Why Web Sites Fail to Rank: 10 Tips for Keeping Your Site Searchable

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By Israel Rothman and Barry Hurd
Part 10 of 10

RISMEDIA, August 7, 2007–Over the last several weeks we’ve put together this 10-part series to hopefully help you, the Realtor or broker, understand the many factors that affect your Web site’s ability to be found online and ultimately bring more leads to you and build your bottom line.

Our final thought in this series is focused on converting online visitors into leads, and leads into customers.

It is a fallacy to think that you can buy a Web site and be done. A Web site is a constant work in progress: like a good script, it is re-written and updated constantly: redone, rewritten, retrofitted until it starts helping you make money. Then, just when you thought you were done, it stops working and must be re-done to keep up with changes in technology and your marketplace. Unfortunately, this business of search engine optimization moves so quickly that it’s possible your site was outdated the day it was finished.

Web sites today must grow, change, have interaction and video, etc. It’s a constant work in progress. The call to action works for a while, and then it must be replaced because no single approach to advertising works forever.

Web sites should never be sold as finite solutions; they should be offered as part of an ongoing service. Even proven technology in this marketplace can quickly become invisible on today’s search engines, no matter how good it was a year ago, or even months ago.

To incorporate SEO into your business the right way is difficult, but a worthwhile effort. Here is a review of the 10 suggestions we think will help increase leads and customers in your business.

1. Don’t get marketing advice from a contractor: get it from a Realtor: the same applies to your Web site. Designers are not marketers: nobody knows your area and market better than you and you must participate in picking the target customer, and in writing copy. Be creative.

2. Do not use a template solution, it will not rank and nobody will see it.

3. Do not use intro or doorway pages: you want the prospect to find exactly what they are looking for in the first frame: extra clicks are bad.

4. Don’t make people wait, or load a lot of scripting in the first frame; let them choose to see flash or video. You cannot require them to get through a gatekeeper script when you haven’t even said hello yet.

5. Be original: nobody wants to see a static or vanity brochure site: you must have something new to say, you must be unique to rank (and have value).

6. Get help: do-it-yourself Web design and SEO is suicide if you want to be successful: online marketing has become a specialty. Ask your advisor for recent proof of performance, people protect outdated skill sets.

7. Do not copy and paste: there are now stiff penalties for duplicate content

8. Don’t grovel and blow your own horn, or be too self-promotional: there are some things, like saying how great you are, that are better not said in the first person. Instead, offer real content.

9. Don’t rely completely on paid advertising: while some PPC, PPA, and PPI models can and do work, maintaining an ever growing organic presence of your own is worth pursuing.

10. Keep rewriting and innovating until it works: and again, when it stops working: static Web sites are dead.

We hope you have enjoyed this series. You will find more informative articles from our team in Real Estate magazine and here in the months to come.

Israel Rothman is an Internet advertising consultant who writes for several online magazines. Mr. Rothman has been a pioneer in Social Media Marketing as a method of intentional search engine placement for over 800 companies during the last 10 years. He is CEO and founder of SocialMediaSystems.com LLC.

Barry Hurd is president of Social Media Systems, an online marketing and advertising consultant group working with search engine marketing and leveraging social media communities. He has over 15 years of entrepreneurial Internet and online marketing experience. As an author and prolific blogger, he has reached online audiences around the world. Since the mid nineties, Hurd has been involved in numerous efforts to bring forth technical innovation through online business models. Past projects have included NIKE, REI, TMP Worldwide, Monster.com, Verizon Superpages, Intuit, and RISMedia.

RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Please send them to realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.

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Sunday, November 22, 2009