Archive for SEO
CrackerJackAgent Gets Cached
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Just a brief update on CrackerJackAgent.com. As of January 29, 2012, the home page and the post I published on January 18th are cached.
It looks like the search engines have noticed the site. The domain name was created on January 8, 2012. As of today’s stats, it has an Alexa rank of 647,823 globally and 45,750 in the US. These stats don’t come close to rivaling ActiveRain, of course. But, not bad for a site that has been online for such a short time.
I’m going to keep watching the site. It is a viable place to publish, in my opinion. Time will tell how the community comes together.
So, you want to get leads from your website, right? You need to take care of the two sides of SEO.
Many of the real estate professionals I talk to don’t realize that there are two sides to SEO. Often they assume that if we help them set up a real estate website or WordPress blogsite, the SEO is taken care of. And, we do help with SEO, but it’s not all handled with the set up process.
SEO – Side One: On-Site SEO
The purists call side one on-page SEO, but that has never made as much sense to me, so I call it on-site. On-site SEO refers to everything that you do to your website itself. This includes, but isn’t limited to:
- the content of the meta-tags on each page (page title, description and keywords)
- the content of the pages, including the keyword phrases that are used, where they are placed, etc.
- the internal linking structure
Another thing to keep in mind is that you need original content. And, as much of it as you can manage.
Original content refers to information on your website that doesn’t appear anywhere else on the Internet. The search engines give the “credit’ for content to the first website that displays that information. So, copying a lot of information from the Wikipedia isn’t going to work.
Most real estate website vendors provide content pages to get your site going. But, don’t fool yourself. If your entire website consists of standard pages, the search engines will ignore you, and so will your visitors!
Once you have completed step one, your website will be attractive to search engines. Next, you need to get the search engines to rank your site.
SEO – Side Two: Off-Site SEO
You’re right. this side is often called off-page. It is a distressing fact, but it’s true that just setting up your website with lots of good original content and effective calls to action just isn’t enough.
The off-site part of SEO has to do mainly with establishing quality incoming links to your website. Contemporary SEO calls for building incoming links that are content based. Your best bet is to post original content that is optimized for your selected keyword phrases on high-authority Internet sites. If you don’t have the time or inclination to do that, we can assist.
Just keep in mind that once we’ve put optimized original content on your website you’re not finished.
I feel bad sometimes when I talk to people about setting up a website that will produce leads. It can be a real information overload. By the time I discuss:
- Strategy for driving traffic
- Keyword selection
- On-site SEO
- Off-site SEO
Well, very often, I can hear their eyes glazing over through the telephone.
The good news? If you don’t have a lead-generating website right now, but you’d like one, we can help! Call us at 888-716-2418 or send an email below. We specialize in Web-Centric Real Estate Marketing.
Ever wondered why you’re not getting any leads from your website? Ever heard other professionals talk about how they get all of their leads from their website without doing any other marketing? Have you figured out how to make your website a lead generation tool? If you’re anything like the folks I talk to, you’d love to know! It’s not a mystery. You just need to know how.
1. You need a strategy for driving traffic to your website.
As they say, a website with no traffic isn’t a website at all. Well, maybe I just said that. In any event, the process starts with a strategy for driving traffic.
- That’s the first step in getting leads from a real estate website. You get lots of people to visit your website and some percentage of those will become clients if you follow up properly. Without visitors, nothing happens.
I ask people that question a lot: “What is your strategy for driving traffic to your website?” I rarely get a reasonable answer. But, think about it. Just putting a website on the Internet isn’t enough.
Why is this the first step? Because it has a lot to do with how you build your website!
There are really only two online ways to drive traffic to your website. One is to use pay-per-click campaigns. If you want more information about that, contact Ideal Positions. They’re good guys and do good work. Don’t try to run a pay-per-click campaign yourself unless you have a lot of free time.
If you use pay-per-click to drive traffic, you need to build a professional-looking, information rich website that has good calls to action and important offers to get visitors to fill out a form or call.
The second way is to get found on the search engines. And, that’s what this post will focus on. If you want to get found on the search engines, you need to build your website to be attractive to search engines!
2. Choose the right keyword phrases.
If you’re going to get found on the search engines, you need to go after the right phrases. Why? Because if you don’t, one of two things will most likely happen.
