Sales Tools

How to Convert Return Traffic to Sales (Part 5 of 5)

This is the fifth of a five-part series by guest blogger and web designer Amanda Church.

In this final installment of implementing best SEO practices for your real estate site, we’re going to talk about how to both keep those hard-won visitors coming back and turn their visits into sales.

But first let’s review a few things we’ve learned about optimizing your site:

• Current, relevant, unique content attracts good, natural link-backs
• Getting good, natural link-backs means you are tuning in to the needs and desires of your target audience
• Answering the needs and desires of your target audience rewards you with favorable search engine rankings
• Favorable search engine rankings attract more visitors

If this sounds like an endless (and beautiful) circle, you’re right.

The same emotional factors that prompt people to buy can also cause them to link from blogs and sites and bookmark, vote, and retweet from social media. As Google says, give your users what they want, and we will bring you more.

In other words, the better you are at answering your target audiences’ needs, the higher you’ll rate with search engines. And since searchers are the most motivated people on the web, chances are if they’re searching for a real estate site, they’re looking to buy or sell. Your goal is to be first in line, which in internet speak, means a page one ranking.

Now this should be an obvious product of good business, and yet, it amazes me how few people actually use it to their advantage. Granted, there are agents who do well with a crummy website or no website at all, but think how much more successful they could be with this added tool in their repertoire. Why wouldn’t you want to employ every advantage you can to get ahead?

Five Ways to Maintain Traffic

So you’ve followed my advice and optimized your site to get those quality link-backs. You’ve watched your site slowly crawl up the search rankings, and you’re starting to see some results in client contacts. Well, don’t get too comfortable, because if you want to maintain those high page rankings, you’re going to have to be as vigilant about your website as you are every other aspect of your career. Some ways you can do that are:

• Ask new clients how they found you. If they answer a search engine, ask them what words they used in that search. When you start seeing a pattern, incorporate these new keywords into your content.
• Blog. Daily, if possible, but at the very least, regularly. It doesn’t have to be long, though 300 words should be your minimum since search engines like to see a chunk of content. Blog when you have a new listing. Blog when you have a sale. Blog when you have an open house, or read an interesting article about your industry or a new development opens in your area. It doesn’t even have to be original. Read something interesting? Blog about it. Quote or link to the article.
• Subscribe to other blogs, both in your industry and out. It’s all about making contacts with potential customers, which means you have to go where they go, even on the internet. Following the blogs of local decorators, designers, landscapers, even community affairs groups can open up opportunities for future business and/or partnerships.
  
  And don’t just lurk on these sites. Participate in the discussion. Comment on the articles, including a link to your own site, if allowed. Remember, successful blogs are like communities. Become a part of several. Ask the owners of the blogs you read if you can guest blog, even if that means repeating something you wrote on your own blog (freshen it up for the new audience). Return the favor by asking them to guest write on your blog, bringing their readers to your site.
• Make social media work for you. At the very least, create a profile on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and set them up to alert followers to your news and events. Most social networking sites are very user-friendly and easy to set up.
• If you’re going to use the internet, you should stay informed about what’s going on in the cyber world. Subscribe to networking sites like Digg and Reddit to get a rundown on the latest web news. By educating yourself, you’ll be a better user, and thus a better provider. Plus it gives you subject matter for your own blog. Remember, the bulk of today’s home buyers and sellers are tech and business savvy, and they’re more likely to want to deal with an agent they can identify with.

Converting Traffic to Sales

Or how to convince the horse to drink once you’ve lead him to the water.

Traffic is the sign of a successful website, but as gratifying as it is, traffic alone doesn’t pay the bills. It’s people who take the actions you need them to who do. And when it comes down to it, it’s not the actual traffic that matters, it’s attracting the right traffic.

Remember when I said please the reader and you’ll please the search engines? Well, it’s like that with potential clients, too. If you concentrate only on making sales, you’ll likely come across like a shady used car salesman and scare away more clients than you attract.

However, by providing a well-designed, informative website and/or blog, you give your readers value. They may not be looking to buy or sell right now, but they’ll remember a compelling article they read on your site or their decorator or gardener’s blog when they do decide to upgrade or downsize their home. By putting yourself out there, not just as a salesperson, but as a knowledgeable member of your profession, you become more than just a real estate agent. You’re now a knowledgeable resource.

And don’t discount the value of exposure. When your name shows up on websites and blogs, you send a subliminal message. Remember me. It’s the same principle advertisers use. Repetition breeds familiarity, and familiarity breeds trust.

