Real Estate Web Design and Marketing Blog

As some of you may know, Real Estate Webmasters is hosting a Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World contest. It’s a contest to see what agent can dominate the search engines for that keyword. I was aware of the contest but hadn’t really been following it that much until about a week ago. I received a Google Alert that said Kevin Tomlinson and Brad Carroll were the greatest real estate agents in the world. What? It turns out that Blogging Queen ARDELL wrote a post on Rain City Guide declaring us as winners (thanks again!) The point of her post was twofold. One - to test to see how fresh content differs in search engine placement from older authority content; and two, to see show that a team approach is the best way to achieve good SEO.

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The other day someone asked me. “If you could only make one edit to a website to achieve better search engine optimization, what would it be?” After clarifying that the edit had to be on the site (meaning link building wasn’t an option) I responded by saying that tweaking the Title Tag would probably be the first place to start. Now keep in mind that I am speaking in generalities here. Each website is different and has different needs. For example, if your title tags are great but you have zero original content on your site, then obviously real estate copyrighting would be at the top of your list.

Just for a moment let’s assume that your copy is original, you are building creditable links but still need that extra push to get to the top. That’s where title tags come in.

Before we get too far, let me first make sure everyone is on the same page and understands what a Title Tag actually is! A title tag text appears in two main places, at the top of the internet browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox) and as the headline in search engine search results (see graphic).

Most people treat the Title Tag as if it’s only viewable to search engines. So they cram as many random words as they can into their title tag. The reality is that this strategy does more harm than good for a number of reasons. The main reason being that the title tag is crucial for getting visitors to actually click on your site. Remember, the title tag is used in search results. So the text must compel the site visitor to actually click on your site. After all, what good is being at the top of the search engines if no one ever clicks on your site! So don’t just stuff your title tags with all your keywords. Try to create a title tag that is a coherent thought!

Okay, this post is supposed to be about SEO so let’s get into the SEO side of title tags…

The Formula for Title Tags

The first Formula for Title Tags is that there is no formula. I see many people using formulas like City Name Real Estate – Page Name as the title tag for every page of their website. While this is better than the famous “Untitled Document“, it is too formula driven. Try to vary the information a little more. For example, let’s say you have a website about Miami Beach Condos. Instead of using Miami Beach Condos for all of your title tags, use variations such as Miami Beach Condominium, or Condo for sale in South Beach.

Google Searches = Good Title Tags

If you want to be found for a specific phrase, make sure that phrase is the first words in your home page’s title tag. Using the same example from above, it’s logical that someone would search for “Condo for sale in South Beach.” So it’s important that you then use that phrase as a title tag. And remember to think about your site visitor. Someone searching for “Condo for sale in South Beach” in Google more than likely wants to see a selection of condos. Therefore the most logical place to use this as a title tag would be a MLS search page. Likewise, someone searching for Miami Beach Realtor is probably searching for someone to sell their condo. Therefore, be sure to include this phrase in the title tag of the sellers page.

Thematic Title Tags vs Keyword Title Tags

While it’s important not to repeat the same title tag keywords throughout your site, you do want to stick with a common theme. Here is a random sample of Title Tags from KevinTomlinson.com

South Beach Condos, Miami Beach Real Estate Condos For Sale
Miami Beach Real Estate News, Articles and Resources
Miami Beach Condominium Realtor Kevin Tomlinson
Miami Beach Real Estate Agent Discusses Condo-Hotels in South Beach
How Much Is My Miami Beach Condo Worth
Sell Your Miami Beach Condominium
Pre-Construction Condos For Sale in Miami Beach
Miami Beach Real Estate Questions about Pre-Construction Condos
Miami Beach Florida Pre-Construction Condominiums

Here is a random sample of his building page title tags…

Akoya Miami Beach Oceanfront Condominium on Collins Avenue
Canyon Ranch Living Miami Beach Condo Residence on Collins Ave
Murano at Portofino-South Beach- Bayfront Miami Beach Condo in South of Fifth
Regent Bal Harbour Condo Hotel, Miami Beach Real Estate
St. Regis Bal Harbour - Oceanfront Residences in Miami Beach
W South Beach Preconstruction Condos in Miami Beach
Capobella Miami Beach Real Estate and Oceanfront Condos

Notice how there isn’t an exact formula for each title tag. It isn’t Miami Beach Real Estate – Building Name. But by varying the format for each title tag, I am able to cover lots of different keywords all centered around one theme. Miami Beach Real Estate and Condos.

