How can you optimize your website for search engines to increase your sales?
Real Estate marketing is generally no different from marketing in any other area. The requirements of a modern client are strictly connected to widely accessible communication technologies, mainly including the World Wide Web. The slogan “If you’re not on the Internet, you don’t exist” has become the daily life of every qualified sales department.
What is SEO about?
The most popular worldwide search engine – Google – is constantly developed. In the 21st century IT development and the adjustment of browsers to meet our needs is happening at the fastest rate ever. The need nowadays is to master the newest tools which will let you be the first to reach your Client. It’s not a secret that Google uses over 300 different factors in SEO. These factors, when used properly, will cause your site to appear as one of the first search results. The question is – which ones determine the positioning of your site? Unfortunately, for the majority of common Internet users the issue is too complex to handle on their own – that’s the reason why so many companies specializing in SEO have appeared. Going through the whole topic in detail is not possible in a short article – but I can at least try to shed some light on this complicated topic.
Why are domain names so important?
Let’s start from the beginning – a domain name is made of two parts – the main name and the extension. Both of them are important in SEO. Let’s take a look at an example: “geodetic.com”. The main name “geodetic” relates to Key Words (words which people use to find what they are looking for). The extension “com” means the site will appear in search results no matter the location, as it’s not limited to a single area. That’s why using extensions such as “pl” is good for those companies who operate only in Poland, as it limits the appearance of the site in search results in other countries. Another important thing is how long your domain has been is use – the longer it has, the better. If you want to create new sites which will be positioned using the same Key words, you shouldn’t change the domain. The best idea is to create a Landing Page/Pages which uses the same domain but exists as an independent one. A good example of a Landing Page’s name would be: “www.realestate.com/new-investment-warsaw”, when the main site domain is: “„realestate.com”. The first part of this domain should be strictly connected with the Key Words your Client would use. For a Real Estate company it could be: realestate.com, apartment.com, officebuilding.com, and so on. Bear in mind that if your domain is brand new or it was used by someone else in the past. If it was used you should try to find out if it wasn’t connects with Link Farm as it may cause some huge problems with positioning now.
Why is the website’s content so important?
For some time now search engines have been looking for “good quality” text on websites. Appealing, useful content is crucial to Search Engine Optimization. Creative, high-quality writing, use of examples, and inclusion of images and multimedia can all help in satisfying a searcher’s needs. Code optimization is also important as it makes up 24% of influence on search results, however I advise you to leave it to a Webmaster.
Site outsourcing
To help your site step out of the shadows, especially when you start in a crowd of competitors, you can use tools such as: sponsored links, AdWords campaigns or competition activities analysis. AdWords campaigns are the most popular nowadays. Its costs are strictly connected to visitor activity – the more people visit your site, the more you pay. AdWords guarantee that when someone uses a proper Key Word, he will see your site’s advertisement among the first few search results. You can use such campaigns temporarily when you need to make yourself known to the searchers, or permanently when your budget allows you to. Another type of tools are follow campaigns or product campaigns which are connected to the visitor’s behavior on the Internet. A competition activities analysis is a much more complicated thing to do – the best solution is to use professional SEO company services. The only thing you should do is find out what tools the company uses – when you hear something similar to “we use common positioning Google tools”, it means that the company will not suit your expectations, and the money you paid for a subscription probably went to waste.
Why pay a subscription to an SEO Company?
For most of us it may not be obvious why we should pay a subscription to such a company. The answer is simple – real positioning takes time, and the results will not be visible for a couple of weeks, so they need to somehow force you to be patient. The companies also use professional, paid tools that let them figure out what’s best for your site – and most probably they pay for a subscription to these tools as well. Real positioning is a long and difficult task – not losing yourself in a maze of information and using your own knowledge in the best possible way is a really challenging thing to do – but it profits.
Fine feathers make fine birds
This saying comes to mind when you think about how search engines robots operate. In the Real Estate field the use of photos is crucial. For search robots photos have the same value as words, and that’s why it’s important to use them in the correct way. The size of image is also very important (don’t ever place photos directly from your camera on your site) – they need to be prepared for the Internet which means the following things: 72 DPI resolution, maximum weight of 200 kB. You can find a lot of software online that can be used to prepare your photos – by doing that you not only speed up your website, but you also let the robots know that your site is made in accordance to their operating methods. It’s important to remember to use the contextual descriptions of images (with the use of Key Words), which allow the blind to know what the pictures on your website represent.
Make updates – it’s important
Artificial Intelligence, which is used by Google, analyses how frequently you add new content to your site. In the Real Estate field providing new content every week might prove troublesome – in such cases running a blog is the best option. On there you can post important industry information, some tips or recent changes in property management law.
What about links?
Infamous” links are another important topic. There are two types of links: ones within your own site, and ones that lead to other websites. All of them should be logical connections, you shouldn’t put a great number of links to other websites on your site. This used to be a method of positioning those pages higher in the search results. We call that a Link Farm, also called a Black SEO, and is now considered illegal. Implementing Black SEO tactics can get your site banned from search engines, and getting back to where you were before can prove very time and money consuming.
Copying the article or its parts without the author’s permission is forbidden.
Author: Jan Pająk
Translation: Julia Pająk