I can’t guarantee you’ll be successful. Only you can control that. But I do know if you follow the practices I’ve outlined in this series, you’ll at least be well on your way to turning your website into your most important marketing tool. Just remember, Like anything worthwhile, it’s an investment in both time and effort.

SEO Part I – How Search Engines Work
SEO Part II – How to Optimize Your Content to Attract Visitors and Search Engines
SEO Part III – How to Attract Strong, Natural Link-Backs
SEO Part IV – How to Target the Right Search Traffic Using Social Media

Amanda Church is a ten-year veteran of web and graphic design and founder of Nytshadow Designs, a design firm located in Tampa, Florida. Amanda built and has maintained LakeOconeeHouses.com for three years.

Sales Tools

How to Target the Right Search Traffic Using Social Media (Part 4 of 5)

This is the fourth of a five-part series by guest blogger and web designer Amanda Church.

Twitter. Facebook. Digg. LinkedIn. Delicious. Reddit.

Social Media. You’ve heard of it. You probably use one or more kinds of it yourself. If so, you know just how powerful the various social media networks can be. For example, I get most of my news first through Twitter, because news hits the Twitterverse almost instantaneously. If it’s happening anywhere in the world, someone is tweeting it. And retweeting it.

The quickest way for an exceptional piece of content to get a lot of attention (which, in turn, results in secondary links) is to make the home page of popular social media news sites like Digg or Reddit.

If you’ve done a good job with your headline, it should magnetically draw people in, making them want to read (and link back to) what you’ve written.

However, before you can use them, you need to understand the crowd dynamics of each social media content community. Each is different in its own way. For instance, while Digg and Reddit are both news sites, what works as a headline for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other. You can tweak your headlines for each, but retain your keywords in the title, because most of the resulting links will simply regurgitate the title anyway.

And when I talk about headlines, I’m mainly referring to blog posts (like this one). Because while it’s true a static website can attract the attention of social media networks, it likely won’t keep that attention for long. Social media thrives on news, and news by its very nature is, well … new.

Blogs

If You Don’t Have One, Get One. If You Do Have One, Use It

Search engines love blogs, and why not? For a content munching spider, a blog is like a freshly-baked, all-you-can-eat buffet. Current, relevant, constantly changing content served up daily.

Nothing will get you noticed on the web faster than a well-maintained blog of fresh, relevant content. It’s the perfect partner for a well-designed, SEO-optimized static website. Remember those three words we used in Part II – current, relevant, unique content? Well, here’s where the current part comes in. Because even if you update the content on your site daily, it will never match the impact of a blog.

Why, you ask? Because a blog is interactive. You say something, and your audience answers back with comments, which leads to more visitors answering them. And before you know it, voila! You have a virtual conversation going. People come back to see what you’re saying next, and what others are saying about them.

Over time, a well-maintained blog becomes a community unto itself. Regular visitors subscribe to your blog, and interact with other regular visitors. And they tell their friends, who in turn subscribe to and link back to your blog. And we all know what all this exchanging of links does, right?

The first question most people ask when I suggest they get a blog is “What do I write?” I mean, you have to come up with content every day, at least at first. Because in order for a blog to become established, you really do need fresh content at least four or five days a week.

Now I’ll admit, even I have trouble with this one. In fact, my own blog suffers from inattention more often than I like to admit. Like anyone else, I get busy and well, something has to give, right? However, the beauty of blogging is you don’t necessarily have to come up with your own content everyday. If you subscribe to a variety of blogs in your field (and you really should), chances are you have more than enough material for daily posts.

Considering this is for the posterity of your business, devoting an hour each day to maintaining your blog isn’t too much to ask, is it? For instance, I start my day reading through the dozen or so blogs I subscribe to. Sometimes I’ll read something that will spark an idea for a post of my own, but if I either don’t have the time nor the inclination to write my own content, I’ll fall back on reposting.

What is reposting? Well, it’s simply linking to a post you found on another blog. You offer a short introduction on your own blog followed by a link to the post on the other blog. It’s a win-win for both parties. You have new content to appease your readers, both human and spider, and the original writer of the post gets more readers.

There’s another benefit to reposting. By linking to another blog, you’ll likely gain another reader yourself because bloggers are very well-aware of who links to them. Most get pingbacks telling them when another blog has linked to them, meaning they’ll follow those links to check out what you’re all about.