Lose Your Name and Company

You only have about 70 characters (including spaces) for your title tag so don’t waste that precious space on your name or company name. Too many times, Real estate agents will have title tags like City Name Real Estate – Agent Name – Company Name. Chances are you will still rank well for you name even without it being in your title tag. Plus, very few people will actually search your name. Instead, focus on those core key phrases with the big payoff.

A Few More Tips

This post is getting a little long so I will close with a quick recap and a few more tips…

• Title Tags are more than just for SEO, they are also used to get people to click to your website.
• Don’t keyword stuff your title tags
• Try to make your title tag be a complete thought
• Stay away from strict formulas when writing your title tags
• Base your Title Tags off of Google Searches
• Use synonyms to create a consistent theme throughout your website title tags
• Avoid using your name and company name in your title tags
• Don’t use superlatives in your title tag (Best, #1, Greatest)
• Google skips over common words like “the” “in” “of” so don’t waste precious characters with these in your title tag.
• Word order is important, put your critical keywords at the beginning of your title tag
• Make sure EVERY page on your website has a unique title tag

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I am frequently asked a common question about blogs. It’s goes a little something like this – “I want to create a real estate blog, should I place the blog at www.mydomain.com/blog or should my blog have its own domain like www.arearealestateblog.com.” Unfortunately there is not a right or wrong answer. It all depends on your particular strategy. So with this in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to make a case for both options and let you, the real estate agent, decide based on your blogging strategy

Does Your Blog Have legs?

The first question you have to ask yourself is how frequently you plan on posting to your blog. If you plan on creating a blog separate from your real estate website, then you better give it legs to stand on its own. That means frequent posting of relevant content. If you only plan to just “salt and pepper” a few post here and there, then your best bet is to just create your blog as an extension of your website.

What is Your SEO Strategy?

Many real estate agents start blogging to give their website a SEO boost. If that is the main goal then your real estate blog is best suited on your existing domain. That is because all that fresh content you are creating with each new post, gives more “spider food” to Google and other search engines.

Age of Your Domain

This is another important factor when thinking about where your blog will call home. Google and other search engines value older domains as they are seen as more trust worthy. If you just purchased your blog domain last week, plan on spending the first 60-90 days building up credibility in the eyes of the search engines. Now keep in mind that this time period is not a magic number. There are plenty of other factors that determine credibility such as quality of content and the number of inbound links.

How Big is Your Online Marketing Influence?

To be successful online, it takes more than just one single website, instead you need to build your total online marketing presence. This is where having a blog on a separate domain can be beneficial. After all, now you have multiple websites that can show up on page one for your desired keyword. As your blog grows, your website’s credibility also grows. This happens because your blog (which has authority in the eyes of search engines) will link to your website. The key here is credibility. If your blog with its own domain is not maintained, it will not grow in authority and become an island.

Do You Want to Attract the Media?

Blogs that have their own domain typically have their own identity. This is helpful when getting the attention of the media. News organizations and editors can smell self promotion a mile away. With this in mind, they are typically more receptive of standalone blogs that focus on the information and not the promotion of a single real estate agent.

Take for example Kevin Tomlinson’s South Beach Condo Blog. The blog sits on its own domain and is 100% information driven. Kevin doesn’t use the blog as an arena to blow his own horn. He uses it to give free information. In its simplest form, Kevin is simply a “reporter” for the South Beach Condo Blog (or SBCB as it’s commonly referred to). The name alone proves this point. His SBCB blog has its own identity. And as a result, sources such as the Miami Herald, New York Post, and thousands of other blogs have linked to his blog. They know they can safely do this without endorsing or promoting a single real estate agent.

What About Social Network Hosted Blogs?

I would not recommend using a Social Network Blog (such as Active Rain) as your main blogging platform. Not because they do not have value – it’s just the opposite, they have tremendous power to help grow your online presence. But remember that each with each post you write on the social network site, you help to grow their credibility and not your domain. Keep in mind that that’s not all bad. After all, the more credibility the social network has, the more valued are those links that point back to your site. But ultimately, your main blog needs to be something that you control and directly benefits you. Again, places like Active Rain have tremendous value. But use Social Network blogs for a specific strategy. For example, for me, I see Active Rain as a website with 50K potential Dakno clients. Don’t get me wrong, I love the friendships and love educating and empowering real estate agents to get the most out of their marketing. But at the end of the day, I blog for leads.