Either you’ll be #1 on Google for a phrase no one ever uses, or you will be very old and perhaps retired before you get any kind of ranking at all.
You need to do the keyword research to identify those keywords that have the best blend of the amount of usage of the term, and the least competition.
If you’re going to rely on pay-per-click, it doesn’t really matter if you’ve chosen the right keyword phrases, but I recommend that you set your site up for SEO anyway. It can’t hurt, and it might just get you ranked over time.
3. Set up your real estate website to be attractive to search engines.
There are many things that the search engines, Google in particular, are looking for in a website that they will rank. For more information, see the posts about the Panda update.
For the purposes of this post, we’re going to talk about how you do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website. The most important thing to take away from reading this post is:
There are Two Sides to SEO
Stayed tuned for Part II. . .
Five Ways to Track Incoming Links
· CommentsThis guest post was contributed by Alex Cortez.
Alex is a REALTOR® specializing in Maui’s Wailea Real Estate.
Yahoo Site Explorer is Gone – What Are the Alternatives?
For many tech-savvy agents, SEO plays a huge part of business/lead generation. And with search engines placing a large weight on incoming links, a large majority of agents used Yahoo Site Explorer (YSE) for competitor link analysis and assessment.
Its beauty was the simplicity of providing raw data, which could then be extrapolated as needed. Used in conjunction with toolbars from SeoQuake or SEOmoz to maximize relevant data, it made the analysis fast and easy, at least comparatively.
However, with YSE permanently shutting down in its transition to Bing Webmaster Tools (for the time being, only information on a verified webmaster’s site is available), it has left many SEO’s and internet marketers looking for alternatives to Yahoo Site Explorer – particularly any options that are free of charge. In the past month, I’ve spent time using a few services and these are my opinions regarding what worked best:
1. OpenSiteExplorer – Free Trial
Rand Fishkin et al at SEOMoz are some of the industry leaders, and OSE lives up to its mighty expectations.
Data is broken down summarily, such as Title and Url of linking page, Anchor Text, Page Authority (which some argue is a better metric than PageRank when gauging a page’s value/trust), Domain Authority, and nofollow attribute.
However, the free version is limited to only to the top five incoming links analyzed and unlimited data comes at a price: 30 day free trial and $99 monthly thereafter.
Is it worth it? Sure, but only to those who spend time/energy in linkbuilding and planning link strategies, not for the weekend link builder. As data can be seen on the SEOmoz toolbar, it makes quick analysis while perusing sites extremely easy and efficient.
2. LinkDiagnosis – Free
A well known figure in the SEO world suggested that I give this a try and it’s clear why. The sheer amount of information is staggering. From linking url, to landing page, to anchor text, to PR of linking url, to number of outbound links, to Page and Domain Authority, and other data, LinkDiagnosis it is comprehensive and thorough.
However, the amount of time necessary for reports to be completed puts it in a category of its own: Run only when a deep analysis of a competitor is needed, not for a quick look under the hood.
3. Backlink Watch – Free
Once upon a time, I used it often until I realized how useful and efficient Yahoo Site Explorer was. But with the demise of YSE, it was time to try Backlink Watch again.
Information provided includes the linking url, anchor text, number of outbound links from the linking page, Page Rank, and any flags (i.e. nofollow attribute).
However, there are two critical aspects that will keep me away from Backlink Watch in the foreseeable future: 1) from a quick perusal it seems that at least some of the data is inaccurate (i.e. anchor text) and 2) it takes a significant amount of time to run a report.
4. Blekko – Free
Blekko is a search engine, and signing up for a free account is required in order to access SEO information. Upon searching a url on Blekko, there is a ‘SEO’ link below each individual result, which provides a fair amount of information – including inbound links, crawl data, and duplicate content.
Link information is broken down by State and Country of origin, linking domain (not specific url though), number of links from the linking domain, and host rank. Upon clicking on the number of links from a specific linking domain, the results show the linking page, the anchor text, and the landing page.
Although not the most efficient of set ups, the sheer amount of information is worth the time and effort.
5. Majestic SEO (Limited Free Access)
Long known as one of the premier SEO tools for serious professionals, this massive database provides a mountain of information in a very user-friendly format.
Information can be from the Historic Index or the Fresh Index (from the past 30 days). It breaks down links by number of linking domains, referring IP addresses, total external backlinks (further broken down by images, nofollow, redirects), top backlinks with anchor text, and top pages.