Another way blogging can improve your site traffic is to be a guest writer on other content sites and blogs, especially if the blog has an established readership. By freely contributing content on another blog, you raise your profile and encourage links back to your own site.

It’s like what I’m doing right now. By writing this series on Nancy’s blog, I help her readership and in turn, up my own credibility. Who knows, it could even lead to future web business for me.

Using Social Media to Promote Your Blog

Twitter and Facebook have become amazing content distribution networks. And while search engines may not factor them into their algorithms yet, it’s only a matter of time. After all, how long can you ignore something so integral to sharing content on the web?

Having a Twitter account and a Facebook page does, however, factor into the perceived worth of your site because it shows you’re conscientious about remaining current. However, bear in mind that gaining followers or fans is not about stroking your ego, but creating a dynamic network that gets people to see your content. And the more people see and share your content, the more likely it is to attract those valuable links.

But link-gathering is only half the reason to use social media. What it’s really about is networking. Establishing and growing relationships with the kind of people who influence others in the social media space. These are what’s known as the linkerati – prominent bloggers in your niche, top Digg users, relevant web journalists, and social media mavens. Hitting their radar can go along way toward establishing you as a credible spokesman for your field.

Which means you need to network in a “what’s in it for them” perspective. Catch attention, gain interest, and create desire to help you in the future by offering something that benefits them first.

Using Social Media to Gain Traffic

When you publish a new blog post, do you immediately tweet it? Is your Twitter account set up to post tweets on your Facebook page? Do you have a Twitter feed on your site or blog?

If you answered no to any of these, you’re ignoring one of the most powerful promotional tools at your disposal. Most blogging platforms, whether that be WordPress, Blogger, or a content management system, offer plug-ins that take the guesswork out of alerting the various social media networks when you publish new content.

For instance, this blog has an opt-in for RSS feeds at the top of each page. And if you scroll down to the bottom of this post, you’ll see a line of social media icons. Clicking on any one of them will take you to that site, where you can add a link to this post. Providing social media links with each post allows your readers to link your site to their own social media accounts.

Let’s talk about the most popular (and easiest to use) of these, Twitter. 140 content-packed words. That’s all Twitter allows in a single post. Enough for a brief description and a link to your post (the link is often shortened via services like bitly or tiny url). And really, that’s all you need to get the word out there. Because if the title is compelling (and relevant) enough, people are going to want to click through and read your post.

Twitter is such a powerful tool, you’d be crazy not to use it. You can download and run small apps on your computer desktop or sync in with your cellphone to get your feeds. By providing your clients with your Twitter feed, you can alert them to new listings, open houses, or special events.

And Twitter is just one of many social media networks. Since it’s obvious they’re not going away – and in fact, will only get more popular – you owe it to your business to take the time to check them out. See which ones will work for you, then use them. Start off small, maybe with a Facebook page or a Twitter account, or maybe just a profile on LinkedIn. I guarantee as soon as you see how much influence they have on your site traffic, you’ll want to jump in with both feet.

Tomorrow is the final installment of this series, where we’ll learn how to tie all this together to build return visitors and convert those visits to sales. Because, as I said at the beginning, that’s what this is all about, right?

SEO Part I – How Search Engines Work
SEO Part II – How to Optimize Your Content to Attract Visitors and Search Engines
SEO Part III – How to Attract Strong, Natural Link-Backs

Amanda Church is a ten-year veteran of web and graphic design and founder of Nytshadow Designs, a design firm located in Tampa, Florida. Amanda built and has maintained LakeOconeeHouses.com for three years.

News

How to Attract Strong, Natural Link-Backs (part 3 of 5)

This is the third of a five-part series by guest blogger and web designer Amanda Church.

We now know the real secret to having a search-optimized site is creating current, relevant, and unique content that naturally attracts links, rather than begging for links to crummy, keyword-stuffed, “optimized” web pages.

And since the popularity of our content depends so much on what happens off the page, it stands to reason we might also step outside the confines of the page itself to get the word out. Luckily, the same skills you use to conceive and create your relevant and unique content also apply to promoting it.

Always remember: focus on what’s right for the reader, and the reader will take care of the rest. No one is going to link to you unless there’s something in it for them. In this case, that something is current, relevant and unique content.

Writing Link-Worthy Content

Link attraction is the single biggest aspect of today’s search engine optimization. Google looks at the links pointing to your site as votes of legitimacy. In addition, Google also takes into account the words people use when linking to your site to get an idea of what the right keywords and phrases would be to find your page.

