Archive for Real Estate Website Tips
Are the Search Engines Watching Your Videos?
· Comments.
Based on a lot of the things written about videos, you’d think the search engines were pausing during their crawls to fill themselves in on the content of your videos.
Of course, this isn’t true. For all the artificial intelligence that search engines are putting into their algorithms, the little darlings still can’t see – besides that, they can’t hear the voice over on a video to determine what it’s about.
Why Do So Many People Stress Website Videos?
Website visitors love videos. It gives theam a break from reading, and you can often communicate something much easier and more clearly on a video.
In addition, search engines like “seeing” videos on your website because it means that you are keeping up with technology, and offering your visitors a richer experience on your website.
While the engines can’t watch your video, they can see that it exists on a page because of the code required to display the video.
How to Make a Video as Useful as Possible
1. Don’t Talk too Long
People have very short attention spans and won’t sit still very long. A number often bandied about is less than 3 minutes. Of course, it depends on what the video is for. If you’re trying to explain how a short sale can avoid foreclosure, you may need 3 minutes. If you’re trying to get people to sign up for a special report, the shorter the better. That type of video is more like an advertisement.
If you can’t fit everything you want to say into a short video, you’re much better off doing multiple videos on the same topic. Just make sure people know how to get to the other videos in the series.
2. Use Your Video as a Marketing Tool
I know that if you’re making a video about how short sales can avoid foreclosure, at least part of your motivation (I hope) is to help some poor folks who are in a bind. The other part of your motivation should be to build your business. So, don’t forget to ask for the business at the appropriate time.
Maybe something like “We have managed 40 short sale transactions and have saved all 40 families from declaring bankruptcy or going through a foreclosure. If you are having problems with your mortgage payments, call us at 888-999-6666, or send an email to Us@Ourwebsite.com. We’d be glad to offer you a free consultation to identify the best way for you to proceed.”
3. Set Up Your Video to be Attractive to Search Engines
Since the search engines can’t see the video, they depend on the SEO-related characteristics of the video to determine value.
- Make Sure that You Use Keyword Phrases in the Title of the Video. If you’re uploading to YouTube, don’t ignore the description field, either. Make sure you write a concise description that highlights the key benefits of the video, including the use of your keyword phrases. Don’t overdo it and stuff keywords everywhere, though!
- Display the Video in as Many Places as You Can Find. You should always upload videos to YouTube. Done properly, they end up in a lot of Google searches. Create a channel for your business where you can send people to see all of your videos in one place.
Google also offers a service called “Video for Business”. There is a fee involved, $5.00/month for each user account. I haven’t heard of a lot of people using this service, and I haven’t seen a lot of videos from this service in search results. But, it’s not a bad idea to be aware of what Google is doing.
There are other places where videos can be displayed: on the appropriate page of your website and on the appropriate posts on your blog. And, don’t forget to announce new videos on your Facebook page, Twitter, Linkedin and any other social networks you participate in.
4. Use the Secret Weapon for Obtaining Reader and Search Engine Points.
I hate to admit it, but I’m one of what is probably a small number of people who generally don’t like videos.
I know, it sacrilegious. But, unless the subject is very technical, or I enjoy the speaking style of the presenter, or I’m bored (which practically never happens), I would much rather read a transcript of the video. Providing a transcript will help your visitors. Besides folks who would rather just read the transcript, there is another group who want to watch the video and read the transcript.
As for the search engines, they CAN read transcripts. So, if you really want your video to improve your SEO and end up in more search results, a transcript is definitely what you need.
There are a couple ways to get transcripts. Let’s assume that the video you’re creating is a bit more complex than the videos you see of people talking while driving in the car. If you really were doing a video about short sales, I would suggest that you put some thought into what you’re going to say and how.
In fact, writing a script, or at least a set of bullet points will go a long way toward making your video as professional as possible. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to read the script on the video, but you should be familiar enough with it so that information comes out in the right order, and you’re not skipping around, for example. You also don’t want to forget an important fact.
If you have a script, you practically have a transcript.
The other alternative is to hire a Virtual Assistant to create a transcript. You may already have a VA. You could also look into using a transcriptionist. Do a search for video transcriptionist. You’ll find a number of companies you can evaluate. The fees I saw were somewhere around $1.50-3 per minute of the recording.
What’s been your experience? Are you using videos?
If you’ve posted transcriptions with the video, how did you do in the search engines?
.
Of course, you know that there are several steps to generating leads from a real estate website, including:
- Pick the right keyword phrases
- Drive targeted Internet traffic to your website
- Keep visitors engaged once they reach your website
- Put as many things on your website as you can to entice visitors to identify themselves
And, after you get a lead, you have the challenge of converting them to a client. Easy, right? Well, just kidding.
