The clients wanted to start out the year with a fresh new look for the team website, with a Fresh Approach to East Bay Real Estate, that included a blog with great information about East Bay Neighborhoods, the East Bay Real Estate Market and some fun topics on “What’s for Dinner” and “Out on the Town”.
Google Real Estate?
Interesting news and definitely something to keep an eye on.
Google made an interesting move by rolling out individual “place pages” for every property that’s listed in Google Maps. A unique page for every listing that includes photos, a map (including Street View) property details, directions, transit information and more – basically, it’s a listing detail page.
“Clicking the “more info” link next to a listing takes you to a faster, easier-to-read page that gives you all of the information we have about a listing: photos, inspection times, videos, details, a Street View preview and nearby public transit information if available, allowing you to quickly find the listing you want and click through to the sources of the listing.” – Google
Just another reason to make sure your listings are getting on Google Maps – Google Real Estate
Matt Cutts at Google makes it official: “Google uses over two hundred signals in our web search rankings, but the keywords meta tag is not currently one of them, and I don’t believe it will be.”
All I can say is Thank you Google for finally making it official.
I am by no means a pro at SEO but I do my best to stay on top of what can help and what can hurt your search engine rankings. And I can’t tell you how many times while discussing on-site SEO that I will hear “but I have all of the keywords in the meta tag” why isn’t it working?!” I wish it were that easy.
But don’t get this wrong. This is not the key WORDS in the content – As I have been saying all along ..
Keywords don’t need to be used in your meta tags, but they need to be used in your content, title and header tags.
Read more about how “Google doesn’t use the “keywords” meta tag in our web search ranking” on the “Official Google Webmaster Blog” (can’t get more official than that).
Finding the perfect name for your website is getting harder every day with many of the good domains already taken. And it’s not just the one website. Just when you’ve finally found the perfect domain for your website it’s time to start the search over again for your blog or maybe a specialty website for a particular neighborhood or niche.
Here are a few tools that might help in your search for the perfect domain name.
DOMIZE is a fast and private search engine that you can use to rapidly check the availability of domains. http://www.domize.com
DOMAI.NR
Nowadays, it’s difficult to find a domain name that end with the popular .com, .net, and .org. Domainr helps you explore other TLD’s that have made popular websites like last.fm and del.icio.us stand out from the crowd. Searches will also include popular top-level domains that are available. http://domai.nr/
DOT-O-MATOR is a web tool that suggests site names based on prefixes and suffixes that you’ve entered (keywords). You can also use a category of prefixes (like “Tech” or “Homes”) and suffixes (like “Real Estate” or “Web 2.0 words”) to generate suggested site names for you. It’s a helpful tool for, at the very least, obtaining inspiration for a site name. http://www.dotomator.com/
STUCKDOMAINS is a database of expired domain names that previous owners have not renewed. Definitely worth a look. Remember the domain craze a few years back when everyone was buying up as many domain names as they could think of. http://www.stuckdomains.com
The most noticeable of features is the new modern and exciting look and feel of the new platform. Some other visual highlights are the new 950px format, the integration of Google Maps for search results, and property details features that include a photo carousel that lets the user scroll through photos,
I’m always being which websites I think are the best for market listings to get the best exposure.
There are an endless list of websites but from my experience and using Google Analytics for tracking many of my own clients I always suggest the following MUSTS.
Some real estate offices already feed their listings to sites such as Zillow and Trulia but I would suggest you joining these sites yourself. By doing this you can create your own profile, customize your listing and link to your own website, virtual tour or single property website.
Have I forgotten any?
I’d also be curious to hear what you think about advertising in newspapers. Is it still a must for you? Do you think sites such as Craigslist have replaced the newspapers?
When asking yourself if you need a website, consider these facts:
87% of all home buyers, and 94% of buyers aged 25 to 44, used the internet to search for homes.
For 1/3 of home buyers, the first step in the home buying process is looking online for properties.
The typical home buyer searches for 10 weeks, and views 10 properties.
90% of sellers report their home was listed or advertised on the internet.
Will you be found by those 87%-94%?
You may think that because your office has a website it is enough.
Well, that’s definitely a start -but think about your office website… does it allow you to stand out from the other agents on the site?
Having your own website not only allows you to showcase yourself but your listings, your knowledge of the market and the community. By including the MLS/IDX you can also provide services such as: allowing visitors to searching the MLS directly from your website, email listing updates (all email updates are directed back to your website for more information), mortgage calculator, CMA form and many other customized features.
