. That's because most surfers
don't make it past the first page of search results.
The process of getting a good ranking in search
results is called search engine optimization (SEO). Many people, even
experienced techies, misunderstand SEO, or consider it hocus-pocus.
Over the years, many people have sought to
manipulate search sites' results so their pages appear high in the
rankings. This often involved trickery. Search sites try to weed out
sites that use these tactics.
So, what can you do to get a good ranking?
Be realistic. With really popular terms, it may
be impossibly difficult to get a good ranking. So pick moderately
popular terms.
Now, pick five pages from your site. Each should
be related to one of the terms. Focus on writing clear, concise
content that uses the term throughout the page. The idea is to achieve
good keyword density.
But don't overdo it. Otherwise, search sites will
think you're "keyword stuffing." This is when you cram words into a
page. Search sites flag this as trickery.
Next, find reputable sites that are related to
yours. Speak with the owners and ask if they will link to your site.
They may ask to exchange links. The more inbound links to your site,
the easier it is for search sites to find you.
Each link coming into your site is akin to a vote
for its credibility. But you want these votes to come from legitimate
sites. Link farms, or sites that serve no other purpose than to list
links, are bad news.
These are the best ways to build traffic to your
site. Keep in mind that it may take several months to see results. In
the interim, you may wish to consider online advertising, if your
budget allows it.
- This is a mistake
many people make and what is worse – even experienced SEO experts make
it. People choose keywords that in their mind are descriptive of their
website but the average users just may not search them. For instance, if
you have a relationship site, you might discover that “relationship
guide” does not work for you, even though it has the “relationship”
keyword, while “dating advice” works like a charm. Choosing the right
keywords can make or break your SEO campaign. Even if you are very
resourceful, you can't think on your own of all the great keywords but a
good keyword suggestion tool, for instance, the
Website Keyword Suggestion tool will help you find keywords that are
good for your site.
- Top ten mistakes
http://www.webconfs.com/top-10-seo-mistakes-article-24.php
- ICIWorld has an eight minute presentation on
domain names to help your web site be found on the Internet. Set up an
appointment with us to help you design a domain name and be logged in to
your web site. Call anytime.
Common Sense Advice for Search Engine Optimization
Most web surfers start their sessions at a search engine or a web
directory. There are a number of different methods you can use to capture
their traffic and drive it to your site:
1.
Stick to
the big names: The two largest directories: Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com)
and the Open Project Directory (http://www.dmoz.org),
and the two largest search engines: Google (http://www.google.com
) and Inktomi (used by MSN search (http://www.msn.com)
and AOL (http://www.aol.com)) are likely
to deliver 80% of your traffic, so concentrate on those and don’t spend
too much time on anybody else.
2.
Yahoo and
the Open Project Directory are administered by humans, so an editor will
inspect your site before it's added. They receive so many submissions
that it can literally take months before your site is reviewed, and
nothing (not even paid subscriptions) guarantees that it will be listed.
It’s worth to keep trying, though, so check back every month or so and, if
your site isn’t listed, submit it again.
3.
Google and
Inktomi are robots (software programs) that “crawl” (find and read)
millions of sites on the web, and add them to their index. That's why it
is not absolutely necessary to manually submit your site to a search
engine, since they may find your site and add it automatically when they
find a link to your site on another page.
4.
You don’t
need to submit all the pages on your site. Once the search engine finds
your main page (homepage), it will find the other ones by following
links. To improve the chances of your secondary pages being found, create
a link called ‘site map’ in your homepage, and have it point to a page
that is nothing but a collection of links to all the pages on your site.
This way, the search engine will follow the link and “suck in” all your
pages. Try putting this link as close to the top of your homepage as
possible, since it will have a better chance of being picked up by the
search engine.
5.
Your site
will stand a much better chance of showing up at the top of the search
results list if you choose keywords that are as specific as possible. In
general, niche sites that use very specific keywords have a better chance
of being at the top of the list than generic sites that use more common
keywords. For example, a restaurant that specializes in brick oven pizza
(keywords: brick oven pizza) has a better chance of showing up in a
prime position than an all-encompassing Italian restaurant (keywords:
Italian restaurant).
