Brand New And Need Help, Please. (Full Version)

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jboy98765 -> Brand New And Need Help, Please. (3/27/2007 0:54:21)

Hi, I'm a realtor and this is my first website I've ever made. I want to have a site that my clients can come to for good info and that I can capture leads on. Not sure how to get it found in search engine since I don't fully understand SEO. Could you please review my site and be as critical as you would be if you were a client. Appreciate it! http://www.nwlocalhomes.com

Kalib



jaybee -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (3/27/2007 4:40:12)

Welcome. For a first site it's not at all bad but if you want to project a professional image there are two things you need to sort out. First the top banner. It needs to be sharp and it's not, the Coldwell Banker logo on the left, I can't read the grey text above SEAL and the picture to the right is very pixelated making it look a bit dirty.

The second thing is the nav bar, the links are obviously pictures and they're all fuzzy as well.

As far as SEO goes, you have the keyword and description meta tags but you need to make sure the keywords are in the body of the page. Your page title is a bit odd

<title> Home-nwlocalhomes</title>

I'd change that to Clark County Washington homes for sale, you have similar words in your H1 which is good.



jboy98765 -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (3/29/2007 12:34:09)

Thanks a bunch. I changed those things you mentioned. Do search engines search IDX blogs? I had been told they might not



jaybee -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (3/29/2007 12:40:57)

They'll search anything they can get their little mitts on so unless it's blocked somehow, like with a login, or robots.txt they'll find it eventually.



jesse1 -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (4/1/2007 9:30:44)

it is better than most realtor sites I see so congrats!
I like the navigation buttons a lot.

a few of the pages I saw were very wide though (had to scroll right), and some of them seem long (vertically).

looks like you have a lot of content which is good for seo.

FYI: I heard of realtors using YouTube to sell real estate...might be worth looking at.



Larry M. -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (4/1/2007 19:46:11)

quote:

I want to have a site that my clients can come to for good info and that I can capture leads on


As an independent contractor site emphasis should be on YOU and YOUR qualifications. As it is http://www.nwlocalhomes.com places emphasis on Clark County Washington and Coldwell Banker. Neither individuallly or collectively will be enough to stimulate qualified Buyer/Seller leads since, according to Google, returns for keywords 'Clark County Washington Real Estate' number 1,150,000.

Give site visitors (you need to pay for competent SEO for this to happen in the first place) a reason to do business with YOU leading with self-promotion based on a message of YOUR sincerity/testimonials/qualifications/education, etc.



jboy98765 -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (4/7/2007 1:51:59)

thanks for the help everyone. Larry, are you trying to say that the url " www.nwlocalhomes.com " isn't personalized enough and it should be more like "www.myname.com" or "www.mynamehomes.com" ? Or are you talking about my content? I want my website to eventually be high on google etc. but I don't want to have to pay for it. I'd like it to be on the first couple pages. Is it better to rank high on a search that no one searches right away or tbe patient and rank high on something that people search a lot?



jaybee -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (4/7/2007 5:12:02)

Interesting. When I go to a site I want to see first and foremost what it can do for me, I'm not usually interested until I've made a buying decision at least, about the person's credentials. The wisdom from marketing professionals is that a site should appear in the following order:

What do you do
What's in it for me
What does it cost
OK, I'm interested so now tell me about you.

I've seen loads of real estate sites where the main page tells me all about Billy Bob, his wife, kids and dog along with cheesy photos. I could care less. I want to buy/look at houses.

You need to choose keywords that people are likely to search for. You then optimise the site for those. If you can get a domain with them in then great. you can use that in the H1 and the body section to help with ranks. You still need to get lots of backlinks and there's still no guarantee you'll get to the top. There are loads of factors involved. Longevity is another, frequency of updates.............

quote:

according to Google, returns for keywords 'Clark County Washington Real Estate' number 1,150,000.
Yes but what is the quality of the sites that are up there? I have a number 1 rank where Google tells me there are over 4 million. The other sites were poorly optimised so mine shot straight in at No. 1. I've had this happen with about 5 or 6 client sites as well.

If you think people are likely to be searching for you by name then by all means go for the matching domain. Otherwise research your market, get your site out there by other means, put it on business cards, letterheads, adverts. Get backlinks, submit to search engines, there are still free submissions around. Research SEO on the web.

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/



jboy98765 -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (4/15/2007 14:36:27)

What's backlinks and how do I get them? I'm not sure how to optimize for search engines other than trying to use key words. Not sure how to use key word / meta tags. Which one is more important?



jaybee -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (4/15/2007 17:21:36)

It's a combination of lots of things and you need to learn about it if you're going to be competitive.

Backlinks are where somebody links to your site. Don't be tempted to get one of these automated submission things as you might get kicked out of Google. It has to be done slowly and surely.

There are loads of sites around, just read, read, read. Don't go paying out cash until you know what you're up to or you'll be wasting your money. some of these guys know how to squeeze you dry.

Start here...

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/search-engine-optimisation/basics.shtml



Larry M. -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (4/15/2007 18:38:13)

quote:

What's backlinks and how do I get them?


This is the proverbial Chicken/Egg situation: Backlinks (Link Partners) work (for me) but no Agent of substance will want to link to you unless you are highly ranked by Google. So how do you get highly ranked by Google? You need follow my previous suggestion and pay for competent SEO (who will guide you re: key words in the process) bearing in mind, of course, Jaybee's words of wisdom.

As a Realtor with almost 20 years experience, I'll give you the best advice you've ever had (which your Broker should have imparted well before now): Get out of the business if you are unwilling to INVEST IN YOURSELF.



jboy98765 -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (4/15/2007 19:48:30)

I'd love to invest in myself, but I think I would need money to do that. I've invested time/effort etc. At this point I'm just starting out and don't have that much money. If I had the money I'd pay for someone to build me a website... but I'm trying to learn instead. When you say pay for competent SEO you mean pay someone to do it for me? I'll surely invest in this once I get a few sales but until then I was hoping I could do it on my own. Thanks for the help guys.



jaybee -> RE: Brand New And Need Help, Please. (4/16/2007 5:14:58)

You can do quite a bit yourself but you have to remember you're in a competitive business. Given you're a start up I suggest you start by following some SEO primers and see what you can do by yourself.

Make sure everything you send out has your web address on it, business cards, letters, adverts, everything.

Then when you have some cash available look into SEO companies.



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