Actually, steps 1 and 2 are relatively straightforward. It’s when you get down to keeping people engaged and motivated to contact you about something. . . that’s where the rubber meets the road, as they say.
Offer Something of Extraordinary Value
That’s the challenge. You need to offer something to your visitors that will keep them on the site, impress them with your expertise, and motivate them to provide the contact information you need to start developing a relationship.
I’ve always loved the way that Michael Russer has described the “irresistible offers” that can motivate site visitors to contact you. His definition of that type of offer is as follows:
- Targeted to your specific niche market.
- Considered extremely valuable by members of that market.
- Is unique — only you are offering it, or better yet, you are the only one who can offer it.
- Uses an attention-grabbing headline or has a catchy name.
- Uses a request form that invites the visitor to share personal information, and assures them that their information will be kept private.
I know. That’s quite a tall order. But, I encourage you to come up with some really compelling propositions to put on your website. If you can’t identify something that fits all of the criteria, don’t worry about it. As you gain experience creating this type of website content, you’ll undoubtedly get better and better at it.
How do you identify a compelling offer? First, you need to put yourself in your visitors’ shoes. What would be valuable to you if you were them? Websites that target a niche do better than others because those sites have a very clear message to a well-defined target audience. But, choosing a niche is a topic for another post.
Come Up with Something Extraordinary Today!
Let’s say that you want an extraordinary offer for your website. What ideas can you come up with?
- Let’s say you’re well established and have the capacity to offer a 2% Rebate to home buyers. Do you think that would motivate an Internet visitor to contact you? Naturally, you’d have to determine that a rebate is lawful in your state.
- What if you’re new to the business and you’re just trying to get an email list built up. Could you offer something everyone might want such as a gift card from Visa or a great restaurant in the area? Having people sign up to enter a monthly drawing might not get you names of people who are ready to buy or sell. But, you’re certainly making yourself stand out in the market.
- Short sales are a big part of the industry in many areas today. What would someone in trouble with their mortgage payments want? If you’re a short sale specialist, you could put together an analysis of someone’s situation that indicates whether a short sale would be beneficial. Should you put that questionnaire on your website? It might be asking for sensitive information. You could make the offer, and use a contact form to identify people interested in the evaluation. Then, you could contact them personally to start to develop a relationship and get the information you need for the evaluation.
And, if you can give these offers an extraordinary name, you’re even better off. Rather than saying you can help someone determine if they should consider a short sale, give that service a name. Short Sale Assessment. Short Sale Analysis. Foreclosure Avoidance Appraisal. Stuff like that.
Think about it.
Do you have anything on your website to grab your visitors’ attention? If so, leave a comment so we can learn from you. If not, describe your target audience and we’ll see if we can brainstorm some alternatives!
.
.
Ah, yes, I’ve been reading posts from Active Rain again! This one is from Karen Druschka. She talks about how she uses blog posts on local communities to make money!
You need to read the post. She identifies the categories of information she uses in each hyper-local post, and shows an example of a post that generated a phone call that ended in a closed transaction.
And, the client even had a friend who is an agent! You can’t get a better recommendation than that for a particular marketing tool!
If you’re not a member of Active Rain, you may not be able to access the post(s) mentioned above. So sign up for Active Rain now. If you’re not a member of Active Rain, you should be anyway.
Five Secrets to Real Estate Domain Names
· Comments.
Domain names are a frequent topic when I’m talking to clients. And, I’m sure you’ve heard 42 things that you should do when you are determining what domain name to attach to your website. And, it can get confusing. Here are some very simple truths about domain names.
1. Search engines put a great deal of weight on the age of a domain name. The older, the better. So, if you started out 6 years ago with a domain name of JohnSmith.com, but now you want to change it to ChicagoHomesforSale.com, don’t do it.
2. Search engines are somewhat attracted to domain names that contain keyword phrases. If you’re just starting a website, pick a name that has your keyword phrase in it if possible. But, if you’re changing an old name to a keyword name for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), don’t do it. It’s much more important to have an old domain name than one with keywords in it.
3. Search engines like domain names that are paid for many years in advance. It makes the website seem more stable if your domain name expires at a distant date. So, don’t renew your domain name each year for a 1-year duration. Renew your domain name for the next 10 years.
4. Don’t purchase a domain name through a vendor. Even if you love your vendor, I recommend that you create a domain registrar account of your own, and have all your domain names hosted in the same account. You should have the username and password to the domain registrar account and have access to renewing, changing DNS server information, etc. without anyone else’s participation.
And, make sure you keep the account information handy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to move a domain name for a client and they can’t remember where the domain is registered, or the username and password if they can find the registrar!