Despite what some unscrupulous websites might tell you, there’s no way to trick people into linking to your site. People link because there’s something about your content that compels them to do so. And while there are other factors that go into a search engine’s algorithm, quality link-backs will always remain one of the top factors in search engine optimization.

So how and where do you get that compelling content, and how do you optimize it for the greatest impact? Well, getting the content should be easy. If you’re an agent savvy enough to have your own website, chances are you already have plenty of relevant information to impart, including advice for buyers, sellers, and even other agents. Why not put that knowledge to work?

If you stink at writing, gather your notes and hire someone else to put it all together. And don’t forget to include those keywords and phrases we worked on in Part II in both the content and the page and subject titles you chose. Remember, when people link back to you, those titles are usually what they’re going to use, so make them as content-rich and relevant as possible.

A good rule of thumb to follow when writing page content is a 5 to 6% ratio of keywords to content. In this case, however, more is not better. Any more than that ratio can have the opposite effect, as Google will suspect you of trying to trick them. Not a good idea.

That also doesn’t mean mindlessly waving a keyword shaker over the page. Remember, please the reader first. Nobody wants to read the Dr. Seuss version of real estate. It is ultimately people who use search engines, and therefore, it should always be people you write for.

If you stick to your relevant subject matter, writing content-rich pages with well-placed keyword phrases should come naturally. In other words, you wouldn’t create a landing page for your real estate site filled with information about your new car. Such a contrast would confuse not only human readers, but spiders as well. Leave the news about your prized tomatoes or your grandson’s homerun for your personal blog.

And speaking of landing pages, any site, particularly one with a lot of content and/or pages, should have one. This is especially true for blogs (which we will get into tomorrow). By landing page, I’m not talking about what we in the design business used to call splash pages, usually a plain page with a fancy image and an ENTER SITE link on it.

No, what I mean here is more like creating a central hub. For most sites this is the home page, a place where a general overview of the site can be found, along with links to all the other pages.

This is an effective SEO strategy because it aggregates all content on one search-optimized page and directs the majority of inbound links to a central place rather than scattered across individual pages, allowing for easy cross-linking of future content and prompting social bookmarking, another topic for tomorrow’s post.

To Get Links In, Try Linking Out

Remember that old saying, you have to spend money to make money? Well, that’s the principle at work here. Linking is the fundamental basis of the web. Search engines see it as being well-connected to other pages and content, and as we’ve already learned, that matters when it comes to optimizing your site.

Here are some rules of thumb for linking out:

• Link to relevant content as early in the page as possible. Since search engines place more value on content at the top of the page, the higher up you link, the more important it becomes.

  This goes for any page content. Just as you would mention the important news first in a conversation, so you should include the most important content as far up on the page as possible.

• Link to relevant interior pages of your site or other sites. You should already have navigation links to every page on your own site at (or near) the top of each page. If you don’t, add them. And make sure they’re text links (as opposed to images). It’s also a good idea to repeat these links (at least to the main pages) at the bottom of each page as well. It’s helpful for your human visitors, and search engines like to see them.

  If you have a lot of pages, providing a sitemap is a good idea. A sitemap is little more than a top-down outline of your site, with links to each page. And having a web-optimized xml sitemap is even better. There are several services out there that will allow you to create one for free. One, XML-Sitemaps, will create a map of your site with directions on how to submit it to Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.

• Link with naturally relevant anchor text. In other words, the text you use in the link should reflect the subject matter of the content on the linked page. So if you’re linking to a site for a home inspection company named Home Rite, your link would be something similar to Home Rite, Home Inspection Services.

The Hidden Benefits of SEO

Regardless of how search engines tinker with their search algorithms, one thing will always remain the same – they have to match up what a page is about and what people are searching for. Which means your keywords have to match up with the way searchers look for them.

Telling search engines that what you’re talking about on your site is the same as what people are looking for is what SEO is all about. But even if search engines didn’t deliver traffic at all, the ability to know, understand, and mirror the language of your audience is an amazing gift we’ve been given thanks to search data.

And here’s an added bonus. Good SEO makes content more readable. Why? Because when you implement SEO best practices of focusing on relevant, unique content, you rank well with exceptionally reader-friendly content. That’s what gets it linked in the first place, remember? Mindless keyword stuffing is not what Google (or any other search engine) wants. And neither do people.

