Archive for Real Estate Websites
When a Google Sitemap Hurts Your Rankings
· CommentsIf you’re doing real estate marketing online, you need good rankings in the search engines. One of our contributors, Sam Chapman, wrote about the fact that he had fallen off the first page of Google for his main keyword. Luckily, his website is strong enough that the activity on his site wasn’t really affected.
I got an email from Sam the other day. He’s figured out how to retrieve his high ranking on Google for his main keyword phrase!
And, it’s a pretty weird fix.
When Can a Google Sitemap Hurt Your Ranking?
Sam wrote, “I had a Google sitemap warning in the Google Webmaster Tools. It stated that my RSS feed had too many tags and that I should fix and resubmit. The thing that both puzzled me and troubled me was that I first saw the warning a few weeks after falling off page one for my most coveted search term – Austin real estate.”
Sam tapped the resources at the REW forum by publishing a post asking if anyone knew anything about that error. One of the other REW members posted a link to a blog post that discussed merging two blogs into one.
The owner didn’t mention getting an error message, and his merged blogs were doing OK, but he was frustrated because his pages weren’t getting indexed very quickly. The answer came from another REW member, whose advice was “Delete your Google Sitemap.xml file and make the search engines crawl the site from scratch.”
Once the file was deleted, the owner of the combined blogs saw his indexed pages increase dramatically. So, Sam decided to try the same thing with his website.
Within 10 days, he was back on page one of the Google SERPs for his key real estate marketing term, Austin Real Estate.
The Morals of the Story?
- Having a site map on your real estate website is a good thing. And, in most instances, submitting a Google sitemap is a good thing, too.
- You may or may not get an error message in your Google Webmaster Tools when a site map is confusing the search engine web crawlers.
- There may be times when some issue with your Google sitemap can negatively impact your rankings, and you’d be better off deleting the site map.
- If you have submitted a Google sitemap, you better check your Google Webmaster Tools periodically to make sure that there are no issues you need to be aware of!
Family Businesses and Website Design
· CommentsThis guest post was written by Larry Easto who is a
best-selling business writer, and publisher of Real Estate Marketing Link
I am not a big fan of one spouse working in a small business operated by the other spouse.
My Own Experience
This attitude is founded on my own experience in starting my first post-marriage business. At the time, my wife who is a bright, highly-educated person was taking a break from her professional career to raise two small children. Feeling totally fulfilled as a mother but under-stimulated intellectually, she was looking for something to keep the thinking part of her brain engaged and challenged.
At my suggestion she agreed to look after the bookkeeping of my small two-person business. This turned out to be really bad decision. While she loves math and arithmetic puzzles, she was and remains totally undone by any numbers with dollar signs in front of them. It was as if the dollar sign transformed each number into some kind of a weird unintelligible symbol, loaded with psychological and philosophical significance.
After one very frustrating month, we all agreed that life would be better for everyone if my secretary looked after the bookkeeping and my wife looked for intellectual stimulation somewhere away from my business.
Over the years, I have seen many small businesses encounter difficulties as a result of the involvement of the owner’s spouse. Not surprisingly, many domestic situations have also been negatively impacted as a result of business issues carried home by one or other of the spouses. Recently I experienced another example that reinforced my dislike of one spouse working in the business of the other.
A Website Design Debacle
A couple of years ago, I worked with a very good graphic designer on a client project. I liked her and respected her design talents. We worked well together and produced a book that delighted my client.
Since the designer also offered website design, I chose her to help me with my first website. In website design projects, she looked after graphic design…the look of the site… and her husband, a full-time IT professional, designed the technical elements of the site, after his normal working hours.
At the first meeting with my design team, the graphic designer behaved as she had in all of our other meetings. Her husband acted like a know-it-all, answering questions that I directed at his wife and generally running the meeting. Because I had faith in his wife, I ignored his behavior and we proceeded with the site development. With minimal fuss, we came up with a design and appearance that was exactly what I wanted.
However, when I started to research issues as search engine optimization and driving traffic to my site, I realized that there was not much behind the attractive façade. Missing were such elements as page titles and descriptions and key words that feed search engines. Also missing was the ability for me to monitor traffic, pages visited, referral sources and similar features.
When I raised these issues with the graphic designer, her response was simply to tell me that they had done what they were contracted to do. This being the case, it would seem that all of the problems with my original site were my fault. Apparently I failed to specify everything I required…even though I was relying on an IT professional to provide the technical elements I needed but didn’t know I needed.
Issues of responsibility aside, my experience with this website design team reinforces my no owner’s spouse rule. I will continue to avoid dealing with small businesses, including real estate agents, that are operated by one spouse and include the other spouse in some capacity.
Experience is indeed a great teacher.
Note from Kathleen:
Larry’s experience points out a great lesson in website design. There are many elements that need to be addressed to create a useful website. If you’re planning to have a custom site designed, make sure that the vendor you choose can address all of the critical issues.
- Website design needs to start with SEO (search engine optimization). You need to work with someone who understands SEO and can assist you in selecting the right keywords to target, then make sure the on-page elements of the site supports that strategy. An SEO expert does not necessarily know anything about design or coding.
- The web site needs to have a professional look and design, A designer does not necessarily know anything about SEO or coding.
- The code for the site needs to be clean, and all functions need to work properly. An IT or code expert does not necesarily know anything about SEO or design.
If your website vendor can’t address all three of those issues, you’ve got the wrong web builder!
CyberHomesPro Rises Again!
· CommentsYou may recall that I wrote a couple posts about CyberHomesPro in the past. I was on RealTalk today and noticed that Reggie Nicolay from CyberHomes had resurrected one of my earlier posts on that forum to suggest that we take another look at the CyberHomesPro Smartframe.
