What if all websites were the same and everyone hired the same SEO company to do the same SEO work on each website? Who would show up in search engines first?

Invest heavily in Search Engine Optimization [SEO] and you may generate an adequate return on investment. This is dependent on what your competition is doing and how many are going after the exact same market as you and how active the particular target audience is and and and… Whatever you do – how you want to spend your money in this type of marketing is still dependent on facts.

Be mindful that search engines are not paid for organic search traffic.  They use programming known as “algorithms” to find, index and list websites. Many of these  algorithms are trade secrets and are known to change from time to time.  According to Google’s CEO, Erick Schmidt, in 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes – almost 1.5 per day. With this lack of guarantees and certainty, do you really want a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic to keep sending visitors? Seomoz.org, a highly regarded SEO software company completed a study where they suggest that even “search marketers, in a twist of irony, receive a very small share of their traffic from search engines.”

Before closing let’s be clear that analytics and SEO are not the same thing. Gathering analytics is all about gathering facts. These facts are important to performing good marketing in general. This marketing might include SEO and/or traditional advertising.

Avoid suffering major losses due to search engine uncertainty. Of course SEO is good but be aware. Where ever you spend most of your marketing dollars consider business practices that leave you liberated from dependence on search engine traffic.

The clearer the understanding one gets of how the internet works the better view we get of SEO and its value. Yes, SEO work done on a website can bring you sheer numbers if… and there are a lot of  ”ifs”. The big one to keep in mind is that the more crowded your market place the more amount you’ll need to spend and the longer it will take before you begin to see any traction.

How much is your competition spending on SEO? How many? What are their keywords? How long have they been doing it? These are just some of the local questions no one can guarantee.

Is spending a fortune on SEO right for you? To be honest, it’s not the best marketing strategy for every business owner and I’ll venture to say it’s simply a lousy investment on its own for industries like real estate and fitness. You need to think about what the goal of your site is going to be because there are so many other internet and real time marketing strategies that can be far more effective.  Whether well crafted, targeted mass media, print media or internet marketing, a successful campaign depends on engaging emotionally and persuading visitors that you have the better mouse trap. Just getting traffic is not enough.

Now you’re thinking, “yea but the ‘numbers game’ theory!  the ‘numbers game’ theory!”

So you believe this is still like cold calling. If you call 100 people a day on the phone with a 1% success rate you’ll get 3 customers in three days, right? Not so online.

When you call a person, there is no way of knowing if you will relate to this person until the two of you begin talking. The relationship begins to happen on it’s own and you begin targeting this person more than the last 99. This kind of relationship can’t happen through a  website visit.

If they don’t like what they see right away, they “bounce” away. Even the ones who would have related to you bounce if you’re hiding behind a bunch of sales speak and slogans that are similar to every other website in your industry.

What I’m saying here, and if you only get one thing from this post then here it is:

It’s better to invite and send visitors to your website that already relate to you than it is to pull them in by fooling a search engine.

Your website must be a high quality build and design with web pages that engage and persuade your customers so the goal of your website is realized. This is called conversion. Conversion needs more than just SEO to work.  A website where an objective that can be met as easy as possible by customers that relate to your offering and send their friends and family there will make you so busy you will have no time to worry about traffic and bounce rate.

Keeping your website up-to-date is important for a number of reasons. One is security of your database and information and another is usefulness of the latest plugins and the browsers visitors use.

It’s much easier to stay instep with the updates than get behind. If you haven’t updated your WordPress platform for some time, it’s a good idea to check the comparability of your theme first.

The latest WordPress Version is called Sonny Stitt. The Version is 3.3 and it was released yesterday, December 12, 2011. You can update your WordPress website from the site’s back end. Please don’t forget to back-up your database first.

If you need help updating your WordPress Website, please contact us. We will:

• Back-up your data-base and store it in your folder.
• Perform theme compatibility check and report issues.
• Perform update to the latest version.
• Update all relevant plugins

We’re keeping our ear-to-the-ground for you. You keep on doing what you do best!

We discussed the first Transformer already which will stay on the market as an entry level model. However, the new Transformer Prime’s 64Gig storage with speedy performance via the Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor is starting at a mere $600. Both of these products set a new bench mark for, not just performance, but value. But here’s the big difference. The keyboard, dock adding more memory and 10 hours of battery life.

I have a number of Youtube channels and a Vimeo Channel so I get your real estate home tour video updates as they are uploaded, if they are uploaded. So I go to your website to see how that same latest video is posted there. I click on the Video Tour Tab and notice that only an external link is offered to the video!!! Holey lost traffic Marketing Man! This blows me away!

Curiously, like a cat smelling it’s own up-chuck, I click the video link to see where it goes. As expected it opens a new window away from your website.  I am now on some butt-ugly video company’s website looking at your listing! Why? What kind of nincompoopish reasoning is behind taking me away from your website? Did you know you can display a video right in the listing’s details without sending people away from your site?

