On one side, there’s your desire to create a dynamite-looking website – unlike any other seen before!!  On the other hand is your need to make sure your real estate website does its job – lead generation.  Lurking behind these two issues is your Internet marketing budget.  So, what do you do?

Find the right balance!  There are a lot of fairly ugly real estate sites out there getting lots of traffic and making tons of money for their owners.  And, there are amazingly beautiful sites that no one ever sees. . .  no traffic, no leads.

So, find the right balance.  Start by being realistic about what it takes to create an effective Internet presence.  Websites don’t promote themselves.  You can’t just create a website, set it, and forget it!  Your site needs several basic things:

1. A professional look
2. Well-written copy geared for the Internet
3. A compelling marketing message to set you apart from your competition
4. Rich, original content, real estate tools and resources
5. Irresistable offers
6. Effective Search Engine Optimization

Someone could make a case that there are more than six, but this list is good enough for this discussion.

So, when you really look at it, the dynamite look is only about 1/6th of what you need to be successful on the Internet.  The first thing you need to do if you are putting together a website is come up with an overall budget for your Internet marketing.  That means you need to figure out how much money you will spend on each of the six items noted above.

Naturally, you want a good-looking, professional website.  But, keep in mind that there’s more to a website than just a pretty graphic.  You need to drive traffic to the site, and you need something to keep your visitors interested, coming back, and filling out those nice forms that provide you with leads.  Experience has proven that real estate buyers and sellers who adopt your website as their real estate research headquarters will be likely to contact you when they want to start working with a professional.

The moral of the story?  Don’t put all your resources into the graphic design of a website.  Make sure you’re getting a site that will pay for itself and provide you with a robust lead generation opportunity.

Here’s one of the most common mistakes people make when they’re trying to optimize their web pages:  They use too many keywords, especially on their home pages.

A web page should be optimized for a few related keywords.  So, what are related keywords?  Related keywords are like these examples:  CityName real estate, CityName real estate listings, CityName homes, CityName ST real estate, and CityName STATE real estate.  And, in that example, you should use the same CityName.  (ST indicates using the two-letter abbreviation for your state, and STATE indicates using your state written in full)

I know that sounds limiting.  But, keep in mind that your home page isn’t the only page on your website.  The post on this site about Choosing Keywords explains a bit more about using different keywords on different pages.

Your goal should be to optimize your home page for several related keywords.  But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t include other CityNames in the text of the page.  Certainly, if your target market encompasses four cities, you want your visitors to know about it.  Just limit your on-page optimization on your home page to your key market area.

Then, create original content pages about each of the four cities you service.  Optimize each of those pages for several keywords related to the cities they describe.  Obtain incoming links to your home page and internal pages, using the four city keyword phrases as anchor text.

If you stay consistent with your SEO tasks, you’ll find that you will start ranking for all four city terms.  But, if you try to optimize one page for all four areas, the search engines won’t know what your expertise is!

Remember, when it comes to optimizing web pages, less is more!!