Putting your Web site address on all your marketing materials is a first step. But, how do you efficiently drive business to your site?
by Randy Eagar

Whether you've built your Web site or are in the throes of getting online, it's vital that you drive traffic to your site in the most cost effective and efficient way possible. And, it's not done just by placing your Web site on every piece of marketing that you have. It's by optimizing your Web site positioning through the search engines.

Surprised? Don't be. It's a given that you'll market your site, but if you really want to make an impact, you need to build functionality into your Web site that will get you top search engine placement.

For example, on a good day you may hand out 10 business cards that carry your Web site address. So, you drive 10 people to your site. However, by positioning your site using domain names, keywords and other smart "tags," you can be at the top of a Google search, thus driving hundreds or thousands of people to your site when they search for property in your area.

Exploring Your Options

If you buy a Web site and pay for it to be hosted, you have to market it, whether you chose pay-per-click or Web site positioning. What's the difference?

Pay-per-click services guarantee you'll be on the top of the search engines every time someone searches for your keyword phrase, no matter how generic it is. However, the more generic the keyword phrase, the more costly. "Generic" keyword phrases are out of the budget of most associates. Keyword phrases need to be specific in order to pull well. Web positioning requires you to do the work, but it's worth it in the end. You plan your site so that through that planning, you get top placement.

Be forewarned: It takes some analysis and research. In fact, most Realtors are working with Web designers and Web positioners to get their sites built in a way that will get them traffic. Even so, you need to be aware of how to get that top position so you can guide your Web vendor in the right direction.

Serving Buyers

In my experience, the goal of your Web site is to serve buyers, especially relocating buyers who start their search on the Internet. With that in mind, you must have IDX (Internet Data Exchange, which allows all relevant listings in the Multiple Listing Service to be searched from your Web site) available for search on your Web site, and you must give users motivation to call or e-mail you. You can do that by offering a newcomer's package, comparative market analysis or other action item. Once you have that, you have a site worth driving traffic to.

Now, you're ready to build your functionality. Just remember that a search engine assigns points to each element of the sites it searches, and it will pull up the site that is most relevant to the search, based on the points it has assigned. By choosing the right domain name, page titles, keywords and more, you can get your site bumped to the top of the heap.

It doesn't matter if you have a Web site or you're just building one, you can implement all these suggestions.

1. Domain Name
   
   Are you using a domain name such as www.JoeJensen.com? If so, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. Domain names are critical. The domain name is the first thing a search engine robot reads to know how "relevant" your site is to the search being conducted.
   
   So if your Web site URL or domain name is "Orlandohomesforsale.com" and somebody types in "Orlando Homes for Sale," the search engine will look at domain names, notice that your site has a name that matches the request exactly and list your matching site among the first.
   
   Your domain name should describe what you're specializing in, not who you are.
   
   A lot of people say, "I've been using [my name as my] Web site for years." But, there's an easy fix. First, get a "keyword rich" domain name such as "OrlandoHomesForSale.com." Then, you can move your Web site from www.JoeJensen.com to the new OrlandoHomesForSale.com. From there, your Webmaster can create a pointer or redirector to the new domain name that has the Web site located on it.
   
   That way, whether somebody types in "OrlandoHomesForSale.com" or "JoeJensen.com", it will go to the same place. And, you can keep your old site on your business cards and other marketing materials, but still get the advantage of having a relevant domain name for the search engines to find.



2. Page Titles
   
   Each page of your Web site gets a name. After the domain name itself, the wording of page titles is the most important aspect in ranking. Search engine spiders read top to bottom and left to right in your source code. Therefore, you should place page titles on one of the first lines in the code.
   
   You should always include your best keyword phrase from your domain name and put it in your page titles. Let's say that you find that your best keyword phrase is "Orlando Homes For Sale." You might build a page title that says "Orlando Homes For Sale and Luxury Condos." Don't use more than eight to 12 words in each title, however, because search engines don't read more than that.



3. Keyword Optimization
   
   Real estate is location sensitive. So, you want location-sensitive keywords. These are words that are built into the Web site. A Web search looks for keywords in your site that match the search query. Keywords are used to "snag" search engines and are vital to use in your domain name and your page titles.
   
   Many real estate professionals use keywords such as real estate, homes, etc. However, you need to be more focused than that because there's a relationship between the number of people searching for a given keyword phrase and the number of Realtors who use it in their sites. For example, 3,000 prospects might be looking for "Orlando real estate" in a given month, but 30,000 Realtors' Web sites might use that phrase as their main keyword phrase.
   
   So, it's important to be more specific with your keywords and use something like "Orlando luxury homes and condos" instead. How do you find out what keywords are highly searched but aren't included in the majority of Web sites? Go to www.WordTracker.com. You can type in the phrase that you think will be good, and this site will tear it apart for you. For a fee, Wordtracker will sort the data according to a keyword-effectiveness index, giving you your best options by comparing your choice with the supply out there.
   
   A good idea is to research your competition. Go to several top search engines and type in "(your location) real estate"; then, look at the top five individual real estate associate Web sites that come up. To find out what keywords they use, select each Web site in turn and do the following:
   
   
   • From the menu bar in Internet Explorer, click on "View" and then "Source."
   • Now select CTRL-F, which brings up a "Find" screen, and type in "meta name" (without the quotes). This will show you the types of keywords that the site uses.



4. Inbound Links
   
   Google and other search engines rank sites based on the number of inbound links the site has. That is, how many other sites are linking to your Web site and the quality of those links. On Google, all sites have a page rank from 0 to 10. You can find out the page rank of your site by downloading the Google toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com. From there you can download the software necessary to get your page rank. You can then make adjustments to your inbound links to improve your page rank.
   
   One of the best ways to check your linking is provided by www.marketleap.com. Marketleap is designed to show your inbound links (others linking to you) in five of the major search engines including Google, MSN, AOL, AltaVista and Yahoo! In addition, you can put up to three of your competitors Web site addresses in to see how you compare.
   
   You can also check your link popularity on the following search engines (for each, go to the search engine's home page and type in the relevant phrase in the search blank):
   
   
   • AltaVista (www.altavista.com) -- Type in "link:www.your-domain.com" (without the quotation marks and substituting the name of your domain for "your-domain.com") and click on "Find."
   
   
   
   • Alltheweb (FAST) (www.alltheweb.com)-- Type in "link.all:your-domain.com" and click on "Search."
   
   
   
   • Google (www.google.com) -- Type in "link:www.your-domain.com" and click on "Search."
   
   
   
   • MSN (www.msn.com) -- Go to "Advanced Search" and check "Find Links to URL"; then, enter "your-domain.com" in the advanced search box.
   
   
   
   • LinkPopularity.com (www.linkpopularity.com) -- Enter "your-domain.com" in "Enter Your URL" and click on "Tell me my popularity!"
   
   
   How do you improve your link popularity? Link your site with other associates. For example, I recommend that associates trade links with other associates who can refer a lot of buyers to them. But, it's vital to find someone who has a high page ranking. A good way to do that is to do a Google search on, say, "Fort Lauderdale homes CRS" (or any designation you choose). The first associates who come up in such a search are likely the ones with high page rankings. E-mail a couple of them and offer to trade links.
   
   You can also add to link popularity by linking to yourself. An example of that would be to put a link on one of your secondary pages that says "Home"; that counts as an inbound link. It's a numbers thing -- the more links, the higher the page ranking.
   
   With some planning and a few tweaks, you can have a Web site that is not only informative but is also well used. Take the time to do it right in the beginning, and you can reap the rewards of increased traffic and more Internet leads.

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