Finding What’s Right for You

Take a few minutes to think about your own strategy. What’s the main goal of the blog. How much time do you have to focus on the blog. How does a blog work into your overall marketing presence? Hopefully now that you are armed with this information, you will have a clear direction on if you should place your blog on your existing website or on a separate domain.

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Many real estate agents know that one way to increase their rankings for their real estate website is to gain additional links that point back to their website. With this in mind, many SEO and Real Estate Web Design Companies are quick to add link building to their list of design and development services. But the reality is that simply building links isn’t the answer. The real value comes by building Online Endorsements. So what’s the difference? Link Building is simply trying to “game the system.” It focuses on the SEO value instead of the “People Value.” Let me give you a few examples…

The Wrong Way To Do It

You want to gain another link to your real estate website so you decide to develop a Squidoo Page. Most people will be tempted to just do a “hurry up” job by copying and pasting some information about themselves from their website and then linking back to their home page. Or maybe they even go as far as customizing the content by swapping out a few words here and there.

Let’s look at this from both a “People Value” perspective and a “Search Engine Value” perspective. First, from a Search Engine Value: Our good friend GoogleBot looks find the Squidoo page. Even though the content has been changed he uses his complex algorithms to analyze the content right down to sentence structure (yes, they filed a patent about this years ago) and immediately recognizes that the content is just a rehash of your about us page from your website. On top of that, Googlebot sees that the content doesn’t provide any valuable information such as new real estate facts, a how to, or anything else worthy of appearing at the top of the search engines. Googlebot just sees this as another advertisement page with duplicate content and moves on. Ouch! So what about the “People Value” perspective? When a web visitor arrives at the page, they too see just a bland self-promotion page. No real information that aids in their real estate experience. Frustrated, they just move on. It’s a good thing it didn’t take you long to develop this Squidoo page. Because the page you created gave no value to search engines or visitors. Now let’s look at an example of true resource for both Website Visitors and Search Engines.

The Right Way To Do It

I am very familiar with this example as it’s an example that I personally implemented. As a real estate web designer, I always try to keep up with the latest news about the Real Estate Industry as well as the Web Design and Development Industry. So my eyes lit up when I read Jay Izso’s ePowerNews article about how Internet Savvy Buyers use Real Estate Websites in their home buying decision. I knew this was a great topic that I could expand on. So I jumped on Squidoo and created a page about Real Estate Website Statistics. I pulled all the data, designed a few custom graphs to make it visually appealing to visitors, and made sure my titles were SEO friendly. At the end of the page, I tied in the information to my company and linked to the Dakno Marketing home page. I was sure to include the anchor text Real Estate Web Design, as that was the keyword I was optimizing for. When my old friend GoogleBot arrived at the new Squidoo page, he saw lots of original content about a subject matter that he knew little about. He soaked up every word, happy that there was a true resource for the information. Before I knew it, Googlebot had me ranked at the top of Google and started sending visitors to the Squidoo page. The visitors were glad to see useful content (not just a self promotion) complete with custom designed graphs. They knew that if I gave them all this great information about Real Estate Statistics on this page, that I would probably have even more useful information about Real Estate Marketing on my website. So the majority of the visitors followed my link over to my website. A few even called wanting web design services. It was a win, win, win situation for me, Search Engines and visitors.

So remember, it’s not about building links. Link building adds no value to Search Engines or Visitors. The real value comes out of building Resource Rich, Online Endorsements. Don’t settle for second best. Visitors and Search Engines won’t!

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Let’s be honest. We have all wondered about it. “How does my real estate website stack up against my competition’s site?” The Real Estate Market is fiercely competitive and it’s vital to keep track of your competition. No, I am not suggesting that you become a Private Investigator. It’s actually much easier (although probably not as exciting). By making use of a few online tools, you can turn your computer into a virtual Sherlock Holmes. And yes, everything is perfectly legal and ethical. In fact, your competition may already be doing the exact same thing on you.

Get Emails Directly From Google

Google Alerts

Google Alerts allow you to receive a notification every time Google finds new information on a particular subject. Just sign in, setup the keyword and select how often you want to be notified. Google will then send you an email when it spiders new content related to your alert phrase.