Link to Butt-Ugly Video Tour Website

I know what’s happened. You were sold the full java script enabled video package complete with galleries and mortgage calculators and map views and more; You already have all that available at your own website! Why pay for it twice?

Look, all you need is to embed the video into your website. And here are 3 reasons why…

Water Down your SEO Juice:

If you link to another site with your listing then there are now two website domains with that listing dividing up the Search Engine Optimization. Your website and the Butt-Ugly Video Company’s website and I am sure Butt-Ugly Ltd is very happy about all that traffic. Without you, they would have no traffic. Don’t let them sell this the other way. I bet they said something like “we’ll link it to your website so you’ll get more traffic”. No, not the case. I have also seen these sites without a link back.

Allow Your Customers to Drift away:

Many times I notice that the Butt-Ugly Video Company’s website offers all the same tools that your website has. Let your buyers discover the tools on your site so they can keep searching there. Don’t let your website visitors think (even for an instant) that your site doesn’t offer these tools. It looks like they are selling the listing and you are their assistant contact person.

Let them Mess up Your Visual Branding:

Your visual branding is completely different on the Butt-Ugly Video company’s website that you just sent your buyers to. Oh sure they add your name and throw up (pun intended) your mugshot but it’s their brand they are wrapping you around and it never works.

A couple of other things to consider

When a customer comes to your website and clicks the video tour tab, they really expect to see the video. No really. They expect that because every site can have video – including yours. If Butt Ugly Videos Ltd tells you their video tours can not be embedded, end the conversation.

Using something like Youtube to serve your video from is terrific because it is a strong social sharing website that is linking into your website. The video can remain after the listing is gone. Also, savvy users and newbies alike expect to see your videos there. The ability for them to comment, “like” and subscribe is very powerful and goes a long way to creating a tribe of followers.

How to solve this

Some video companies have different packages and perhaps they have a cheaper price for not offering the separate Butt-Ugly website.  I know that there are scripts needed to display some of these 360 degree tours that can not be embedded. My answer to that is don’t bother with it because nothing is going to replace seeing the home in person. All you need is a video so buyers will want to schedule a viewing in person and make an offer. I’m not seeing “Buy Now” buttons beside listings yet.

The best thing to do is save yourself some money and find a person who has a camera and some video editing skills. They make a video – you uploaded it to Youtube and simply embed the video into your website. Award winning music videos have been shot with less.

If you need help with any website administration please let me know. We do Web administration also becoming known as Virtual Website Assisting and used to be called Web Mastering.

Comments are appreciated!

When the iPhone first appeared I was often asked, “do I need to get an iPhone now?” The answer was of course a resounding no and I would go on to explain the ever changing landscape of other touch screen smart phones. So I thought this new category would would be handy. I work with Real Estate Professionals, Fitness Instructors, Doctors and Lawyers. If you are in one of those businesses and looking for tech tools that are cheaper and better than the standard everyone else is using. Keep checking back.

Our first entry is the first ever alternative to the iPad2 that is worthy of talking about: Asus Eee Pad Transformer

First let me start by saying I am not and this is not an Apple Anti love-in to counter the world Apple orgasm taking place at this writing. That’s why the category is not called Apple Alternatives.  At some point Apple may actually be included in this very category if everyone switches camp (remembering the Palm at this point).

It’s taken a while for anyone to catch up to the innovation of the iPad and Apple in general and wins on that account hands down. Any touch pad to be released into the wild from this point on will undoubtedly be compared to it. Just making something that does the same thing as the iPad is not enough. Why even look at such a product? No, What ever comes out now must be better and cheaper than the iPad to make any sort of splash in the slate/pad universe that Apple has created. The Asus Eee Transformer does that. If you are looking for an alternative to the iPad2, watch this review and you will see what I mean.

Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver
RICHMOND/SOUTH DELTA/GULF ISLANDS DIVISION presents:

SOCIAL MEDIA

Don’t Miss this Dynamic Presentation & Panel Session about
How Technology & Personal Branding can Help Grow Your Career!
Learn How to:

Business
Card Draws
Great Prizes!

• Engage with people
• Build a following
• Build relationships
• Leverage your brand
• Add value to your business through online media
• Hear about the ROI of Social Media

Keynote Speaker:

Tom Everitt

Tom Everitt
is a dynamic speaker, a Medallion Club Master Member, a Big Brother and a family man. Tom believes that REALTORS® can achieve their goals and tell their stories using today’s technology and social media at a fraction of the cost of past marketing efforts.

Sponsored by:

Lisa Manwaring

Lisa Manwaring
Mortgage Broker/Owner, The Mortgage Alliance Meridian Southwest Mortgage.

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We have written about this amazing email newsletter software’s trackable social sharing abilities before and you can read about that here. Social sharing from a newsletter campaign is just the beginning. Aside  from that there is the ability to create and upload your own templates, choose from a list of free templates or have us design a custom template that matches your brand and all with client personalization. You have a choice of  monthly rates or a free account with a low pay as you go rate so you don’t feel pressured to use it.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment.