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y MIKE CIESIENSKY<br />
HOW TO DRIVE<br />
TRAFFIC TO YOUR<br />
REAL ESTATE<br />
WEBSITE<br />
Our first two articles talked about building your website and then<br />
what content should be on your website. Now we need to talk about how<br />
to get people to that great website you spent so much time building.<br />
If you’re like many small business owners, you are bombarded<br />
with advertising promising “Page 1 Google search results”. Can these<br />
companies really deliver on their advertising promises? How do they do<br />
it and how much does it really cost? What is Search Engine Optimization<br />
(SEO)? And what about other approaches to drive traffic; like Google Ad<br />
Words or Facebook? This article will hopefully help you make more sense<br />
of the current “wild, wild west” of the internet marketing landscape.<br />
But before we plunge into the SEO world, let me more formally<br />
introduce you to my best development friend in the internet community.<br />
His name is WordPress.<br />
WordPress is the web software platform that I recommend.<br />
The core software is free and is built by hundreds of community<br />
volunteers. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power their<br />
website.<br />
So, when I mentioned in article 1 that making use of pre-built<br />
website templates (or themes) can save you a lot of time and money,<br />
WordPress is my preferred platform for choosing a theme. And, when<br />
I mentioned in article 2 that the best way to keep your website updated<br />
(and do the support yourself) is with a good Content Management System<br />
(CMS), WordPress is my preferred CMS platform.<br />
I didn’t mention it by name in the first two articles as there<br />
are certainly other web development platforms that are good. However,<br />
the benefits of WordPress for SEO activity are well known and proven,<br />
so I thought it best to be more specific in this article. And WordPress is<br />
an excellent foundation platform for mobile devices, which will be the<br />
subject of article 4 in this series.<br />
So, what is SEO?<br />
SEO is the process of making your website friendlier to search<br />
engines so that your site ranks higher in search results when potential<br />
customers search for keywords related to your business. Basically, the<br />
goal of SEO is to optimize your website so people find your site and not<br />
your competition.<br />
How companies deliver this goal varies in both approach and<br />
cost. The good companies typically follow what is known as the CLA<br />
formula… Content, Links and Activity. As discussed in article 2, your<br />
website must have quality content. But to win at the SEO game, links<br />
and backlinks must be generated to point to your website to prove its<br />
popularity to the search engines. Companies that have been around a<br />
long time have lots of links generated in an organic manner… to their<br />
advantage. Newer companies must find other innovative (and legal)<br />
ways to generate those links. And, finally, it’s not enough to have good<br />
content and many links. There must be consistent activity… new links<br />
and new content being built on a regular basis.<br />
The best companies know how to deliver these SEO results for<br />
particular industries. In other words, Lands of America clients should<br />
look for companies that have experience in real estate. The costs can vary<br />
from a low of $500 per month to several thousand dollars per month. It<br />
is easy, though, to measure the benefit of SEO. If your SEO costs $1,000<br />
per month but delivers two more sales per month… with a profit of more<br />
than $1,000… then it is a good investment.<br />
But there are other ways to generate traffic and sell more<br />
property online than an SEO investment. Many of our clients invest in<br />
Ad Words. You pay for ads about your company to show up in the ad<br />
sections on Google search pages when people in your area search for<br />
your type of business. You only pay when someone actually clicks on one<br />
of your ads, taking them to your website. This is called Pay Per Click (PPC)<br />
advertising.<br />
What about Facebook and other social media options?<br />
Social media can be a good way to build connections with<br />
potential clients online. The big players in social media right now are<br />
Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Photo marketing is vital for real estate<br />
businesses, so Pinterest might be the best place to start. The key to social<br />
media is remembering that it’s not all about promotion. It has to be about<br />
two-way communication with your followers, building relationships with<br />
them. Share information of interest to them (not just about you!), and<br />
you’ll do them a service and build your brand at the same time.<br />
SEO and social media are both great tools for building a<br />
business. However, a careful evaluation should be done before making<br />
any sizable investment to make sure these internet marketing services<br />
align well with your business needs.<br />
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