5. Don’t point lots of domain names to one website. The search engines don’t like having lots of domain names that end up at the same website. So, make your default domain name the oldest one you own. If there are good marketing reasons to have additional names, such as ShortSalesFL.com when you’re advertising your short sale specialty, don’t worry about adding them. Just don’t go overboard.
Yahoo, in their webmaster guidelines point out a number of things considered unwanted, one of which is “Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual hostnames”. Of course, in good search engine fashion, they don’t say how many are counted as numerous, or how they tell if the name is unnecessary. But, the lesson I take from that is: be very conservative!
———–
Hopefully, that clarifies some issues. If you have questions about using domain names, or you want to check out something you’ve heard, leave a comment!
Get Real Estate Domains is our GoDaddy reseller account. Opening an account there is easy, and GoDaddy does a great job of transferring domain names if you’ve got some spread out around the Internet and want to get them all in one place.
Real Estate Business Tools ** Closing Gifts that Last
.
This guest post was contributed by Sam Chapman.
Sam specializes in Lake Travis waterfront homes.
Commenting on Blog Posts to Build Incoming Links
A significant part of getting your real estate website found through search engine optimization (SEO) is link building. Getting inbound links from good websites should be an ongoing process.
You can get links by writing articles and posting them on article sites, you can ask webmasters to add a link to your site, you can get a link at a chamber of commerce site if you join the chamber, and there are a lot more ways to get links.
One method that became popular a couple of years ago is commenting on blog posts. That method does work, but you need to understand when a link is working for SEO and when it isn’t.
How to Tell if a Link in a Blog Comment is a Valuable Link
A valuable link is one that search engines will follow, and that allows keywords in anchor text.
Keywords in the anchor text is important. This is the text that your website url is embedded in – your key words. For example, if you click on the Rough Hollow homes link, it takes you to the Rough Hollow homes page on my website. BUT, how do you know if a link is a valuable link?
The issue of do follow vs nofollow is another criteria to use for evaluation. Many blogs will install a bit of nofollow software. When a link is coded nofollow, search engines ignore it and this makes the link useless for SEO.
If you are confused about anchor text, think of a door that leads into a room and the name of the room is on the door. The door is the link and the words are your anchor text. It accurately tells you where it will lead you. If you are confused about dofollow and nofollow think of a dofollow link as a door that can be opened to let you go somewhere and a nofollow link as a door that never opens.
How can you tell if a comment link is nofollow? You can view the source code for the page, which can be a headache, or you can install the Firefox NoDoFollow add-on.
After installing the add-on, click on Tools and select DoNoFollow. Any link on the page you are viewing will be highlighted in blue if is a dofollow link, a link of value, or it will be highlighted in red if it is a nofollow link. Then go to a real estate related blog you want to comment on, find a post that has comments and see if there links are highlighted in blue. If they are, you’re in luck. While using Firefox, click to get the NoDoFollow add-on (notice the great anchor text).
Let’s get back to key words for a moment. How can you tell if a blog allows commenters to use key words? This is pretty simple. Find a blog post with comments and look at the links. If you see words like Portland real estate, Austin homes, etc. as links, key words are OK.
Another couple of things to look for in WordPress blogs are Lucia’s Linky Love, KeywordLuv and CommentLuv. WordPress blog comments have the nofollow attribute unless the author installs one of these add-ons.
Lucia’s Linky Love makes blog post comments dofollow. However, to prevent spammers, the author of the blog can require a certain number of comments before a link becomes dofollow.
CommentLuv will allow you to enter your blog url and when you post your comment it will display your blog’s most recent post.
KeywordLuv allows you to enter your name, the @ symbol and then your keywords. When you do this, your anchor text has your url in it and it is a dofollow comment. So if I enter Sam@Marble Falls Homes, the comment will show Sam from Marble Falls Homes.
You will know if a WordPress blog has one of these when you look below the comment box. There will be a logo, text or both stating that the add-on has been installed.
Having said all this, do not go to real estate blogs only to get links. When you make a comment, make it appropriate. Spammers will add comments like “nice post,” or “you provide valuable information” or some other garbage. Make sure you read the post and add something of value.
If you can’t leave a good comment, move on to another blog!
.
Note from Kathleen: I do want to support your SEO efforts. As we describe on the About this Blog page, comments on this blog are a dofollow for the name you enter with the associated domain name, and nofollow for links in the body of the comment itself. We set it up that way to discourage spammers because there’s no benefit for them in packing a comment with loads of links.
We don’t mind if you use keywords as your name, but please sign the post. That means if you put Atlanta Real Estate as your name, along with your domain name, that link showing your keyword phrase will be followed by the search engines. But, since it’s tough to respond to Atlanta Real Estate, please put your real name at the end of your comment!
