Is your website optimized for the wrong targets?

Group Organizer

Jan 13, 2009 10:07:08 AM

5.0 out of 5 (rated by 3 members)

If your html tags were never properly written, although your website is "optimized" it could be optimized for the wrong targets.

Most website providers leave the choice of tags to the developer or the client (that's you). Some use computer generated tags. (Often times those computers generate your tags by choosing the town where your billing address on your credit card is located instead of the towns you may target in your practice! A good idea is to aim your site at the very same place you receive 80% of your business from now-by town.) Some providers do a better job than others in these tags; some do nothing about them. In either instance, they may not be properly optimized for you.

To see if you have that problem, pull your site up, go across your navigation bar to "View" then scroll down to "Page Source." Click on page source and a new window will open in your browser. That's your html code. See what it says on your <title> tag. Does it say "Home" or some other equally non-descriptive thing that does not describe what you do and where? That usually means you need your tags written to reflect what you sell and where you are. Without that little piece of finishing, your site is not findable by search engines or searchers.

This section of your website is never seen by viewers; it is only read by the computers that run the internet. Computers are very literal machines: they follow instructions exactly. The instructions about what the computer should do about your site are contained in these tags, and none is more important than your title tag. This little line of html code is about the single most important part of people being able to find you that you can do anything about, yourself.

Accompanying this tag are your <meta> tags, more instructions which further specify how your site is to be catalogued for the searching buyer. With no disrespect intended, if you saw the abuses in this area that we see each day, you would understand that there aren't that many people out there who really have any idea about how to write proper html tags for your website. They don't suffer, but your site and its efficiency do!

Caroline Wethington

Compass Internet Systems

http://Blackwater.RealTown.com

RealTown Approved Vendor

http://www.realtown.com/CarolineWethington/groups/real-seo

Edited by Caroline Wethington on Jan 13, 2009 10:13:25 AM

Social Media Marketing Guru

Group Member

Jan 18, 2009 4:56:50 AM

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slow death of SEO as we know it - Photo Credit jphilipg

Many Realtors optimize for their proper name: you can maintain your reputation online and rank for your name with social media profiles here, at Facebook, at Myspace..But there is almost nothing you can do on-site to rank a static or template website: Google and the others more and more favor dynamic content, you need a website that gets bigger all the time, is perfectly optimized for some words that somebody who does not know your name may search for, yes, but it must also be a source of an on-topic, constantly refreshed RSS feed that builds a long trail of anchor-text links back to your dynamic website. Old-fashioned SEO is dead, assassinated by spammers, spoofers, and the porn industry.

Edited by Social Media Marketing Guru on Jan 18, 2009 4:58:56 AM

Art Lusby

Group Expert

Jan 18, 2009 5:46:25 AM

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If, by "old-fashioned SEO", you mean writing tags, attaining search engine placement and hoping someone buys from you - that's right - it is DEAD - and always has been so. Getting found, incorporating elements in a site that potential clients want, attracting visitors to engage in conversation, connecting with them, and establishing a business relationship with buyers and sellers - that's the same as setting up a good shop in the real world - and what works online as well. Those who think a static or content-starved web site is going to produce results - or that a great site that nobody can find will produce results - probably still believe in the tooth fairy and Ron Popiel's "hair-in-a-can". It's all about gaining legitimate prospects - and that's not going to ever happen until they can FIND YOUR SITE first.

Art Lusby

MikeParker

Group Expert

Jan 19, 2009 8:53:08 AM

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"Old fashioned SEO is dead?" Says who? Another big talker with delusions of grandeur? Listen, SEO is not dead and if you claim it is you don't read a thing. Just last week this publication highlighted an agent, Bev Waring, who sold 84% of her production last year because of her SEO. Her husband, Malcolm Waring, is a Data Base Manager who probably has forgotten more about IT than most of us ever knew, and he is unequivocal too. He said this:

" Our CompassSearch subscription gets results. Even in this market, people are still looking for Pocono Real Estate on the Internet. We just have to get them to our website to have a chance at doing business with them, and I don't view the SEO that does that for us as advertising, I consider that SEO as necessary to our success as our license to sell real estate. After all, if people can't find you and don't know about you, you can't sell them a property in any market, let alone this one!"

We have over 1000 agents prospering because of their SEO. Every major corporation in America spends big dollars on SEO. Just becaue you are interested in selling a methodology that competes with SEO, don't be ridiculous: SEO is NOT dead and it never will be as long as people sell things online.

Best regards,

Mike Parker
http://blackwater.realtown.com

A Real Town Approved Vendor

Dirk Johnson

Group Member

Jan 19, 2009 9:37:25 AM

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Hi Israel,

I can point to many, many of our own client sites that rank well with "static" sites. We atually encourage them to get their SEO in order, and a lot of that work is somewhat "static". Our landing page tool does that:

http://www.domaindrivers.com/pagegumbo/pagegumbo-test.asp
http://www.domaindrivers.com/pagegumbo/pagegumbo.asp

The first link is an "example" page, and the second is a live tool that you can use at anytime. The tool forces agents to put more of the secondary real-estate related keywords on their pages.

At the same time, we don't stand still here. There are many chnages afoot, and you are correct to adress them.

We are developing tools that agents can use to manage their participation in the social networking environment.

We built the Blog Comment Assistant for Real Estate to do help agetns genuinely participate with other bloggers, and thus, get more traffic to their own blog.

Please give it a review, if you would.

http://www.domaindrivers.com/BlogCommentAssistant.html

To start a fully-functional, ten day FREE trial, please go here:
http://www.domaindrivers.com/BlogCommentAssistant/BlogApp/BlogApp-NewAccountFS.asp
Links to instructions are included throughout the tool.

Soon, we will be realeasing the Social Network Manager for real estate.

Thanks!

Best regards,

Dirk Johnson
Partner - Operations
DomainDrivers LLC
djohnson@domaindrivers.com
703-406-4698
http://domaindrivers.realtown.com
We're an approved RealTalk/RealTown vendor:
http://DomainDrivers.InternetCrusade.com

Edited by Dirk Johnson on Jan 19, 2009 9:40:44 AM

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