Search Engine Optimization

Realtors need SEO

How Buyers find YOU

seo Realtors need SEOHaving a targeted, content filled, website with quality SEO is a game changer for Realtors.  Buyers start their search online, so who do you think they are going to call?
I have had a real estate website for about 8 years.  From 2003 to 2010, I got a few phone calls or emails per year by potential buyers who had found my website, and I made about 1 sale per year because of my website.  This obviously was not a big part of my lead generation program, but it was more than enough to cover the cost of having a website.

Search Engine Optimization for Realtors

Then in 2010 I discovered SEO, and the way I do business had fundamentally changed.  Now instead of keeping my trade secrets to myself, I publish articles to my website and other blogs, and people actually read them.  I try to provide good content about Portland Condos and Real Estate on my website.  So, SEO rule number 1 for realtors is to have good content on your website.
 
Rule 2 is to have a multi-page website that is easily searchable and indexable.  About a year ago, I discovered that my “template” Realtor website was not getting searched and indexed by google.  It had frames, and google, never went past page 1.
 
Rule number 3 is to pick your target.  Let’s say that you like to sell homes in a nice neighborhood like Laurelhurst.  You could write articles about Laurelhurst Real Estate, and use page titles, headers, and photo tags with the words Laurelhurst Real Estate, and you might get picked up by the search engines.  Not everybody can make it to the top of search terms like Portland Real Estate.  There are a few leaders who have already made it there, and they will be formidable competitions for the most searched terms.

 Off-Site Optimization – Link Building

Once you have a content filled website or blog with targeted terms, it is time to get the word out.  So I guess rule number 4 is to submit your website to the search engines and directories.  You may have to spend some money to get included in certain directories, but in my humble opinion, it is well worth it.
 
Now you are making progress.  You might even appear on the front page of google… booyah.  The problem is once you start making progress you want more.  Rule number 5 is convince other websites to link to your website.  Sounds simple, right.  Well no.  It is hard as hell, and it is very tedious work.  You might want to hire a professional to help you with this step.  I mean a someone who will follow “White Hat” rules that slowly but surely add links and content to your site.  If content is King, then inbound links are Queen.
 
As a matter of fact step 4 is best managed by someone who knows the ropes.  You don’t want to pay $99 to submit your website to 9 million websites.  Your website could be tagged as spam, or nothing could happen, either way you lose $99 and maybe more. I was fortunate enough to meet some very smart people in the world of SEO, and they put my on the right track.  It doesn’t matter what business you are in.  If using the internet to generate leads and business is not a huge part of your marketing plan, good luck.  You are going to need it.
 
Guest Blogger – Brian Porter

Search Engine Optimization: A few Strategies

SEO Tips

seo Search Engine Optimization: A few Strategies[intlink id="local-search-for-small-business-owners" type="post"]Search Engine Optimization[/intlink] ~ People want to get their sites listed on the first page of Google  – organic ranking for their main keywords.  I often get asked how to keep or get a site on the first page of a search engine.  Here are a few tips or strategies for On-Site Optimization:

  • Use your keywords in the title of your page or post
  • Have the keyword repeat in the first paragraph
  • Use your keyword in links
  • Include an image with your keywords in the Title and alt text
  • Have other posts that support the main keywords
  • BLOG
  • Focus your content

Search Engine Optimization also includes Off-Site Optimization:

  • Creating links coming into your site ~ Local Directory Listings
  • Creating links coming into your site ~ Posting articles
  • Creating links coming into your site ~ Squidoo and HubPages
  • Creating incoming links ~ Get more Reviews

I hope you can see that it is all about gaining more incoming links.  Anything and everything that you can do to get a one-way link coming into your site will help your overall SEO ranking efforts.

Vancouver Website Design

Website Design and Development

WebsiteTraffic Vancouver Website Design

  1. Need more Sales?
  2. Need more Traffic?
  3. Need your Phone to Ring?

Premium Websites, LLC creates websites that meet your needs.  We look at your business model, target market, and existing marketing plan.  Then we create an optimized website for your business that ties your whole marketing plan together.  You will work directly with the web designer with the experience, knowledge, and professionalism to capture your ideas and bring them to life on the Internet.  By having a plan before starting your web project the result will be:

  • More Clients
  • More Sales
  • More Traffic

Web Design Services

Your company website is often the first impression with a potential new client.  Your website needs to capture the core values of your business and convey that to your clients.  It is a first step in building a quality relationship that is crucial for building your business. Premium Websites, LLC  is a local web design company that provides complete website solutions for your business.  We offer:

 

WARNING: Web sites designed by Premium Websites, LLC may result in more business than you can handle.

Call (360) 607-4767 or email Dotty to get started.

Local Business Profit from Local Search

Why do I want to Advertise on the Internet?

I often get business owners asking, “Why should I have my business on the Internet?” There are many reasons but the most important reason is your bottom line. Weigh the cost of Phone Book Advertising, Magazine, TV or Radio Advertising against the cost of having a website. The Return on Investment is mush higher with a website and Internet Advertising.

More and more people are turning to the Internet to find services instead of having bulky phone books. According to Internet World Stats  73% of all North American citizens use the Internet. ABC News conducted a survey of online users – 47% of Internet users make purchases online. If 73% of your customers are using the Internet to get information and make purchasing decisions, and 47% are actually making purchases, then you need to be represented on the Internet.

Companies that do well with local search results are service based industries. With people moving into metro areas they need to find new service providers and are turning to the Internet to find and compare services that are available in their new location.