When you approach SEO-friendly writing in a logical, informed manner, your content isn’t stiff or keyword-stuffed. It’s natural, compelling, and artful. The kind of writing humans want to read and link back to.

Tomorrow we’ll discuss how to use social media to target the right search traffic.

SEO Part I – How Search Engines Work
SEO Part II – How to Optimize Your Content to Attract Visitors and Search Engines

Amanda Church is a ten-year veteran of web and graphic design and founder of Nytshadow Designs, a design firm located in Tampa, Florida. Amanda built and has maintained LakeOconeeHouses.com for three years.

Sales Tools

How To Optimize Your Content to Attract Visitors and Search Engines (part 2 of 5)

This is the second of a five-part series by guest blogger and web designer Amanda Church.

Yesterday I told you a little about how search engines crawl and index your site to determine page ranking. Today I’m going to help you do something about that, but first we have to dispel an ugly myth. Many people think SEO means trying to trick search engines into finding your site. It doesn’t.

Having a search engine optimized site or blog simply means having a site that is friendly to search engines. And part of being friendly to search engines is using language in your content that searchers looking for your site are also using.

Back in the early days of the web, designers and developers would code keywords into the meta data of your site (that’s web-speak for “behind the scenes”). Those early spiders would use only these words to index your site, which, as you can imagine, lead to some unscrupulous webmasters abusing the system in the Britney Spears example I discussed in Part I of this series.

As a result, search engines (and their workhorse spiders) have become more sophisticated. Sure, webmasters still code keywords and phrases into the site meta data, but now the spiders want to see the relevance of those keywords and phrases reflected in the actual content on your site. In other words, you can’t throw a sexy cover on a boring book and get away with it any more.

Now you can’t even get a page ranking unless your keywords and phrases are relevant to your site content. That’s where keyword research comes in.

Think about how you surf the web. Forget, for just a moment, that you know what your site is about and imagine you’re a visitor looking for a real estate agent in your area. What kinds of words or phrases would you use in the SEARCH bar of your favorite search engine? Make a list of 20 right now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Now, armed with your list, go to your website and see how many of those words or phrases you can find on the first page. And don’t count any text enclosed in images or slideshows or Flash content. I’m talking text as it would be typed on a page because that’s the only text a search engine sees.

How did you do? If you got at least 50%, you’re doing better than average. Less than that, and we’ve got some work to do. Either way, there’s no reason why you can’t tailor your content to hit every word or phrase. That’s relevant content that aids your site visitors and enhances your search engine credibility. You’re speaking the language of your target audience and satisfying their needs. Get this right and you’ll likely rank well with more than just your audience.

Remember this: Google won’t treat you as relevant until others do it first, which means people need to like your content before Google will.

Want to know what keywords and phrases are coded into the meta data of your page? It’s simple. While on your site, click on View in the upper toolbar, then scroll down to Source for Internet Explorer users, or Page Source for Firefox users.

This will bring up a window that displays the code of your site. At the top of the page you should see several lines that begin with “meta name.” Some sites have more of these than others, but all should have one line that begins meta name=”keywords” content=”*”, *being a list of your keywords and phrases.

If your content doesn’t match up with these words, or if this line is missing altogether, it’s not the end of the world. As I said before, spiders don’t give as much weight to meta data as they did in the past. But that doesn’t mean they ignore it either. It’s just one of several tools they use to index your site, so why take away any of their tools and make their job harder?

So what can you do about it? Well, this is where a knowledgeable webmaster or a good SEO writer comes in handy. If your check of potential keywords and phrases on your site was less than satisfactory, contact your webmaster and see if he or she would be willing to work with you to make your site more search engine friendly.

And if not, or if you maintain your site yourself and feel this may be beyond your capabilities, find a reputable SEO writer or firm and see what they can do for you. Prior to hiring anyone, though, ask for references and links to sites they’ve worked on. Don’t always go by price, either. There are some very capable SEO writers out there who are willing to work within your budget, just as there are some less-than reputable firms who will be more than happy to charge you a bundle for nothing.

However, before doing any of that, finish reading this series. You may find there is more you can do than you realize, and even if you decide to hire someone, you’ll have a better understanding of what they’re doing for you.

Current, Relevant, Unique Content

Remember those three words, because that’s what web visitors are looking for. It’s what makes (or should make) your site stand out from the thousands of other real estate sites on the web. Just like you wouldn’t waste your time reading a boring or pedestrian book, neither is the average web surfer going to spend more than a few seconds on your site if it doesn’t offer him something he hasn’t been able to get anywhere else.

