| How Do Buyers Find You on the Web? |
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| Written by Hanh Brown | ||||
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Suzie knows how to find what she wants. She lets her fingers do the walking - not in the Yellow Pages, but at Google.com. She wants to buy Real Estate in the Bay Area, and you have just written San Francisco Real Estate Market for Buyers and Sellers. Luckily, for you, Google and other search engines exist for one simple reason: to help people like Suzie find your Web site.
The million-dollar question: How do you ensure that Suzie finds your Web site, given the googolplex of possibilities? You might have heard a lot about "search engine optimization," "ranking analysis" and "algorithms." All of this may sound complex at first, but it simply becomes a three-step process. The first thing to remember is that search engines only show Web sites it has on record. Make sure to submit your site to key search engine directories. Get listed in the following directories: dmoz.com, yahoo.com, zeal.com, joeant.com, etc. You can do this - you need not hire someone. The search engine will rank highest those Web sites it feels are most important; therefore, your utmost priority is to make certain your site is important. A few simple tips: have content! Non Flash-based text content should be the most important resource your site offers. Choosing the right key words is also very important. Also, having inbound and outbound links are crucial to your site's ranking. The Net is a "web" of connected information - your site should be no different. The search engine will show Suzie the most "relevant" high-ranking resources. Google might rank http://Mortgagebrokerbayareas.com relatively very high, but it is totally irrelevant to a search for Real Estate in the Bay Areas. How does a search engine know which websites are most relevant for Suzie's search? By the number of times "Real Estate in the Bay Areas " shows up in text on your web page. By the variety of ways it shows up on your page. By number web pages you link to and that link to you with the words "Real Estate in the Bay Areas " included. Some of this you can easily do yourself. But there are three places that are worth spending money to help all the Suzie out there find your website. The first is choosing the right keywords. It might look simple, but "Real Estate in the Bay Areas " might not even be the best keyword phrase to focus on. It might be "San Francisco Real Estate " or " Condos in the Bay Areas ". The most searched terms might not be the best, nor the term with the least competition. The second is to prepare a link strategy. The "link exchange" pages that are getting more popular each day are also becoming less effective each day. Here are just a few of the linking factors that will affect whether Suzie discovers your listing: • The total number of incoming and outgoing links Thirdly, If you do hire someone Web-knowledgeable, have them review the HTML code - they'll be sure to fill in any holes in opportunity you may have passed up.
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Google shows 20,200,000 resources on "Real Estate in the Bay Areas." Unless she finds what she wants on the first page, (or in the top 10 results), odds are she won't find your Web site - especially if it's listed as the 124th result!