So, I did. I found that the changes that have been made make the SmartFrame a good way for you to provide home evaluation information and neighborhood data on your website and/or blog. For an example, take a look at this test page.
I set up the test using “Atlanta” as the area of interest. You can also narrow things down by setting up the SmartFrame for a specific zip code.
When you first reach the page, you’ll see quite a few homes in the Atlanta area. If you want to test it out, try typing in the address: 356 King Rd NW, Atlanta, GA. I’m not sure that address even exists, but it will give you a chance to see how things work.
Once you type that address, and click Search, you will see some other homes on that street with descriptions. Using that function, you can get an idea of prices in an area, even if your specific address is not in the database. If you use one of the existing addresses that are shown, you’ll see a range for the estimated value. I think that makes much more sense than those sites that claim to have a valid estimate.
If you use that address and change the drop down to the left of the search box to Neighborhoods, you’ll find that CyberHomes has figured out the address is in the 30342 zip code, and it displays neighborhood information for that zip code.
There’s a lot of neighborhood information:
- 12-month change in home values
- median sales prices and volume
- sales tax
- cost of living index
- recent and projected job growth
- crime statistics
- climate averages
And, I could go on – but you should really take a look at it yourself.
I set the frame up to scroll, although that is not the default. I did that because some of the pages a visitor might end up on are longer than the norm, and without the scroll, they’d have no way to see all of the page. But, the most commonly used pages can be seen without an interior scroll bar, so I don’t mind the scrolling issue too much.
You do need to set the width of the frame at 1000px or the page will be cut off. For most sites with vertical navigation bars, that means you’ll need to eliminate the nav bar as I did on the test page.
I’ll update this post if I get an answer to the question I asked about what happens if someone creates an account on your SmartFrame. I’m not sure how the information will be used at this point. Update: See the Comments on this post to see the answer to this question from Reggie at Cyberhomes!
But, given the fact that the last time I looked at the SmartFrame it was unusable for most people, I’m very glad to see that this version provides a great deal of information in a very usable form!
Real Estate Websites: Falling Off Page One
· CommentsThis guest post was written by Sam Chapman who markets Austin Real Estate
Ouch, That Hurts!
I fell off page one of Google for the term Austin real estate about 6 weeks ago. The same players are at the top of page one, but there is quite a bit of movement in 3-10.
I found something very interesting when looking at my traffic statistics recently:
- This year, from November 1 through November 23, my traffic showed 5,635 unique sessions. For the same time period in 2007, I had 6,345.
- For the term Austin real estate, I had 611 sessions last November, compared to just 89 this November.
- If I subtract the number of sessions generated from the term Austin real estate from the total sessions for both time periods, my traffic is only down by 188 unique sessions.
What does this tell me?
The Power of Long Tail Search Terms
It pretty much proves the power of long tail search terms, which I blogged about back on October 14. I think my traffic has actually increased in a sense.
This year has seen loads of buyers cut out of the market. Home sales in Austin are down more than 20% compared to 2007. Most of my clients are buyers from outside the Austin area. They find me on the internet searching a variety of terms.
So if the number of buyers has decreased, the traffic on my site should have decreased much more than it has, but it has remained relatively stable. This November, the number of unique sessions on my site is down just 188 sessions. That isn’t very significant considering the state of the market.
The Power of Blogging
When I take a really detailed look at my stats, I found that so far this November, 27% of the top 100 entry pages into my website are blog posts. That is serious long tail stuff.
When I look at the visitor navigation stats, the top page is the home page. The second page that people click from are blog posts. In other words, they start with a blog post and click over to the main website.
So falling off page one had me a bit freaked out a month ago, but not I am not quite as concerned now. Should I work on getting back there? Of course! But, it shows that the short tail (high traffic search terms), as powerful as it is, isn’t quite as critical as many people think it is.
MLS Search Poll: Analysis
· CommentsIf You Haven’t Participated in the MLS Poll in the left column of this blog,
NOW IS THE TIME!
All you need to do is choose one answer from each of the three categories:
TYPE, REGISTER, RESULTS.
So far, there have been 13 responses. So, the rest of you need to get going!! Here’s what the results say so far.
Type of MLS Search Used
66% Search from the MLS – no visitor login
25% Search from a 3rd party with login
9% Search from the MLS with login
The fact that such a large number of respondents are using an MLS without a visitor login is very discouraging!! If you fit into that category, please review the value of a great IDX search, and how to choose a home search!!! If you’re not using a full-featured home search, you’re missing out on a lot!
The other thing even this small sample points out is that there just aren’t that many MLS organizations who provide full-featured searches. Only one respondent was using a search from their MLS search that had visitor login capabilities.
Registration Methods
75% No registration required
25% Require registration after some use
0% Require registration before use
I think these results reflect the state of the industry. There are a lot of places where people can search for homes for sale. Requiring registration before any use just doesn’t make sense. The likelihood is that your visitors will just go elsewhere.
Results – MLS Search Lead Generation
55% I’m not sure
27% Better leads without registration
18% Better leads requiring registration after some use
0% Better leads when requiring registration
Fifty-five percent weren’t sure which approach provided the best leads?!?! I’d suggest those folks do some testing. I’ve seen differences from city to city in terms of how willing visitors are to login to a home search to obtain benefits like saving searches, etc.
If you haven’t tried it both ways, you’re missing an opportunity. Unless you receive a steady stream of leads from your website and MLS search, you might want to experiment. But, in my opinion that is only true if you have a full-featured search. There’s no sense asking people to register if all that brings them is the opportunity to look at homes for sale.
So, that’s the latest on the poll, but of course, this is a pitifully small sample of real estate professionals. Help us all out – take a minute to participate!!