It’s Marketing 101: Give the customer what he wants, and he’ll come back for more. And in the web business, that means (say it with me) current, relevant, unique content. And here’s a tip: all the pretty pictures and fancy flashy gizmos don’t mean a hill of beans when it comes to return visitors or page ranking. Spiders can’t read them, and once visitors have seen them, why should they come back unless you have more to offer?

What that means is, to get and keep visitors returning to your site, you need to offer them information that is up-to-date, relevant to their needs, and unique to your site. And once you get those regular visitors who come, stay, and return, search engines like Google sit up and take notice. Because people start linking back to you, and we all know what Google thinks of that, right? It’s like word-of-mouth advertisement. Worth its weight in gold.

As you can imagine, this process doesn’t happen over night, which is why, in my opening paragraph of this series, I warned you about people who make promises of immediately getting you to the top of the search engines. Like anything worthwhile in life, there are no shortcuts. It takes time, patience, and hard work to reach that vaunted first page.

Sure, everyone’s heard of those rare instances where a site hits the internet and has thousands of hits almost immediately. More often that not, however, their content is pertinent to something happening in the world right now, meaning that once that event passes, so too will interest in the site. Which begs the question: Which would you rather be – a flash in the pan or a steady provider?

So let’s review. Creating content that is relevant to the most appropriate keyword phrase a searcher would use while providing your visitors with information that is both unique to your site and current with what’s happening right now will go a long way in increasing your site traffic, and thus your search engine page ranking.

Tomorrow we’ll go in to how to attract strong, natural link-backs.

SEO Part I – How Search Engines Work

Amanda Church is a ten-year veteran of web and graphic design and founder of Nytshadow Designs, a design firm located in Tampa, Florida. Amanda built and has maintained LakeOconeeHouses.com for three years.

Sales Tools

What Every Agent Needs to Know About SEO (part 1 of 5)

This is the first of a five-part series by guest blogger and web designer Amanda Church.

SEO. Even if you don’t know what it is, you recognize the term. But what, exactly, does it mean to you?

In a word: Traffic. A subject close to every realtor’s heart, right? How to get it, how to keep it, and how to use it to generate sales. And that’s the bottom line here: Sales. Because at the end of the day, all the traffic in the world is useless if it doesn’t convert to sales.

Real estate was one of the first industries to use the web to generate sales. Chances are, if you’re an agent, you recognize the power of the web and consider it one of your primary selling tools. More than likely, you have a website, use another agent’s/broker’s website, or are thinking of getting a website. And if so, you’ve been approached by individuals and companies claiming they can magically shoot your site to the top of the rankings of search engines like Google and Yahoo if you just write them a big fat check.

Well, guess what? Maybe they can (if they know what they’re doing), and maybe they’re just preying on your lack of knowledge. Because there’s no magic bullet for shooting you to the top. It takes a lot of hard work and time, whether you pay someone else or not. And the best way to make an informed decision about what you need and whether you should hire someone to do it is to learn as much as you can about the subject.

Now let me clarify one thing right now: I’m not saying you shouldn’t use an SEO company to improve your page ranking. A good SEO writer who knows what they’re doing is worth their weight in gold. They know the right combination of keywords and content to get your site noticed. But it doesn’t end there. Getting the traffic is only half the problem. You still have to convince the person landing on your site to stick around long enough to want to use your services, and that’s where a little ingenuity and education comes in.

I’m going to help you arm yourself with the knowledge and tools to not only drive visitors (i.e., potential clients) to your site, but keep them coming back and (hopefully) using your services to buy or sell their next home. In this five-part series, we’re going to learn:

• How search engines work
• How to optimize your content to attract visitors and search engines
• How to attract strong, natural link-backs
• How to target the right search traffic using social media
• How to establish return visitors with relevant, compelling content

In this piece, we’re going to mainly deal with Google, because they’re the king of the hill when it comes to search engines (90% of web searches are done with Google).

How Search Engines Work

Imagine, for a second … someone has just arrived on your website, and this person has no idea what you’re talking about. And this is an important visitor. She’s in a hurry and has no time to waste poking around looking for the information she seeks, so she picks up the phone and demands an explanation.

What do you tell her?

You’d probably give her essential information about your qualifications and examples of how you can perfectly meet her needs. And I’m sure you’re going to want to explain all this in the most compelling fashion you can, considering what’s riding on the deal.