Whois

DomainTools.com

DomainTools.com is so much more than a website that just tells you who owns the domain. It shows you meta information, Yahoo Directory and DMOZ listings, server information and a SEO Score. Simply enter in your competitor’s domain name for a full report.

Really Simply Spying

Okay, RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” but if used creatively, you can easily turn RSS feeds into “Really Simply Spying.” This is a powerful way to quickly and easily keep an eye on your competition. The real value is because of the automation. Your RSS feed will automatically update every time new results are found. Here are a few examples…

IceRocket.com

IceRocket.com is a popular blog search engine. It can be used to keep an eye on other bloggers that may be writing about, and linking to your competitor. Just search for a keyword (such as the Realtor’s name) and click the “Subscribe to RSS feed” link on the right side of the page. You now have an RSS feed of any activity your competitor receives in the blogosphere. **evil grin**

Google News

Search for a keyword in Google News. Then click on the RSS link on the left side of the search results page.

Blog Lines

Search for a keyword in Blog Lines. Then click the RSS link on the right side of the search results page.

Blogdigger

Search on Blogdigger and then click the RSS link on the right side of the search results.

Yahoo News

Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo put together a great RSS builder tool for Yahoo News. Just enter your search phrase and click go. It automatically builds an RSS feed of the results.

Digg.com

Search on Digg for a keyword (such as your competitions name). On the search results page, click the small RSS icon on the right.

Just Open Up Your Browser

Conduct a Critical Review

I know it sounds simple, and you have probably visited your competitor websites many times. But this time, go back and look at it again from a different angle. Look at their title tags, anchor text, headlines, menu items (and order of menu items). What type of MLS Search do they use? How much information do they have about the community? Simply looking at your competitor’s website through a critical eye will usually reveal some interesting gems.

Watch Someone Surf their Site

Grab a friend and ask them to go to your competitor’s site. Try to give them as little instruction as possible. After all, you don’t want to influence their click habits. Look over their shoulder as they click through the site. Where did they click? What features were important? After they have clicked through the site, ask a few questions to get their opinion on the website. Granted this is not a formal study, but getting someone else’s perspective could be very valuable.

View Your Competitors Statistics

We all know that hard solid data such as unique visitors, page views and conversions are the ultimate standard for statistics. The problem is that I doubt your competitor is going to be willing to just hand over this information. The good news is that there are a few metrics that can give you some ballpark figures. Take these measurements with a grain of salt. They are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they are better than nothing.

After seeing the latest from TechChunch about Alexa, I only feel comfortable recommending you use www.compete.com. This is a great resource to see website traffic trends and to compare it against other websites. You can read more about how they gather that data by visiting their FAQ page.

Who is Giving Link Love?

Strategic linking is a big part of a successful online strategy. Because of this, it’s important to see who is giving your competitors “link love.” Here are a few ways to find out…

Google.com

Simply go to Google and enter in “link:anydomain.com” (without quotes) to see who is linking to your competitor’s website. While this doesn’t show you every link, it does show a few of the more important ones.

Yahoo Site Explorer

Yahoo Site Explorer is a great tool for finding out a more exhaustive list of pages that link to a particular website. Simply enter in the website address and then click on the “inlinks” link.

Let Technorati Keep an Eye On Things

Technorati lets you keep track of your competition via their free “Watchlist.” Just sign in, click on the watchlist page and enter in your competitor’s name.

Spying on Yourself

While it may be fun to spy on your competitor, it’s also important that you use these same tools for your own website. After all, the findings can be just as enlightening.

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Google is at it again. The well-oiled machine found yet another user-friendly way to optimize marketing for small businesses everywhere with Google Local. This informative service permits business owners to display their company’s whereabouts through Google Mapping FOR FREE!

As Google continues to bolster its reputation as the beacon for online information, business owners everywhere should take advantage. It has never been easier to find or see the location of a business using the Internet. Type in an address, search through the “Maps” feature on Google’s homepage, and results will quickly be displayed. Because this tool requires active searching, business owners can expect quality leads that are serious about their services. Google also displays coupons with your listing to reward loyal clients and attract new ones. As a real estate agent, you probably think that the coupon section isn’t applicable. But why not add a “coupon” for a Free Relocation Kit?

Setting up an account with Google Local is simple, and the usability is excellent. Why not check out all the features and add your business information?

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