Two Types of Internet Advertising

The first type is paid advertising through a company like Google. Google’s paid advertising is called AdWords and is known as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. The concept is simple – you define your best keywords (through keyword research) then bid on the keyword phrase. When someone types in your chosen keyword phrase then your website will come up in the listings for that customer to click on and go to your site. The cost of this type of advertising is industry specific meaning that is varies by industry.  Keywords can sell for pennies or well over $50.00 per click.  For business targeting the local market it is possible to take a costly keyword like “Web Design” and put a city or area behind it and get a much better price on the keyword. 

The second type of Internet advertising is called Organic placement – these are the sites that are listed in the main area of the search results page. The goal is to get placed in the top half of the first page. There are many variables that come into play for the search engine to decide who gets prime placement. It is all based upon relevancy of the phrase typed in by the searcher to the websites listed. Some factors are:

  • Keywords in the title of the website
  • Keywords in header tags
  • Keywords listed in the text of the page
  • Keywords in the URL
  • Keywords bolded or emphasized on the page
  • The Keywords in the text of inbound links
  • How many inbound links
  • The PageRank of sites that are linking to your site

 

That is a short list of considerations made by the search algorithms – but all of those items are in control of the owner of the website.  They should all be taken into consideration when optimizing your site for organic placement in the search engines.  This is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Dotty

Internet Marketing for your Business

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my clients to the concept of promoting your own website to bring in new customers and revenue. Relying on Search Engine Optimization only is not a good idea. Search Engines are constantly changing their search algorithms (search criteria) and most sites can not keep up with the changes unless they are paying a great deal of money to have their site managed by a SEO company. Renegade University will teach you many different techniques for promoting your own site and getting tons of free traffic to your site. Free traffic is the best kind! Do not mistake free traffic as poor prospects. These are people that are actively looking for your product or service – your target market. Renegade University will teach you:

  • Site Monitization
  • How to use Social Marketing
  • How to effectively use YouTube
  • How to find your Target Market on the Internet
  • and much more!

Renegade U has a free level that contains training videos and other training materials. It also has a paid membership that will literally walk you through how to set up your Internet Marketing Campaign. Click the purple button above to learn more about me and to go to the page where you can register for the free version of Renegade U.

20 SEO Tips

Here are 20 SEO tips as posted at Rustic Girls.

Search engine optimization can be confusing, especially for people who are new to the concept. However, there are a few simple things that anyone can do that will help increase a webpage’s chances of being ranked higher by search engines and increasing the number of visitors to your website. How much time you spend optimizing your website is up to you, but you should take a little bit of time to do some of the following techniques:

1. Have a site with well-written content. Optimization is worthless if your site is not full of good content.

2. Include a short site description in the title. Search engines will display between 66 to 130 characters of your title when they list search results. Each page title should be constructed so that it informs and attract users. For best results, include a title and a subtitle.

3. Create a site map and submit it to the major search engines such as Yahoo! and Google. You should also place a link to your site map on the index page of your site.

4. Make sure that each page of your site has at least 250 words of text on it.

5. Declare a “doctype” at the top of every page and a character-set type.

6. Keep your URLs as simple as possible. Try to use URLs that have keywords in them instead of numbers.

7. Decide upon several keywords and phrases and use them throughout the page. This includes putting them in the title, content, anchor tags, Meta tags, and links.

8. Avoid frames. Search engine spiders are unable to read them. If you feel that you must use frames, include important body text within a <no frames> tag.

9. Register with search engines and directories by hand.

10. Avoid listing words repeatedly. This is considered keyword “stuffing” and is more likely to decrease your search engine ranking than improve it.

11. Do not use “black hat techniques” to try and artificially increase your site’s ranking. It will only end up backfiring and will probably get you banned from the search engine.

12. Do not use flash or images in place of searchable text. Also, use the “alt tag” to describe any images on your site. This information is indexed by search engines.

13. Use headers that are relevant and contain key words. Not only do they help organize your text, but they are also weighed heavily by search engines.

14. Update your site frequently. Search engines like sites that are growing and offer new content.

15. Use a blog to extend your site and keep your content fresh. Your blog should be an extension of your website (“http://www.yourwebsite.com/blogname” and not “http://yourwebsite.bloghost.com”)

16. Place a robots.txt file on your server. This will instruct web robots which directories can or cannot be crawled by search engine spiders.

17. Avoid using doorway or splash pages. Doorway pages are designed specifically for search engines and are considered another black hat tactic. Most search engines are capable of recognizing them, which makes them pointless. Splash pages are intended to be entryways to your site and usually consist of some type of flash animation. Although they might look cool, they take a long time to load and contain no content for search engines to crawl.

18. Include the major Meta tags on all of your pages. While the “key words” tag is not as important as it used to be, it should still be included. The “description” tag is more important since it is what search engines list after the title in their results.

19. Validate your HTML so search engines can read it. You should also validate any CSS and JavaScript that you use.

20. Hand submit your site to the major search engines. This is a simple step but can go a long way in getting your site listed.

Now that you understand some of the basics of search engine optimization, you can decide if you want to go more in-depth and take the time to optimize your site further. You might also consider having your website optimized by a professional. Either way, you have at least minimized some of the things that can lower you website’s ranking, which could have cost you potential visitors.- Darcy Logan

Welcome to my Blog

Hello Everyone

I would like to welcome you to my blog. I will be updating this at least weekly if not more often. I will be addressing questions that customers have asked about repeatedly about how to get their sites listed in the search engines and anything else SEO related. I will also be posting interesting tidbits from the industry.

Dotty

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