In a nutshell, that’s what Google wants you to do with the content on your site.

Search engines perform three main activities with a site: crawling, indexing, and ranking. The more you know about each of these, the better you can target your site content to ranking it the way you want.

• Crawling

  I’m sure you’ve heard of search engine “spiders”, those automated bots that crawl around the web looking for content. They find coded information on a site, read it, then continue on their way following the links from your page to other pages.

  Periodically, the spider returns to your page looking for new content, which means there’s a constant opportunity to improve your page ranking by improving and changing your content. However, if for any reason the spiders can’t see or understand your content (such as information contained in Flash applications or images), the spider can’t index and rate the page.

• Indexing

  When the spider crawls a site, it stores the content in a giant database, its goal being to save every bit of content it crawls for future searchers. It also gauges how relevant that content is to the words searchers use when they’re looking for an answer.

• Ranking

  The final aspect of search technology is the way the engine delivers the most relevant results to searchers. Each search engine uses their own proprietary rules for establishing this algorithm, but it boils down to ranking the most relevant and unique content with the right keyword query.

How Google Ranks Pages

Google looks for keywords in your coding and content that relate to your particular business or subject matter. That’s not to say you need to stuff your pages with the words “real estate” all over the place, because while that may appeal to the spiders, it will most certainly turn away any potential clients who might happen upon your site.

What you should instead strive for is content that is both unique and compelling enough for the human user to want to read while satisfying the appetite of those greedy little spiders.

Sounds complicated, right? And that’s only half the battle. Because with Google, what visitors do in response to your page on other sites is as important as what they do on it. And the way they measure this is quality inbound links.

Why are quality inbound links so important to Google? Because if other people trust your site enough to want to link to it, then Google figures they should trust it, too. The quality part means links from other sites with content relevant to yours, especially other sites with established high traffic. And likewise, if your site provides the unique and compelling content that keeps people coming back, you’ll increase the probability of attracting those natural quality inbound links and thus upping your own page ranking.

(“Natural” in this case means people who link to your site without notifying you or asking for a reciprocal link.)

What it boils down to is this:

What people say about you is more important than what you say about yourself.

Google is very interested in what people are linking to you and the words they’re using to do it (the relevance factor).

So while providing compelling content is your number one priority, it won’t rank well unless it’s relevant to what it’s supposed to rank for.

An example of this is stuffing your page with words like “Britney Spears” or “sex” just to drive up page hits. If these words have nothing to do with the overall content of your page, Google not only ignores them, but will pass right over your page without even indexing it.

In tomorrow’s post, we’ll delve into how to optimize your content to attract search engines.

Amanda Church is a ten-year veteran of web and graphic design and founder of Nytshadow Designs, a design firm located in Tampa Florida. Amanda built and has maintained LakeOconeeHouses.com for over three years.

News

Home Owner Tax Credit Extion

Congress set to expand homebuyer tax credit
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Reuters – Real estate signs are seen in the front yards of houses in this file photo taken in Maricopa, Arizona … By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 22 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Buying a home is about to get cheaper for a whole new crop of homebuyers — $6,500 cheaper.

First-time homebuyers have been getting tax credits of up to $8,000 since January as part of the economic stimulus package enacted earlier this year. But with the program scheduled to expire at the end of November, the Senate voted Wednesday to extend and expand the tax credit to include many buyers who already own homes. The House is scheduled to vote on the bill Thursday.

Buyers who have owned their current homes at least five years would be eligible for tax credits of up to $6,500. First-time homebuyers — or anyone who hasn’t owned a home in the last three years — would still get up to $8,000. To qualify, buyers in both groups have to sign a purchase agreement by April 30, 2010, and close by June 30.

“This is probably the last extension,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., a former real estate executive who championed the credits.

The homebuyers tax credit is one of two tax breaks totaling more than $21 billion that the Senate included in a bill extending unemployment benefits for those without a job for more than a year. The other would let companies now losing money recoup taxes they paid on profits earned in the previous five years.

“We are still in a world of economic hurt, and Congress must continue to act boldly and creatively,” said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “With the right mix of tax breaks and investments we will get through this recession and get folks working again.”

The real estate industry has been pushing to extend and expand the housing tax credit. About 1.4 million first-time homebuyers have qualified for the credit through August. The National Association of Realtors estimates that 350,000 of them would not have purchased their homes without the credit.