Paid subscriptions start at £29.99 but with the amount of information provided, there are a number of ways in which to interpret and maximize data for individual link-building objectives.
Consequently, although Yahoo Site Explorer was a perennial favorite among the SEO community and without a clear-cut successor taking its place (at least thus far), it is just a matter of time before one of the many aspirants solidify their position as the next SEO linkbuilding tool of choice.
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See all the Traffic Statistics Posts
Interpreting Overall Traffic Statistics
The Overall Traffic Statistics provide global information. Other posts in the series will talk about more specific Visitor Stats and Traffic Source and Content information.
These posts can’t possibly identify every possible analysis you can do on every type of statistic. But, hopefully there will be examples that give you ideas for which stats to analyze and how to apply that analysis to your specific situation.
1. Number of Visits, Visitors or Unique Visitors – You need to pick one of these statistics and keep track of the changes over time. Naturally, your goal over time is to increase the number of visits by implementing a marketing plan that might include improved SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Pay Per Click, social media, offline ways of driving traffic, etc. This statistic will tell you if those efforts are working.
Does your traffic increase when you send out a batch of postcards? If not, you’re either not making a strong call to action to get people to visit your site, or postcards aren’t effective for you. As you’ll see, using traffic statistics doesn’t mean that you’ll have all the answers. But, you will have the questions!
You can usually look at this statistic in large date ranges. Looking at the number of visits over a month, for example, will tell you if there are certain days or times of a month when your traffic is high. If you’re going to send out a newsletter, you’d want to schedule it for the times when traffic is highest. Evidently those times are when your prospects have the time to look at your website.
2. Number of Page Views – This is another overall indicator of how interesting your visitors think your website is. Your goal is to increase the number of page views over time. Looking at this stat in conjunction with the Number of Visitors will tell you if your overall traffic is headed in the right direction – up.
3. Number of Pages per Visit – This is an indicator of how interesting your visitors think your website is. If people don’t explore your website beyond the page on which they landed, you might assume that your site isn’t compelling enough.
4. Bounce Rate – if your bounce rate is very high, you might assume that your website isn’t very compelling.
5. Average Time on Site – If people don’t spend very much time on your website, you might assume that your website isn’t very compelling.
6. Percent New Visits – If you don’t have a high percentage of visitors who return often, you might assume that your website isn’t very compelling.
A Note About Items 3, 4, 5 and 6 – The assumptions noted above may be very valid. But, you need to analyze these stats in relation to one another, and in relation to some other statistics we’ll cover.
Keep in mind that a strict interpretation of these statistics is only valid if everyone who lands on your website is a potential lead. And, that almost never happens.
Think about this example:
- Seventy-five percent of your website traffic comes from search engines.
- Search engines send people to your website based on over 1000 keyword phrases.
How would that situation affect the interpretation of items 3, 4, 5 and 6?
- You’d have to assume that if people are landing on your website for over 1000 keyword phrases, a good portion of those phrases aren’t bringing targeted traffic. And, you can find out if that is the case looking at your Resource stats. You can’t control which phrases the search engines will rank you for. If you’re being ranked for random phrases out of your blog posts, that’s not going to bring targeted traffic.
- Therefore, it might be that half of the visitors to your site are there on purpose.
- So, if your Number of Pages per Visit is 2, you might assume that it is actually 4 if the non-targeted visitors were taken out of the equation.
- If your Bounce Rate is high, you might adjust it to a lower figure, knowing that all the non-targeted visitors are only going to look at one page no matter how great a website.
- If your Average Time on Site is low, you might adjust it to a higher figure, knowing that all the non-targeted visitors are only going to stay on the site for a few seconds, no matter how great a website.
Some people will strongly disagree with what I’ve just said. Some people use a strict interpretation of those three stats, regardless of other factors. I just don’t think that makes sense when you put all the stats together. For example, I think it can send people off on a wild goose chase trying to reduce their bounce rate when that particular stat might not be pointing to a way to improve the website overall.
I do think that these stats are helpful to spot trends and to make you question some things you might not otherwise question. But, my advice is not to get too hung up on one of those stats to the exclusion of all the other facts that relate to your website.
Stay tuned for future posts discussing other types of traffic statistics!