6.
A good
search engine ranking is also conditioned by the amount of inbound links
to your site that the search engine finds in other websites. A
significant amount of links to your page from high ranked, quality sites
with content related to yours, will significantly boost your rankings.
Try contacting the webmasters of the leading websites for the keywords of
your choice and try to get them to link to your site. You can offer a
link exchange or place a paid link (advertising) on their pages, if that’s
an available option.
7.
Creating a
good page title tag is also key, since
it’s usually the first thing the search engines display in the search
results page. Also, you must create a well written, easy to understand
‘Description’ meta tag, since some search engines will use it to describe
your site. The more your title and description match your preferred
search keywords, the more likely web users will click into your site.
Don't pay too much attention to the 'Keywords' meta tag, since most search
engines ignore them nowadays, due to the potential for abuse.
Finally, one last
word of advice: don’t obsess with search engines, since they are not the
only way to generate traffic to your site. Try different approaches,
like writing articles and posting them in discussion groups and
newsgroups. Also, don’t overlook bricks-and-mortar techniques like
passing around business cards embedded with your website address, or
advertising in traditional media. It is a combination of all these
things, and high quality, original content, what will make your site
popular
ICIWorld.net
1-877-272-1721
The Daily Sucker: Current Examples of Bad Design on the Web
The Daily Sucker features current examples of
sites that have accessibility, usability, and regular design problems --
including ugliness.
http://www.websitesthatsuck.com/ From Vincent Flanders' Web Pages That
Suck Showing Sucky Design since 1996. He's a journalist, published book
author, tech writer and content creator. Vincent also teaches and gives
speeches on web design, accessibility, and usability.
|
The Importance
of a Good Web Page Title
Many web designers focus just on the actual look and
feel of a page and dismiss seemingly minor details like
the page title. However, a good title can, in just a
few words, tell your visitors what they can expect by
reading your page. More importantly, the page title is
the only way that many visitors will be able to identify
and find your page. A good title can therefore increase
the traffic to your site.
More and more Internet users rely on search engines
every day, and search engines use page titles to
generate the links displayed after a search. Let’s
suppose that you own a company called The Attic, that
specializes in vintage clothing and you have just
submitted your website to a search engine. If the title
of your page is: “The Attic. Specializing in Vintage
Clothing”, it is OK. Certainly, it is better than just
“Welcome to the Attic”.
However, a better option would be: “Vintage Clothing by
The Attic”. The reason is that, most likely, a visitor
that comes to your site from a search engine will not
conduct a search for “The Attic”, but probably will do
it for “Vintage Clothing”. The fact that those keywords
are in your title, and especially because they are at
the beginning, will increase the chance of the search
engine displaying your page within the search results,
and will increase the likelihood that the user will
notice the link and click on it.
An exception are large companies with superb name brand
recognition. They may be better off by starting the
page title with the company or the brand name, since
they will be well known to most users and their purpose
will be evident. For all that matters, they may even
not need to rely on search engines for traffic at all.
Another reason to pay close attention to the page title
is that it is used by web browsers to name the page when
it is bookmarked. If a user goes through her favorite
files and doesn’t recognize your page due to a lousy
page title, she may by-pass it, and, as a result, you
will waste a precious opportunity to get easy traffic to
your site.
In summary, you want to use a page title that clearly
states the purpose of the page, that will catch the
user’s eye when it is displayed by a search engine, and
that will be easily identifiable by the user when he
browses through his files in the Favorites folders. |
|
|
Point2agent recommendations
Point 2
Article on Click Fraud.
Local Listings
Paid Search Overview
Website Advertising Checklist Many state and province real estate
licensing bodies provide guidelines for advertising. This is an example of
just one. Check your own state or province for guidelines for advertising
web sites. Go on google and search the
words "How to promote web site." There will be a wealth of free
information as well as options for paid information.
Very important page that every
Internet should be aware of. It is ICIWorld's News and Security Page,
a public service for the real estate industry.
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