Extending and expanding the tax credit for homebuyers is projected to cost the government about $10.8 billion in lost taxes. While the measure passed the Senate by a 98-0 vote, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., questioned its efficiency in stimulating home sales.

“For the vast majority of cases, the homebuyer tax credit amounted to a free gift since it did not affect their decision to purchase a home,” Bond said. “And for the small minority of buyers whose decision was directly caused by the credit, this raises the question of whether we are subsidizing buyers who may not have been able to afford buying a home in the first place.”

The credit is available for the purchase of principal homes costing $800,000 or less, meaning vacation homes are ineligible. The credit would be phased out for individuals with annual incomes above $125,000 and for joint filers with incomes above $225,000.

The credit would be extended an additional year, until June 30, 2011, for members of the military serving outside the United States for at least 90 days.

Expanding the tax credit for money-losing companies is projected to cost $10.4 billion.

The business tax break would allow money-losing companies to use current losses to offset taxable profits earned in the previous five years, giving them refunds of taxes paid in those years. Under current law, businesses with annual gross receipts of more than $15 million can claim losses back only two years.

The tax break would help industries suffering losses in 2008 or 2009, including retailers, homebuilders and newspapers. Congress included a scaled-back version of the tax break — for companies with revenues of $15 million or less — in the economic recovery package enacted in February. The new tax break would be available to companies of any size, providing a quick source of cash.

The U.S Chamber of Commerce has been a big backer of the tax break for money-losing companies.

“It frees up capital that they can use to maintain jobs and potentially even hire new people as the economy returns,” said Caroline Harris, senior tax counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The tax breaks would be paid for largely by delaying a tax break for multinational companies that pay foreign taxes. It was passed in 2004 and originally was to have taken effect this year, but would now be delayed until 2018.

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New Listings

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News

Allowoing Foreclosed Homeowners to Remain in Their Homes

A plan that first surfaced a couple of years ago, aimed at allowing foreclosed homeowners to remain in their homes as renters, is gaining greater attention today. “The basic point is you’re recognizing an unusual situation so you’re temporarily changing the rules on foreclosure,” says co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Dean Baker, who first proposed the plan.

He says foreclosures are rising and nothing else appears to be working. “As it stands now, if I hold the mortgage on a house and the person hasn’t met the payments, I go to the judge and say ‘Look this person hasn’t met the payments.’ The homeowner is given a certain number of days and, if payments aren’t met by then, the house is mine. I throw [the homeowner] out on the street,” says Baker.

Baker’s plan proposes to change the rules of foreclosure for a limited period of time.

“Mortgages issued 2002 to 2006 or 2007, whatever time period we want to put in there. For those mortgages we’re going to recognize the unusual situation and say that if I want to foreclose on that person, I have to give [the homeowner] the option to stay there as a renter,” explains Baker.

The length of the rental period would be determined by Congress if the proposed bill passes. “My view is you want it to be as long as possible — seven years or 10 years — a lot of people wouldn’t take advantage of that whole time but the point is to give people substantial security in their home so they can stay there for a period of time as renters, paying the market rent. They’re not getting a subsidized rent,” says Baker.

The plan also binds buyers of the foreclosed property to commit to allowing the former homeowner to remain as a tenant for the rest of the guaranteed period. According to Baker, the important thing to note is the many benefits that this plan can bring for neighborhoods and property owners in those areas as well as those facing foreclosure.

“The absolute worst thing you could have happen for a neighborhood is to have vacant properties and, of course, in a lot of these areas you have a lot of vacant properties. Banks often don’t care for them well. They don’t see to it that the grass is mowed, that broken windows are fixed or boarded up. Sometimes houses become crack houses or there are squatters there. So it’s the worst thing in the world to have a foreclosure and have a house sit vacant and in many places that’s exactly what’s happening,” says Baker.

News

Federal Tax Credit May Be Extended

The House and Senate may have left Capitol Hill for their August break, but housing lobbyists are busy at work gearing up a major campaign to extend the $8,000 home buyer tax credit.

The credit for first-time purchasers is scheduled to expire November 30.

The National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors want to persuade Congress to nail down an extension of the credit, and maybe even broaden its coverage, as soon as possible.

The home builders are mounting an aggressive campaign during the congressional recess. The association is sending out local teams of members to meet with congressmen and senators in their home districts, urging not only a one year extension of the credit, but an expansion of the concept to cover all home buyers next year, not just first-timers.