Back to Search Engine Marketing
Don't Play Hide and Seek on the Web
You've paid all this money for a first class website - how come you're not in the Search Engines? Have you ever given thought to paid "web placement," i.e. how easy it is to find you on the web? With almost 75% of all buyers now using the web in their search, you should no longer ignore this important aspect of web marketing. The question is, "How do you get the web placement your business needs?"
Many believe simple techniques like key word phrases and metatags, are all you needed for great web placement. When launching a new website most people loaded it with metatags and key word phrases. How come when you type in your city name followed by "real estate" into a search engine you are nowhere to be found? The answer is that "free" is a thing of the past.
Oh, and please avoid companies who spam you about their web placement services or promise to put you on thousands of search engines; they'll place you on search engines no one visits. Don't waste your money.
You need to decide where to spend your advertising dollars. Agents pay huge amounts for print advertising, yet few see the wisdom of paying for a "great location" on the web. The challenge is how to compete against the 8,000,000 websites indexed under the term "real estate." The top positions go to Yahoo, MSN, Realtor.com, etc. As an agent, you have several options to deal with this challenge.
Option 1: Increase your site's popularity.
The more websites on the Internet that link TO your website, the higher your site's popularity and search engine ranking. For example, many Realtors choose to link their website to Realtor.com. Thus, Realtor.com shows up on many of the real estate related searches.
Some ideas include having your mortgage lender or title company link their website to yours. Acquiring links on an ongoing basis from Realtors you meet networking or at tradeshows is fruitful. Online directories are also a popular place to increase your link popularity.
Option 2: Decide whether or not you want to "pay-per-click".
You can take out an ad, much like a newspaper ad on the search engine. For as little as $100.00, you can test different ad campaigns and keyword phrases to see what drives your website the most traffic.
Assuming you elect to "pay-per-click," your search engine specialist will help you understand how much you can afford to pay-per-click and still see a favorable ROI. The Starter Package is a great place to start.
To contact Bernice Ross please email her at bernice@realestatecoach.com.
